Heat - Celtics Game Four Top 40 Takeaways

40) Ray Allen showed veteran savvy by playing horribly for much of the year, then turning it on tonight

39) I didn't think that a team could make Rajon Rondo look better than the Sixers did, but I was wrong

38) Someone needs to tell Dwyane Wade that the game starts in the first half

37) When Keyon Dooling is hitting three pointers, plural, you know something weird is going on

36) No one on ESPN has been told that Wade actually has point guard tendencies, or that he plays like one when Mario Chalmers is out

35) Taking several steps before shooting isn't traveling if you are Paul Pierce

34) At some point, Erik Spoelstra might want to let his players know that 61 points in a half against a slow pace team really isn't good defense

33) Rondo kicked Shane Battier in the nads, then puled about the foul, because he truly believes that retribution is justified, and everything he does is not a foul

32) The Celtics and their fans seem to have a need to make this about the officiating no matter what

31) Rondo answered Doris Burke's question about offensive play by insulting the refs and Heat, because that's clearly working for him to date

30) Judging from my Twitter feed, Cleveland Fan is rooting for Boston, which is just silly, considering that the Celtics ended them before, and it's far more fun to watch James fail in the Finals

29) Spoelstra called his team's first half defensive effort unacceptable, at least to ESPN

28) Rondo got away with a clear path / flagrant without even giving up free throws, because he's a guard, rather than a big man

27) James' hammer slam with 4:40 left in the third speaks to how vulnerable the Celtics are on defense when Garnett is out

26) I'm not sure why Rondo forced multiple post ups against Norris Cole, especially after it resulted in the PG's fourth foul

25) Jeff van Gundy talked about cup stacking, because Jeff van Gundy redefines irrelevance

24) The Heat's defensive rebounding really is not up to the standards you would expect of a high seed

23) Norris Cole gave the Heat some good minutes, or at least, timed his appearance well with the Celtics' offensive collapse

22) The Heat erased an 18-point lead in 15 minutes, because that's what dramatically better defense can get you

21) When James complains to the refs, he usually has cause, but he still looks like such a whiner, it's hard to give him too much credit for this

20) Cole drew Bass's fifth on a shot fake outside of the arc, which looked like anything but a rookie who doesn't get minutes

19) Bass's tip non-turnover, leading to another Ray Allen three, was more like a six point play, given the momentum swing

18) Some fine day, the Celtics will face an opponent that actually hits their free throws

17) None of James' three final fouls was a foul

16) As the 4-2 overtime scoring showed, both teams really needed to win this game in regulation

15) NBA playoff games could be five minutes faster if defenses would just pressure the rolled up inbounds pass

14) If you can get the Heat close and late, you have to like your chances, since James refuses to drive and go to the line

13) Udonis Haslem and Mikael Pietrus aren't much as players go, but both are awesome at keeping offensive possessions alive

12) Mario Chalmers got to the rim for a huge make with a minute left, mostly because he was Ray Allen's guy

11) James made the wide-open three to force overtime, which will be quickly forgotten about in the narrative of James is horrible in the clutch

10) It's not a tough call when a man hooks another man's arm, makes a wish, and yanks him to the ground to prevent help defense, even when it's a home game for the Celtics

9) When the game is on the line, you can count on James to not put an awful lot of pressure on the defense

8) Pierce fouled out for the third time in the last five games, which has to be some kind of record for a name wing player

7) Mikael Pietrus drew James' sixth foul with 1:51 left in overtime on a hook and fall where he nearly grabbed the man by the jewels, which isn't something you normally see happen to the league's MVP

6) Wade's final shot was pretty good, since it was an uncontested three for the win... but it didn't go up until late, which meant there no chance of the offensive rebound putback to tie it

5) If you liked the officiating in this game, please tell us what it's like to be related to Joey Crawford

4) Why the younger team was looking for 3 or nothing, rather than tying it to force a second overtime, I'll never know

3) Wade shot 7 for 22 from the floor, didn't show up in the first half, missed the game-winner, and will take a tenth of the grief that James will for wimping on the final shot in regulation and getting three bogus whistles, because people really, really hate him

2) Despite two of the four games going to overtime, I'm really still not in love with this series, just because it seems so dependent on officiating

1) We officially have a series, which fills me with a not inconsiderable amount of dread