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Celtics Wrap: LeBron James, Cavs Down Boston 87-79 In Ugly Game 7

NESN by Joshua Schrock on Sun, May 27, 2018 at 10:59PM

BOSTON — Disjointed. Ugly. Scattered. Sunday night at TD Garden was everything you’d expect from a Game 7 featuring an upstart young team looking to make its first NBA Finals, and a team led by a generational talent not wanting to relinquish its grasp on the conference. The Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers slugged through Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, but when all the bricks were done being chucked and the smoke had cleared, the conference crown remained with LeBron James. Final score: Cavs 87, Celtics 79. Boston was the better team early on, but the Celtics were unable to extend their lead while the Cavs scuffled and James made the plays down the stretch to send Cleveland to a fourth straight NBA Finals. James did it all for Cleveland, tallying 35 points, 14 rebounds and 14 assists. King James got just enough help from his supporting cast, with Jeff Green scoring 19 and J.R. Smith adding 11. Jayson Tatum led the Celtics with 24 points and Al Horford chipped in 17. The Cavs win the series 4-3 and advance to the NBA Finals. The Celtics’ season is over. Here’s how Game 7 went down:

STARTING FIVE PG: Terry Rozier SG: Jaylen Brown SF: Jayson Tatum PF: Al Horford C: Aron Baynes

WHAT NERVES? The Celtics started Game 7 off on fire, jumping out to an 11-4 lead and causing Tyronn Lue to take a timeout 3:41 into the game. Tatum scored seven of the C’s first 11 points, while James had both of the Cavs’ early buckets. Cleveland responded, though. The Cavs ripped off a 13-2 run to take a 16-15 lead with 3:41 remaining in the opening quarter. James did most of the damaged during the run, as he had 12 of the Cavs’ first 16 points. The Cavs’ lack of scoring outside of James hurt them in the first. Boston closed the period on a 10-2 run to take a 26-18 lead after one. James paced all scorers with 12. Tatum led the Celtics with nine and Horford added seven.

SLOPPY SECOND Boston stretched its lead to open the second quarter. Horford got two baskets, Tatum knocked down a pair of free throws and Marcus Morris splashed a 3-pointer to make it 35-23 with 8:52 left in the half. While it looked like the C’s might run away early, Boston went 3:35 without a bucket in the middle of the frame which allowed James — with the help of Green and Smith — to cut the lead to 39-37 with 1:45 remaining. A Brown 3-pointer gave the Celtics a 43-39 lead at halftime. James led all scorers with 17, while Horford paced Boston with 14 and Tatum added 11. NO FLOW Neither team could find much of a rhythm to open the third quarter, as Boston led 47-44 with 7:20 remaining in the period. The Celtics had a chance to extend their lead early in the frame, but turnovers and missed shots kept the Cavs close, and Smith drained a triple to cause Brad Stevens to take a timeout. The Cavs went on an 11-4 run out of the timeout, capped by back-to-back 3s by James and Green and a Tristan Thompson dunk to give Cleveland a 55-51 lead. Oh, and there was this: Boston tied the game at 56, but James hit a triple to make it 59-56 Cavs after three. James was the high-man with 23 points. Tatum paced Boston 15.

FIGHT TO THE FINISH The C’s opened the fourth with a quick 5-0, but James responded with a bucket to knot the game at 61. Both teams continued to struggle from the field in the fourth, as James made a tough layup over Horford to give Cleveland a 71-67 lead with 6:55 remaining. Tatum answered the James bucket with a personal 5-0 run to give Boston the lead, but Green answered with a triple to edge the Cavs back in front and Thompson followed with a dunk to make 76-72 with 4:44 to play. The Cavs held onto a 79-74 edge with two minutes to play. After Rozier missed a wide-open triple, the James found Hill for an easy two to push the lead to seven with 1:16 to play. James then grabbed a rebound off a Brown miss, went the length of the floor for a layup plus the foul to swell the lead to 10 and all but end Boston’s playoff run.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE GAME He’s 20.

UP NEXT The Celtics’ season is over.

112288

Probably feel up to more of a recap tomorrow - but for now.  Great season from a team full of gritty, hard working, blue collar, underachievers.  The future is bright.

BUT - If anyone on this board thinks the Celtics are better without Kyrie, they are clearly NOT.

So now maybe LeBron stays in Cleveland. Perhaps that's best.

It won't end the same way next year.

