By: Dan Massar, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer

I was wrong.

With the 4^th Quarter beginning I turned to a few of my esteemed colleagues who were with me at The Garden and I said, “I don’t like this lineup for the Celtics to start the 4^th.” The lineup consisted of Nate Robinson, Tony Allen, Ray Allen, Glen Davis and Rasheed Wallace.  Woops, I’ll take a mulligan on that one.

This unit turned the tide of the game and maybe the series as the Celtics tied up the NBA Finals at 2-2.  Down 62-60 to start the quarter, the Celts jumped on the Lakers with a 10-2 run to go up 72-64.  The heart and hustle of this unit was unbelievable.  Big Baby was in his words after the game, “a beast.”  He poured in 18 points, 9 coming in the 4^th.  Robinson is instant offense scoring 12 points but he also played strong defense and made a great steal and called a timeout before he could be tied up for a jump ball.  Tony Allen played ferocious defense on Kobe Bryant and even chipped in some gritty offense.  And Rasheed Wallace nailed a 3 that caused The Garden roof to almost blow off.

And lets also tip our caps to Ray Allen.  He was still struggling heading into the 4^th Quarter.  He was of course 0-13 on Tuesday and still couldn’t seem to get anything going heading into the 4^th.  But he found a way to get his shot going and ended up making a valuable contribution to the win.  Give Doc Rivers a lot of credit for sticking with these five for the majority of the quarter.  Big Baby was thankful after the game.

“I just want to give Doc a hug,” said Davis who seemed to really enjoy the spotlight of getting to address the media at the podium.

Doc Rivers talked about how the starters didn’t mind being cheerleaders for most of the 4^th.

“I don’t think our guys really care, that’s why we’re here,” said Rivers.  “They were begging me to keep guys in.”

Phil Jackson started his press conference by stating the key to the game was the Celtics bench in the final quarter.  But when asked about his teams plan to stop the Boston bench, he was in no mood for specifics.

“No I don’t want to talk about that,” said Jackson.

The bench was the key for the Celtics but Paul Pierce was also solid with 19 points and he came out aggressive in the 1^st Quarter scoring 10 point in the first 12 minutes.  The Lakers got 33 from Bryant and 21 from Paul Gasol.  But no one else stepped up.  LA needs more from the supporting cast on Sunday to take the series lead again.

Now we really have a series.  This is the first NBA Finals to be tied 2-2 since the 2006 Heat-Mavericks Finals.  Game 5 is going to be an absolute slugfest.  The Celtics are going to need to win back-to-back games to win this series.  The Lakers can afford to win every other game.  Of course a Celtics win on Sunday and the Lakers become the team needing two wins in LA.

Game 5 is critical obviously to both teams, but it should be more vital for the Celtics.  Winning two in a row in LA would be quite a task.  Expect a dogfight on Sunday.  Only one thing is certain moving forward.  This series is going back to Los Angeles.  Both teams need two more wins and it goes without saying, they will be the two toughest wins of the season.  Celtics-Lakers, does it get any better than this? I think we all know the answer.

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