Kevin Garnett’s Disappearing Act in Game 4


The dominant KG from Game 3 was nowhere to be found last night in Boston, as he struggled mightily on the offensive end, and could not stop Chris Bosh defensively. From ESPN: “Forty-eight hours after delivering a Back to the Future special (28 points, 18 rebounds, his best game of the 2011 playoffs by far), the ‘Big Ticket’ pretty much came up punchless in the Celtics’ 98-90 overtime Game 4 loss to Miami, dropping them into a 3-1 hole in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series. It was almost Dickensian in its drop-off: the best of times to the worst of times. Two nights earlier, he had played a game that had Miami coach Erik Spoelstra comparing him to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. After Game 4, Spoelstra went into coach-speak mode, calling Garnett ‘a champion,’ and would not admit to the obvious, other than to say, ‘He had one of those nights.’ He sure did. Even more humbling for Garnett, he got outplayed by the heretofore Heat cipher, Chris Bosh, whom he dismissed postgame by saying, ‘Next question,’ when asked about the Miami forward’s game. For the record, Bosh had 20 points, 12 rebounds and a gigantic tip-in basket with 24.2 seconds left in OT that gave the Heat a 95-90 lead. Garnett finished with seven points, the second game in this series in which he has scored fewer than 10 points. He had six in the series-opening loss in Miami. He bricked his final nine shots after making his first, and only, basket of the game, a 20-foot jumper with 5:15 left in the first quarter. He did grab 10 rebounds in his 41-plus minutes, all off the defensive glass.”