In the end it was all about who had the superstar and LeBron won for one more season. What can you say about a team missing four of the more important players? Game 7 showing Celtic Pride all the way. Our young players weren't up to the task at hand this season but they are primed for the next decade. This was the only game where the C's really missed having Kyrie. Sure, there are a couple of others but next man up took us all the way to Game 7 of the ECF's. Does that mean Danny will bring back six players next season? You never know with Trader Danny. But I think he likes this team more than last years. I sure did.

As for next year? 60 wins and the EC championship.

We have improved every year for the past five years. Progress, not perfection. Still, I so wish Jaylen and Terry had played a bit better. We'd be in the Finals.

You guys may have brought this up in the Game On thread but the missing piece was Jaylen. Not sure if it was the hamstring but he not himself and had he been I think we would have had a different outcome.

Great year however!

Pete

Hi,
Oh well...
We fought, were really close...
All out shooters were ice called, e.g. TR was 0-10 from 3pt (oy). Cavs mostly prevented all penetrations to the hoop.
But, as everybody said, Celtics were playing with house money.
Also, on the bright side - the next season is ours.

AK

34% shooting will kill you 9 times out of 10 and I think we already had our one bullet-dodge.

Brown, Rozier and Smart a combined 8-42, 19%. That's our back court AND 49.4% of our team's total fgas.  

In the case of Jaylen he was missing wide open shots.  He had them, he just didn't make them, but he took 18 of them and only made 5.  I suppose you can't blame him for taking open shots, that's what you're supposed to do, that's what Brad tells them to do.  He is not advanced enough in his development to use his athleticism to run an offense.  To draw the man out for a shot fake, drive past him and kick it to someone.  When he drives he gets tunnel vision and he got stuffed on his shots this series more times than I can remember in his entire career.

Smart was Smart.  Some tough plays, horrible shooting.  1-10 is grotesque even by his standards.  His one fgm was off an inbounds steal.  He was 0-4 from 3, not TOO abusive, but that means he was 0-5 from 2 and that is poor.

Anybody still think we should trade Kyrie and keep Rozier?  TRo has done very well, no question, but he shrank on the road and shriveled last night.  2-14 and 0-10 from 3 would even make Marcus Smart ashamed.  Unlike Jaylen, alot of Rozier's shot were hurried, unnecessary and contested.  Hero ball by Rozier.  If you're going for the role of Hero you better hit your shots.

The best defense on LeBron last night was by Morris and, perhaps surprisingly, Baynes.  Morris shot an awful 5-14 but he played pretty good D.  LeBron did not want to take Baynes to the hole.  He knew Baynes would bruise him good.

Horford played hard.  He did what was needed from him but he isn't LeBron or some other game changer.

Tatum was the one who, when the bright lights came on, stood up and lit up.  Horford shot 7-12, slightly over 50%, and Tatum was 9-17.  No other Celtic shot 40%, not even close.

I do not understand Brad's insistence on switching on everything and letting LeBron get any mismatch he wanted.  It hadn't worked all series, I have no idea why he would think it would work last night.

You cannot buy this experience, not for an entire team. You can trade/sign players that have seen the elephant, like Baynes and Kyrie, and they can tell the other players what it's like but that's not the same thing as actually going through it. Rozier, Brown, Tatum have had their eyes opened. Even Marcus Morris, who had only played in 4 playoff games before this year, and those were in '15-'16, now has a fuller understanding of what the playoffs and especially Game 7s demand of him and them. There's an old saying that goes "if you think education is expensive, try ignorance". Well, this education will pay dividends starting next year.

Ok, enough of the post-mortem.  These Cinderella Celtics did us all proud.  They went further this year than they did last year despite losing key players (Bradley, Semi-Finals Game 7 hero Olynyk, IT, Jae Crowder) and without IT-replacement Kyrie, Theis (and, of course, the player that resulted in Bradley leaving, Gordon Hayward) and yes, even diminutive spark plug Shane Larkin.  Our Magnificent Seven did us PROUD. We lost because Charles Barkley picked us to win this game (just kidding, although it does make you wonder if he is some kind of a basketball god's counter-balance).


bob



.

Great analysis Bob, and thanks for the Derek Bok quote.

bobheckler wrote:34% shooting will kill you 9 times out of 10 and I think we already had our one bullet-dodge.

Brown, Rozier and Smart a combined 8-42, 19%. That's our back court AND 49.4% of our team's total fgas.  

