C’s forget their past
Ignore success of James, romp by Cavs in Game 1
In past postseasons of the Brad Stevens era, the Celtics have basically melted in LeBron James’ presence. Heading into yesterday they were 1-8, consistently falling to a Cleveland star at the peak of his powers.
But that’s what is funny about this year’s Celtics.
“We have a lot of guys that really just don’t care,” said Marcus Smart. “Our whole life we’ve been fighting. Bigger opponents than us, and playing LeBron and that Cavs team is great — they’ve been here for a reason. We have talent as well — we’re fearless.”
There was a lot of money on the end of that bench in street clothes, including $48.9 million just between Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward. But as the Celtics have shown repeatedly this season, no one has spent a lot of time worrying about all of those untapped funds.
The Celtics recorded a 108-83 win over Cleveland in Game 1 of the best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals and it really was that convincing.
Jaylen Brown scored 18 of his 23 points in the first half, the Celtics landed the most important punch with a 25-2 first-quarter run, and the Cavs never recovered.
Three Celtics — Brown, Al Horford (20 points) and Marcus Morris (21) — broke the 20-point barrier. And after shooting 36 percent from the floor, the Cavaliers finished the day looking shell-shocked.
A disengaged James, who came into this series averaging 34.3 points a game, finished with 15 points on an uncomfortable 5-for-16 from the floor, to go along with 17 points on 5-for-14 shooting from Kevin Love and five points, including just one 3-pointer, from Kyle Korver.
Korver’s plight was indicative of how the Cavaliers fell apart on the perimeter. After shooting 35.1 percent from downtown against Indiana and Toronto, and burying 119 treys in 11 games, the Cavs shot 15.4 percent from deep on the Garden’s parquet. And that was after missing their first 14 attempts.
“Couldn’t really make shots. 4-for-26 from 3, that’s not us, but they did a good job of closing out, and trying to run us off the 3,” said Cavs coach Tyronn Lue. “But I thought we had some good shots and missed it as well.”
And the Celtics, always at their best feeding off the defensive end, found their groove early. From the moment Horford won the opening tap, with Brown scooping up the ball and coasting in for a transition layup, the Celtics hit just about everything they wanted.
Morris, who a day earlier had called himself the best LeBron James defender this side of Kawhi Leonard, backed up his talk. Horford controlled things at both ends, and was a game-high plus-17. Smart switched off on everyone with equal physicality, and when Brown cooled in the second half, Jayson Tatum picked up the pace.
The rookie forward, after scoring nine points over the first three quarters, scored seven over the first 4:50 of the fourth quarter, when the Celtics increased their lead from 14 points to 28 with an 18-4 run.
Jeff Green had given the Cavs their last best chance with a 15-footer at the third-quarter buzzer to cut their deficit to 14. This would normally be where James steps in.
“Next play, man. Just go out there and be aggressive,” Terry Rozier said of the fourth-quarter response. “That’s what we’ve been doing. We’re just out there having a lot of fun, and these guys are great. When we play like we played (yesterday), we’re tough to beat.”
Any good feeling from Green’s shot was snuffed immediately when Morris followed up his own miss for a dunk, triggering a 7-0 run that also included a Smart 3-pointer and a full-court drive by Tatum for an 85-64 lead.
A Rozier drive matched the Celtics’ biggest lead of the night at 28 points (98-70), and a minute later Morris lined up his third trey of the night for a 29-point edge (101-72).
With James off the floor, Brad Stevens emptied his bench with 4:40 left, and a surprising Game 1 blowout in hand.
“It’s the playoffs. At this point, it’s not a challenge,” said Brown. “You get up 20 points in the playoffs, you gotta hang on and win that game. Just keep making the right plays, and keep hitting singles, and win this game.”