Celtics stun Cavaliers on last-second three
Bradley, Smart come up huge in absence of Isaiah as Boston overcomes 21-point deficit • Lebron wilts
They had a chance to one day be known as Showtime 2.0. Coming into Sunday night’s Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals, the host Cleveland Cavaliers were one victory away from setting the NBA record with their 14th consecutive postseason victory, a streak that dated back to Game 5 of the 2016 NBA Finals.
They entered the night tied with the Los Angeles Lakers of 1988-89, a team with a star-studded roster that included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and James Worthy.
Cleveland seemed on the verge of sitting around some All-Star weekend in the distant future debating which was the better team of the decade, especially if there are more championships in the LeBron James-led Cavs’ future.
But with a 16-point halftime lead, boredom set in. The Cavs reverted back to the team that blew a 26-point fourth-quarter lead to the Atlanta Hawks on April 9.
This time it was a 21-point third-quarter lead that disappeared as the Celtics rallied for a 111-108 victory. Avery Bradley hit a three-pointer from the left wing that hit the rim four times before bouncing in with 0.1 second on the clock.
An with that, Cleveland lost for the first time in 11 playoff games this season.
The Cavs lead the series 2-1, with Game 4 on Tuesday night in Cleveland and a James team has never lost a series it led 2-0.
But for the first time in this postseason, James looked mortal. He came in as the first NBA player with eight consecutive 30-point playoff games since the Lakers’ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had nine consecutive in 1970.
James had also scored at least 25 points and shot better than .500 in all 10 playoff games, tied with Abdul-Jabbar in 1970 for the longest postseason streak.
But those streaks came to an end. James finished with 11 points, hitting 4-of-13 from the field and 0-for-4 from threepoint range, while adding six rebounds and six assists.
An indicator of James’ focus usually comes at the free-throw line. On Sunday, he went 3-for-6 from the stripe.
The Celtics, even with star point guard Isaiah Thomas sidelined for the rest of the playoff with a right hip strain, summoned all their energy on defense. They also shot 11-for-24 from the field, 6-of11 from three-point range, in the third quarter to cut their deficit to five.
They got physical and testy as Jonas Jerebko, Jae Crowder and Kelly Olynyk provided the muscle. Marcus Smart poured in 19 of his 27 points in the second half and hit 7-of-10 from beyond the arc.
Maybe the Cavs got caught daydreaming about The Finals.
Maybe they got sucked into believing their best 48-minute effort of the season in Game 2 on Friday would be easy to replicate.
Maybe they got caught up in their rain of three-pointers in the first half, when they hit 14-of-22 and for a time seemed ready to threaten the team playoff mark in a half of 18 set against Atlanta last year.
Whatever happened, Sunday night showed the Cavs that cruise control is not an option.
Celtics coach Brad Stevens liked his team’s attitude as it watched what went wrong in Friday’s defeat, the Celtics’ worst at home in the playoffs.
“They’ve done a good job of staying positive after a tough situation,” Stevens said before the game. “I thought yesterday’s film session, you could see that there was some real hurt there from the day before. We didn’t want to watch very much of that. But today we had the typical bounce that we’ve had all year.
“I think it’s a great testament to these guys. They are extremely resilient. They’re a pleasure to coach because there’s never any finger pointing. It’s just let’s figure out what we need to do to be on the attack and try to manage our margin for error better.”
The Celtics share the resilience gene with the Cavs. Before the game, that’s what Lue said he liked most about this group.
“I don’t know. Just resilient. I think ever since LeBron came in we’ve been under a microscope, and I think these guys have done a great job of handling that,” Lue said. “Even when we play well, or we play bad, we’re always under the scrutiny. These guys are handling it well. Even when we weren’t playing well, backs being against the wall, I thought that our guys really responded. I thought starting the playoffs and being better defensively, they really had their minds set on being better.
“We’ve been able to do that so far. We just have to keep it up. Things are not going to go great all the time, but we’ve got to stay together as a unit and as a team. That’s what I like the most about this group: We stay together, tight-knit group. When things go well or things go bad, we stay together.”
The Cavs set themselves up for a national whipping at the hands of the media with their poor Game 3 performance. Now we will see which team is the more resilient one.