Celtics seek to rebound vs re-charged Cavaliers

The Boston Celtics are embarrassed despite leading the Eastern Conference finals.

Meanwhile, the Cleveland Cavaliers want to remain in desperation mode.

Cleveland will seek to tie the series on Monday when it hosts the Celtics. Boston leads the best-of-seven series 2-1.

The Cavaliers played by far their best contest of the series when they rolled to a 116-86 win in Game 3 on Saturday. As for Boston, the players were disturbed with their effort.

“I use (Game 3) as fuel. I thought it was embarrassing,” Celtics shooting guard Jaylen Brown told reporters on Sunday. “Thought we came out, the way I played, the way I performed, how not aggressive I was in the first half, I look at that as fuel to come out in Game 4 and be excited about it and be ready to play and ready to fight.

“As a mindset, the game is 90 percent mental, so everything that we do affects our mindset. We can’t look at the last game and get down on ourselves or think we’re out of the series because we lost one game. That’s what the world thinks, that’s what the world wants us to think, so we’re going to come out and play some basketball (in Game 4), regardless of what anybody got to say.”

Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue doesn’t want his players going into relaxation mode after its Game 3 destruction of the Celtics.

Lue wants to see his players feeling the same sense of urgency that fueled the Game 3 win.