Chicago 121, Boston 118 (Double Overtime)

That was a lot of fun.

[recap] [box score]

One of the nice things about having won a title last year is that the pressure is off, to a certain extent. I'm not insinuating that the Celtics are playing with less urgency than last year or that a second straight championship banner would be any less special than the first. But having that ring changes the perspective on this year. (There is, of course, another obvious reason why expectations are lower, but I pledged to be positive in these pages and not mention it.)

The upshot of this is that even in defeat, we as fans can enjoy an instant classic like Sunday's loss. Last year at this time, we were tied at 2-2 with Atlanta and so worried about the prospect of not even getting out of the first round that we couldn't appreciate the moxie with which the young Hawks were playing. This time around, it's easier to appreciate the way these Bulls haven't backed down from the defending champs.

There are similarities between the last season's Hawks and this season's Bulls: both teams are young; both have at least one player who seems to relish the role of heels (Atlanta's Zaza Pachulia and Chicago's Joakim Noah); both have crazy-athletic power forwards waiting to fulfill their potential (though Josh Smith is much further along in his development than Tyrus Thomas); and both have flammable shooting guards who are proving very difficult for Boston to check (Joe Johnson last year; Ben Gordon this year). Atlanta was much better defensively -- I can't emphasize enough how bad Chicago is on that end of the floor -- but Chicago has Derrick Rose, whose precocious play in Games 1 and 4 -- though upstaged throughout the series by the brilliance of his Boston counterpart (and RwH namesake) Rajon Rondo -- has really made this series a treat to watch.

Just because this series has been fun, however, does not prevent some things from irriating me, and here I return to a familiar theme: This team relies far too much on Paul Pierce in the fourth quarter.

Trailining 96-93 with 16 seconds left, Doc Rivers drew up a play for Ray Allen, just as he did in Game 2 with the score tied at 115. And Allen, just as he did in Game 2, calmly knocked down the crucial shot.

Allen is one of the top two or three best three-point shooters in the history of the NBA. Having spent the majority of his career as his team's number-one offensive option, he is accustomed to taking big shots. Doc clearly trusts him with the ball with the game -- and as evinced by the isolation play called for Allen in the closing moments of Game 4 of last year's Finals, the season -- on the line. Why, then, can't we call Allen's number when the situation is anything less than urgent? A basket with five minutes left counts for just as many points as a basket with five seconds left.

Instead of looking for Allen, and instead of letting Rondo penetrate and get to the rim like he did over the first three quarters, Boston, throughout the fourth quarter and the bulk of the two overtimes, instead went back to isolating Pierce at the foul line. Four things made this play particularly inadvisable in this situation:

1) As early as the first few minutes of the third quarter, Pierce looked out of gas. He did end up scoring 11 points in that period, but that probably served to tire him out even more. Pierce has logged a ton of minutes this year, and one explanation for his average -- by his standards -- play thus far in the playoffs is that he's just running fumes.

2) Pierce was cold. He finished 9-of-24. I'd call it going to the well one too many times, but the expression doesn't seem apt when you come up empty more often than not.

3) Pierce wasn't getting any calls. In a very oddly officiated game that saw the refs all but swallow the whistles for the two extra periods, the officials seemed loathe to send last year's Finals MVP to the line more than was absolutely necessary. Several Pierce drives resulted in no-calls that you'd expect a player of his caliber to get, playoffs be damned. When Pierce isn't getting to the line, he isn't as effective.

4) Kirk Hinrich really did a phenomenal job making life difficult for Pierce. The play is predicated on setting up a mismatch for Pierce, but the Bulls seemed to have no qualms about leaving the smaller Hinrich on an island against him, and Hinrich responded with some really gritty D.

This loss is frustrating, because much like Game 1, this one was squarely within Boston's reach. The Celtics could have completed the sweep already, and could be sitting at home awaiting the winner of the Philadelphia-Orlando series (which, with three last-second finishes in four games, is giving Chicago-Boston a run for its money as the most compelling series of this playoff season). At the same time, however, Boston could be down 3-1, having needed some late-game heroics to win Game 2.

It's now a best-of-three. The two teams have already treated us to everything we could possibly ask for, but let's see if they have anything left for an encore.

Game 5 is Tuesday at 7 p.m. Eastern on TNT.