Celtics rally to beat Cavs as LeBron fizzles
AV ERY Bradley rattled i n a gamewinning 3-pointer at the buzzer as the Boston Celtics clawed their way back into the Eastern Conference final with a 111-108 win over Cleveland on Sunday.
Boston cut the Cavaliers series lead to 2-1 as their improbable victory came despite the absence of star guard Isaiah Thomas, who is out for the remainder of the NBA season with a hip injury.
“Everybody had to step up their game, especially with one of our brothers down,” Thomas’s replacement Marcus Smart said. “We haven’t really had a great shooting performance this series, but tonight was one of those nights. We fought and came out with the victory.”
Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals is set for 7:30am on Wednesday morning Cambodian time.
Cleveland not only surrendered a 21-point lead in Game 3 but blew chances to set a playoff record for consecutive wins – 14 – dating to Game 5 of last year’s finals and to become just the fourth team in history to start the playoffs 11-0.
“I didn’t have it tonight,” James said. “We have been playing so well, but when another team is playing that well then you know that the team that gets the last shot is going to win.”
Smart scored a career-high 27 points and Bradley added 20.
“The key for us was to chip away,” said Bradley of the Celtics, who made 18 3-pointers in the game. “We need- ed to get stops and make plays on the offensive end.”
Al Horford added 16 points and Kelly Olynyk contributed 15 off the bench for the Celtics, who were beaten by an average of 28.5 points in the first two games.
‘Scrappy team’
The Celtics also kept Cavaliers superstar LeBron James in check on Sunday. James finished with just 11 points on four-of-13 shooting and was held scoreless in the fourth quarter. He also had five turnovers.
Kyrie Irving paced the Cleveland offence with 29 points and Kevin Love added 28 points and 10 rebounds. Tristan Thompson scored 18 points.
The Cavaliers shot just two-of-17 from 3-point range in the second half but still led by as many as 21 points in the third quarter.
Cleveland dominated the Celtics so thoroughly in the first two games that not many gave Boston a chance on Sunday, especially without their top player Thomas in the line-up.
But Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue expected Boston to battle to the end. “They have a scrappy team,” he said.
Coming into Sunday’s contest, the Cavaliers had lost just one game at home to an Eastern team in the playoffs dating to 2015.
“You have to have some type of adversity to be successful,” James said. “So I am happy it happened now. We have to regroup and get back to playing desperate basketball.”