Cavs show who’s king
Take back Eastern lead in rout of C’s
Just in case the Celtics needed a preview of what a real playoff series against the NBA champs will entail, Cleveland offered last night’s hurtful glimpse.
The Celtics, thoroughly out-matched offensively, without much more of an answer when the Cavaliers began attacking the rim, fell a game behind the Eastern Conference leaders with last night’s 114-91 loss at the Garden.
Toronto, with a late comeback win over Detroit last night thanks in part to Kyle Lowry’s return from injury, also gave the Celtics something to worry about from the other direction. The Raptors pulled within 3.5 games of the Cavaliers and within 2.5 of the Celtics.
Ongoing questions about LeBron James’ need for rest were certainly answered. The Cavs star, playing his third game in four nights, stayed on the floor for 38 minutes and led all scorers with 36 points, to go along with 10 rebounds and six assists. Kevin Love added an impressive double-double of 15 points and 16 rebounds.
Questions about whether the Cavaliers were losing separation from the rest of the conference were also answered in dominant fashion, most graphically demonstrated by a 22-4 run over the first 5:20 of the second quarter with an antsy Isaiah Thomas on the bench.
By the time Thomas returned, the Celtics trailed, 41-24, and would fall behind by as many as 29 points in the third quarter. Offensively, the C’s struggled beyond the point guard’s 26-point performance.
The Celtics shot 40.7 percent overall, 21.2 percent from downtown (7for-33) and fell short in every hustle category as well, beginning with Cleveland’s ease scoring at the rim. The Celtics bench was particularly threadbare, with nine points over the first three quarters before garbage time inflated the reserves’ numbers.
The Cavaliers also outrebounded the C’s by a 5138 margin, and 13 offensive rebounds overall.
And to think Tristan Thompson, one of the toughest rebounding matchups for the Celtics league-wide, sat this one out with an injured finger.
“They came out like Tristan Thompson was here at the start of the game and I think they had six offensive rebounds in the first four or five minutes,” said C’s coach Brad Stevens. “You know, those little things add up when you’re playing a team like this.”
The final sum was a stark picture, certainly, an illustration of just how far behind the cream of the East the Celtics may actually be.
Asked about the Cavaliers’ early misses, Stevens smiled and said, “Yeah, we were lucky it wasn’t worse. That would be my first thought when I came in here.”
Jae Crowder looked as stunned as he was surprised.
“I was a little surprised because those guys played last night and they had more energy than us, more effort,” Crowder said of Cleveland’s win in Orlando Tuesday night. “Surprising, but we got it handed to us, and we were supposed to with the energy and effort we played with tonight.”
Crowder’s only answer was to turn his thoughts to tonight’s game in Atlanta against the Hawks.
“We’ve got a game tomorrow. Focus on Atlanta,” he said. “There’s not many left in this regular season. We have to bounce back soon.”
Thomas had little more in the way of an explanation.
“It’s very disappointing. We laid an egg tonight. There’s no way around that,” he said. “They played harder than us and they were on a back-to-back. We didn’t take advantage of the opportunity that we had tonight but there’s still games left. We still just need to worry about what we can control and we definitely gotta bounce back (against Atlanta). We got a real important game against a really good team.
“(Cleveland) played harder than us,” he said. “It was obvious, from the jump, for whatever reason. I’ll take the blame on that for not having my guys ready. That’s all on me. I gotta do a better job of getting everybody ready on both ends of the floor. It just didn’t work out for us tonight but, like I said, we gotta turn the page.”