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,
