Celtics see 364-game streak end with shocking loss to Cavs
The Boston Celtics blew a 22-point lead in the fourth quarter during their loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers Tuesday night. The last time that happened, Michael Jordan was the best player in the league, Bill Clinton was POTUS and "As Good as It Gets" was up for all the Oscars.
According to ESPN's "Get Up," the Celtics were 364-0 when leading by over 20 points in the fourth quarter, losing in such a scenario for the first time since the 1997-98 season.
NBC Sports' Dick Lipe listed out Boston's largest blown fourth-quarter leads since NBA tracking data became available in 1996-97, as seen below.
Celtics play-by-play announcer Sean Grande noted that, while Boston had blown several 20-point leads over the past two decades, none of those collapses happened within the final nine minutes of a game.
Amazingly, the Celtics had amassed a 20-point lead for the 11th consecutive game and were en route to extending their winning streak to 12. As has been widely documented, the C's were in the middle of the most dominant 11-game stretch in NBA history, in which they had outscored opponents by a whopping 243 points -- an average margin of 22.1 points per game. The previous record was held by the Kareem Abdul Jabbar-led Bucks in 1971, who outscored 11 consecutive opponents by a total of 236 points. That's how dominant this current Celtics team has been.
As such, it was rather anticlimactic that Boston's streak had to end courtesy of a controversial last-second officiating call.
Despite the loss, this year's Celtics (48-13) have the third-best record in franchise history through 61 games, behind only the 1985-86 and 1964-65 championship-winning teams. They now switch their attention to the defending champion Denver Nuggets in a match-up many foresee as an NBA Finals preview. Incidentally, the Nikola Jokic-led team handed Boston their first home loss on Jan. 20. If the Celtics lose the season series 2-0, you'd better believe some alarm bells will go off.
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