The Boston Celtics missed out on the No. 4 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft by just one ping-pong ball in Tuesday’s lottery, according to assistant GM Mike Zarren.

Per the NBA’s website, the lottery order is determined by 14 ping-pong balls, numbered 1 through 14. There are 1,001 possible combinations from those four balls, 1,000 of which are assigned to teams in accordance with their odds from their final record (if the one extra combination comes up, it is discarded).

Selections are determined in order in the lottery room, with numbers one, two, three and four in succession. After the first three picks were determined, Boston got the first two balls in one of their combinations before the third ball out of four threw it off (the fourth one landed), and the Celtics came up one short from a massive heist with the worst odds of the 14 teams represented.

Had Boston landed the No. 1 overall pick, the selection would have ended up with the Philadelphia 76ers -- perhaps the most disastrous potential result from Tuesday’s lottery, since Boston would have been stuck with Philadelphia’s No. 24 overall selection. If it fell between 2-4, the Celtics would have had a chance to add either another talented young player to their promising core, or a great trade chip as they examine the market.

That type of jump might become slightly more common with the flattened lottery odds -- despite having the worst lottery odds of any team, Boston still had a 4.7 chance of jumping up (and a 3.7-percent chance of keeping the pick).

Zarren noted to MassLive that there wasn’t much time to be excited or nervous as the numbers were drawn -- the ping-pong balls come up roughly 20 seconds apart as they determine the next combination.

Instead, the Celtics will focus on the middle part of the draft, where they will have three picks: No. 14, No. 20 and No. 22. Whether they make those picks, package them together to move up or try to swing another deal elsewhere remains to be seen.