Mike Greenberg doesn’t believe the Celtics’ victory Tuesday night at Kaseya Center was a fluke.
In fact, the ESPN personality sees Boston winning out in the NBA Eastern Conference finals.
After three straight poor showings against the Heat, the Celtics looked like a new team in Game 4 of the teams’ best-of-seven set. Boston’s effort level was way up and it made considerably better decisions on both ends of the floor. The C’s, to put it simply, were the better team in all facets of the game Tuesday and Greenberg sees that trend carrying out for the remainder of the East finals.
“The impact that the coach has had in this series — Erik Spoelstra — has been disproportionate to what we usually see in the NBA, which is to say I think he has so coached circles around Joe Mazzulla for the beginning of the series. But there comes a point where you run out of tricks, you run out of things you can do,” Greenberg said Wednesday on “Get Up.” “At the end of the day, the beauty of a seven-game series is that you have to earn it every single time. At the end of the day, if these teams just go out there and play, the Celtics should win every single game. They’re just better in every single game.
“If Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown can figure out how to get this thing together, I’m sitting here telling you right now I believe history is about to be rewritten. It’s about to be 150 against one instead of 150 against none. I’m old enough to remember when a 16-seed had never won an NCAA Tournament game. It’s happened twice in the last four or five years. Someone’s got to break through. This is the team to do it.”
Greenberg isn’t the only talking head who believes the series is far from over. Basketball Hall of Famer and TNT analyst Charles Barkley has no doubt in his mind that the Celtics will force a Game 6 back in Miami.
Boston obviously has the talent to keep racking up wins, but personnel means nothing if the execution isn’t where it needs to be. The C’s will try to keep firing on all cylinders Thursday when TD Garden plays host for Game 5.