In the case of Jaylen he was missing wide open shots.  He had them, he just didn't make them, but he took 18 of them and only made 5.  I suppose you can't blame him for taking open shots, that's what you're supposed to do, that's what Brad tells them to do.  He is not advanced enough in his development to use his athleticism to run an offense.  To draw the man out for a shot fake, drive past him and kick it to someone.  When he drives he gets tunnel vision and he got stuffed on his shots this series more times than I can remember in his entire career.

Smart was Smart.  Some tough plays, horrible shooting.  1-10 is grotesque even by his standards.  His one fgm was off an inbounds steal.  He was 0-4 from 3, not TOO abusive, but that means he was 0-5 from 2 and that is poor.

Anybody still think we should trade Kyrie and keep Rozier?  TRo has done very well, no question, but he shrank on the road and shriveled last night.  2-14 and 0-10 from 3 would even make Marcus Smart ashamed.  Unlike Jaylen, alot of Rozier's shot were hurried, unnecessary and contested.  Hero ball by Rozier.  If you're going for the role of Hero you better hit your shots.

The best defense on LeBron last night was by Morris and, perhaps surprisingly, Baynes.  Morris shot an awful 5-14 but he played pretty good D.  LeBron did not want to take Baynes to the hole.  He knew Baynes would bruise him good.

Horford played hard.  He did what was needed from him but he isn't LeBron or some other game changer.

Tatum was the one who, when the bright lights came on, stood up and lit up.  Horford shot 7-12, slightly over 50%, and Tatum was 9-17.  No other Celtic shot 40%, not even close.

I do not understand Brad's insistence on switching on everything and letting LeBron get any mismatch he wanted.  It hadn't worked all series, I have no idea why he would think it would work last night.

You cannot buy this experience, not for an entire team.  You can trade/sign players that have seen the elephant, like Baynes and Kyrie, and they can tell the other players what it's like but that's not the same thing as actually going through it.  Rozier, Brown, Tatum have had their eyes opened.  Even Marcus Morris, who had only played in 4 playoff games before this year, and those were in '15-'16, now has a fuller understanding of what the playoffs and especially Game 7s demand of him and them.  There's an old saying that goes "if you think education is expensive, try ignorance".  Well, this education will pay dividends starting next year.

Ok, enough of the post-mortem.  These Cinderella Celtics did us all proud.  They went further this year than they did last year despite losing key players (Bradley, Semi-Finals Game 7 hero Olynyk, IT, Jae Crowder) and without IT-replacement Kyrie, Theis (and, of course, the player that resulted in Bradley leaving, Gordon Hayward) and yes, even diminutive spark plug Shane Larkin.  Our Magnificent Seven did us PROUD.  We lost because Charles Barkley picked us to win this game (just kidding, although it does make you wonder if he is some kind of a basketball god's counter-balance).


bob



.

Spot on! Especially pertains to Barkley. Any team or player he picks to win or do well always does opposite. If I was a a gambling man, I would pick everyone he doesn’t and within a year I would have enough money to but TNT.

The aftermath of losing game 7  still hurts this morning but I will get over this.

I truly expected the Celtics to win this game but what I did not expect was a dual nightmare of shooting from Both Jaylen and Terry.  They took 22 of our 35 3 point shots.  As you know Jaylen was 3-12 and Terry was 0-10.  That is a combined 3-22 and highlights the reason why Boston could only muster 79 points in a hotly contested showdown.  They also combined to go 0-0 from the line.  They were like degenerate gamblers at the casino playing the one armed bandit over and over again for not.

After the game Jaylen appeared to be in shock.  I have not seen any postgame comments from anyone yet so I do not know what the reactions to this game.

Scary Terry may have finally looked in the mirror and probably scared himself.  

It would be reactive to point to this last game as anything other than a bad shooting night for 2 guys that needed to shoot better.  In the end the Cavs beat Boston 4 out of the last 5 games in this series so there is plenty of things to point to in evaluating the final outcome of the series.

As we enter the post-season we can take great pride in knowing that this team played 99 games this year.  This team did the improbable.  This has truly been a magnificent year and a big congratulations to the Celtics for all they have accomplished.

Huge praise goes out to Jayson Tatum our rookie who lead this team in scoring throughout the playoff and brought his complete arsenal of talent to the final battle.  We are so blessed to have this young man on the team.

Since this is a post game thread I will refrain from any discussion about what comes next.  Afterall, we have the entire Summer and the beginning of the Fall to do that.  I want to thank all of my board members for their insight, camaraderie, passion and indulgence.

Let's keep this thing moving forward.  Go Celtics!

dboss, what a contribution you make every post. Thanks.

