Despite the fact that the shot clock isn’t off, the Celtics should have been able to hold for the final shot of the quarter, because you have to consider the time it takes for a shot to get to the rim and for the rebound to bounce in the hands of a rebounder.  Here is the play that closed out the 1st quarter:

So what happened here?  Well for one, Rasheed Wallace comes up to set the screen way too early.  Also, Nate Robinson decides to use the screen too early and this sets into motion the Celtics’ play…yup you guessed it…too early.  So instead of taking a shot that clanks off the rim as time expires, the rebound goes long and lands in Derek Fisher’s hands who kicks it ahead to Lamar Odom, and Odom finishes with the three point play.  So it is bad enough that the Celtics don’t get the basket, but what makes it worse is that the Lakers get three points out of it.  A big six point swing, that I kept thinking about as Boston struggled to get over the hump late in the fourth quarter.

Before we get to criticizing J.J. Redick, we do have to give him credit for crashing the boards as soon as KG releases the basketball on his attempt.  With Boston worried about the fast break, they only send two guys in for the rebound, and they are effectively boxed out.  Redick is uncontested as he attacks the rebound.

When I first saw the play, I thought Redick simply lost track of time and thought there was less time then there actually was.  However, this screenshot tells us that Redick knew exactly how much time was left since he took a split second to look at the clock.

Redick quickly takes off as both Stan Van Gundy and Vince Carter try to get the referee’s attention and call a timeout.  The refs aren’t looking in their direction though because they are watching Redick dribble towards midcourt.

Now if you are going to go without calling timeout that’s not the worst decision in the world.  You catch the defense off guard and they don’t have time to get the matchup they want, leading to a ton of cross-matches.  However, once you make that decision to go, you can’t stop.  Especially behind half court, and that is what Redick does here.

To make matters worse, he doesn’t call timeout right away and he allows another 2 seconds run off the clock.

Why is this all so important?  Well, in the NBA if you don’t advance the ball after getting a rebound and before you call a timeout, you have the ability to choose to inbound the basketball at halfcourt.  However, if you do advance the basketball, you have to inbound it from where you call timeout.  The Magic now have to inbound the basketball from about 3/4 court instead of halfcourt.  Here is the resulting play.

As you can see Rashard Lewis finds himself open for a split second, but it is such a long pass, J.J. Redick doesn’t even attempt it.  Instead, he passes it to Jameer Nelson who takes a runner from halfcourt.

We have all seen LeBron’s heat check threes before, you know, the ones that as he pulls up everyone says “No!  God no!” but then it goes in to a resounding “Yes!” but those usually come after a couple makes.  LeBron was so successful attacking the rim in the fourth quarter, it was just plain silly:

This was 1 of 5 plays that LeBron had where he attacked and ended up with a dunk or a lay-up.  Now, let’s look at that final play:

As Kendrick Perkins lets his shot go, he knows that he missed it and he tries to bowl his way to the rim.  Perkins ends up falling, and somehow the ball bounces right into LeBron’s hands as he is moving forward.  LeBron makes the catch already running in stride, with 3 Celtics behind him.

It looks like it is going to be a 1 on 2 fast break, but to Antawn Jamison’s credit, he puts his head down and runs the court as fast as he can.  This is important because he balances the floor for James, and forces the defense to worry about him.

James has Tony Allen on his heels, which means that if LeBron James chose to drive the basketball, he should have been able to easily get by him and get to the rim.  Instead, James decides to pull up from about 30 feet.  As he does, he sucks in Ray Allen, and that actually leaves Antawn Jamison open on a cut to the basket.

James doesn’t look for him, and he shoots a pull up three.  He misses it, going 0-8 from 3 for the game, and the Cavs lose their chance to crush the Celtics and their fans spirit.  Here it is in real time:

It almost seems like that the Celtics got in his head late, and that James wanted to “end it” so he could be able to close out the Celtics.  However, he missed, and it was the Celtics who were able to come away with the win.