The Celtics and Heat were locked in a tight one heading into the fourth quarter. Whether it should or shouldn't have been was immaterial at that point. It was a three-point game and there were 12 minutes left on the clock.
Time for the in-arena production crew to do their work.
Every preseason, the players are asked to stand in a room and pretend they're talking to the Garden crowd, imploring them to get loud, give the home team a boost, and make the enemy tremble under the weight of 19,000 faithful fans as the fourth quarter began.
This time, though, the crew didn’t give us Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, and Payton Pritchard. They pulled up an old video file from seven or eight years ago. In it was only one player, but it was the only player that Celtics team needed in fourth quarters.
It was Isaiah Thomas, the King in the Fourth, begging fans to rise up and get loud. It also turned out that he was one of the fans.
Thomas was in the house as a guest of the team, which honored his 52-point performance against the Miami Heat nine years ago. After the video played, he let out a scream himself as the camera panned to him on the sideline.
If this was a Disney movie, we’d cut to an outdoor scene where a bolt of lightning would hit TD Garden and, somehow, the pulse of electricity would transfer IT’s essence into the Celtics. Because what the Celtics did in the fourth quarter Friday night was definitely worthy of Thomas tapping his wrist and waving his arms to the crowd.
👉⌚️ pic.twitter.com/4qzHkOH2Sp
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 20, 2025
After Bam Adebayo cut it to one, Sam Hauser took advantage of Heat mistakes to hit a pair of triples and force a timeout. Miami hit another shot, but then White and Anfernee Simons each hit 3-pointers and Miami called another timeout. Again, Miami came out and scored, only to give up consecutive 3-pointers and call a third timeout.
Six treys, three timeouts, and a now 14-point Boston lead, all in span of three minutes and 20 seconds.
“They have that kind of firepower,” Erik Spoelstra said after the game. “When they’re missing threes in the first half, you always know that at any point, it can turn for them—and it did, at the right moment.”
In a way, it mirrored Anthony Joshua did to Jake Paul. A lot of it was disappointing, but the haymakers finally landed, giving the winner a knockout that everyone expected to happen a lot sooner.
“Once we got some really good rebounds, that's where we got those off,” Joe Mazzulla said. “That's where Sam got four of his off. That's where Ant got his, that's where Derrick got one of his. I think Hugo had one. … We put strings of good defensive possessions that allowed us to get out and get those.”
Miami had 17 offensive rebounds in the game but only three in the fourth. They had 24 second chance points in the game, but also only three in the fourth. The Heat out-shot Boston by 20 in the game, but only by two in the fourth. The Celtics weren’t at their best to start the game, but they put it all together to hit 10 3-pointers in the fourth, the most ever for a Celtics team.
“I feel like sometimes shot making is contagious,” Hauser said. “Once you see a couple guys make a couple, then you make a couple, then it’s like you just feed off each other’s energy. And sometimes you have quarters like that where it’s just an explosion.”
No one knows about fourth quarter explosions quite like Thomas. The Celtics played a video earlier in the game honoring that 52-point night, which got the crowd off its feet for a long standing ovation. Little did anyone know it was a precursor to an homage.
Sure, the fourth was 25% of a basketball game between bitter Eastern Conference rivals who always seem to get the best out of each other. But it was also, in a way, performance art, or the awarding of a Mark Twain prize.
Thomas was the man of the hour, and the Celtics were doing his bit for him, so he could see what the fans saw as Boston snatched an improbable victory with incredible shot-making and an insatiable will to win.
“Outside of the fact I couldn't hear in the timeout, I thought it was a great gesture to have IT back,” Mazzulla said. “He's done so much for the city and really for the organization … who he was as a person and a player, it just says a lot about him. He sets an example of, yes, it's about winning, but also when you're a high-character guy, people appreciate you, and you're able to leave the place a little better than you found it.”