The real question was how did we get to shoot 34%?

Answer............getting away from rotating motion offense and working the ball down low to concentrating on iso ball and shooting low percentage 3 pts shots...........that's how!

First period we executed a motion offense pushing the ball up the court and letting James suck wind while feeding Horford down low and having our wings do cuts and passes to the basket for easy shots or tip in's, that = a 12 POINT LEAD............then we stood around while someone tried his Harlem Globe Trotter 1 on 1 BS or just keep shooting 3 balls on a night you had no touch from the arc.

What is the old saying.........keep repeating something over and over again with the same results = insanity !!!!

That was our game to win and when you get to this point and 1 game to get the FINALS........you are not playing with house money as many have been say..........you blew it.   Who is to say we make it to the Eastern Finals or Finals next year just because we get Irving and Haywood back........Philly .......Mil Bucks ....Pacers are getting better real fast and you have Toronto!

This leaves a bad taste left in my mouth that will last the summer and then some!!!!!

112288

This post I made on another thread (to answer someone's specific point) seems more appropriate on this thread so I'm reposting it here:

We didn't lose because we played Lebron in a game 7. We lost because three of our key players (Brown, Rozier and Smart) shot 3 for 26 on threes. 3 for freaking 26! And 8 for 42 overall. Game 7, in a chance to get to the Finals, was unfortunately too big a moment for them, especially Rozier who I've grown to love in the past two months. When the enormity of the situation kept increasing Boston shot 29% as a team in the second half (12 for 41) and 3 for 20 on threes which was even worse than their first half from long range when they were 4 for 19. This game was handed to Lebron in a box full of bricks nicely wrapped up with a bow on it. Only Tatum seemed unfazed all game long by the situation. Even Horford, who had a terrific first half, only scored 3 of his 17 in the second half which really surprised me being that he's been through these wars before (although he's never been to the Finals). I shook my head in disbelief when I heard the Celtics were an absymal 2 for 16 on UNCONTESTED threes. Rarely has a huge game been so gifted to another team by such an atrocious shooting exhibition. Lebron and the rest of the Cavs thank us mightily. They were ripe for the taking. So ripe they were at risk of being turned into extemely odorous garbage and tossed in the nearest landfill. But we allowed them to steal something incredibly precious from us - a trip to the Finals that would have been one of the greatest sports stories of all time regardless of whether we won the title or not. Instead, people outside our world will just acknowledge that we did well to get as far as we did with how undermanned we were. That's it. But it could have and should have been so much more, with a 12 point lead in our building of a seventh game to get the the Finals before everyone forgot how to shoot. Painful. And yes, I know the future is bright. Doesn't help much with how I feel today. We could've slayed the king. Should've slayed the king.

112288 wrote:The real question was how did we get to shoot 34%?

Answer............getting away from rotating motion offense and working the ball down low to concentrating on iso ball and shooting low percentage 3 pts shots...........that's how!

First period we executed a motion offense pushing the ball up the court and letting James suck wind while feeding Horford down low and having our wings do cuts and passes to the basket for easy shots or tip in's, that = a 12 POINT LEAD............then we stood around while someone tried his Harlem Globe Trotter 1 on 1 BS or just keep shooting 3 balls on a night you had no touch from the arc.

What is the old saying.........keep repeating something over and over again with the same results = insanity !!!!

That was our game to win and when you get to this point and 1 game to get the FINALS........you are not playing with house money as many have been say..........you blew it.   Who is to say we make it to the Eastern Finals or Finals next year just because we get Irving and Haywood back........Philly .......Mil Bucks ....Pacers are getting better real fast and you have Toronto!

This leaves a bad taste left in my mouth that will last the summer and then some!!!!!

112288

"This leaves a bad taste left in my mouth that will last the summer and then some!!!!!"

Amen.

Getting to ECF Game 7 is nothing to take for granted. This chance coming aGAIN IS not A GIVEN. wE LOST SOMETHING PRECIOUS THAT WAS WITHIN OUR GRASP.

I’m okay with the loss, we got worn out by a one man wrecking crew, never saw him play better, I know there’s a lot of haters out there, but to reach this outworldly level, he’s earned my respect. Sure, but again the efffort made me feel proud, some of our key guys didn’t come thru....it happens. Throughout history younger teams had to lose a tough series to older established teams, it happens, we’ll be alright down the road.

I don't usually brag about my basketball skills, but I often shoot as well from 3 as Terry did last night.