MIAMI — It’s the shred of truth that becomes apparent every so often, reminding you that they’re men, not machines.
Ray Allen hadn’t missed three free throws in one game all year. In fact, he hadn’t missed three in one game in more than three years.
He’s as cerebral as it gets at the line. He plays games with himself at times. “You’re going to miss it,’’ he’ll say to himself, just to add pressure.
He had made 91.3 percent of his shots at the line this season. Before he stepped to the stripe yesterday with 2:36 left in Game 4 of the Celtics’ series with the Heat, he had made his only free throw of the afternoon.
But after making one at 2:36, Allen ended up missing three freebies in a row, not helping Boston’s cause down the stretch in what ended up a 101-92 Miami win.
With the Celtics trailing, 96-91, Allen made his first foul shot. The next one clanged.
He had missed a pair in Game 4, and with a sense of his shot as keen as a golfer’s sense about his swing, he knew something felt wrong. “It just looked on line, and then it seemed like it caught a bad part of the rim,’’ he said.
Within seconds he was back at the line, at the 1:50 mark, now trying to cut into a 96-92 Heat lead. The first one back-rimmed out. The second one rolled out.
It was hard to fathom.
“To me I look at it as a fluke when it does that,’’ Allen said. “Sometimes, I’m just unlucky.’’
After rallying from as many as 18 points down to take a 6-point lead into the fourth quarter, the Celtics found themselves trying to fight off a scorching Dwyane Wade, who scored 46 points, 30 in the second half, both franchise records.
And when it seemed like Wade couldn’t miss, even on the wildest of shots, as he scored 19 in the fourth quarter, the Celtics watched as shots they’ve made hundreds of times this season wormed their way out of the basket.
Kevin Garnett would miss two more free throws after Allen, and Boston went 16 of 27 from the line overall in letting a series clincher that was in their grasp get away.
Game 5 is tomorrow night at the Garden, where the Celtics, leading the series, three games to one, again will try to finish it off.
“The basketball gods were with us,’’ said Wade, who had four increasingly devastating fourth-quarter 3-pointers. “You get Ray Allen to miss three free throws out of four and then KG goes up there and misses . . .
“That’s why you never know what the game is going to bring. That’s why you can never give up, because this is a funny game. The basketball gods are real tricky. That’s why we never gave up, because we know you never know what’s going to happen in a Game 5.’’
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