Celtics Post Game - Crush Cavs 128-95

Boston 128, Cleveland 95

Kyrie Irving scored 29 points, and six other Celtics scored in double figures as the Boston Celtics defeated the visiting Cleveland Cavaliers 128-95 on Friday night.

Irving, the former Cavaliers guard who demanded a trade out of Cleveland before last season, haunted his old team to the tune of 11 of 15 from the field, including 5-for-7 from beyond the arc.

Irving also grabbed four rebounds and dished out four assists.

The Celtics were deadly from 3-point range, connecting on 17 of 31 attempts. They recorded season highs in points, margin of victory and field-goal percentage (53.3 percent).

Jordan Clarkson came off the bench to lead Cleveland with 16 points. Tristan Thompson recorded another double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds, his 11th of the season and fifth in his last six games.

Cleveland hung close early and trailed only 30-26 after the first quarter, but then Irving and the Celtics started to impose their wills on the undermanned Cavaliers.

Thompson gave the Cavs a 42-41 lead with a free throw with under seven minutes to go in the first half and the two teams would trade baskets until Irving's 28-foot jumper put Boston up three, 50-47.

A 12-5 spurt gave Boston a 62-52 lead at intermission.

Boston came out sizzling in the third period when they outscored Cleveland 39-20. Aron Baynes connected on two jumpers and Marcus Morris hit five free throws as Boston opened up a 15-point lead at 74-59.

Gordon Hayward's 26-foot, 3-point jumper put the Celtics up by 22 with 4:36 left in the third and Terry Rozier's 3-pointer at the end of the third gave Boston a comfortable 101-72 advantage.

Morris finished with 15 points and Hayward 14 for the Celtics, who went to the foul line only 16 times but converted 13 of those attempts.

Cleveland went to the free-throw line 35 times and made 28 of those tries. But the Cavaliers connected on only 30 of 77 field-goal attempts (39 percent).

The Cavaliers made only 7 of 22 attempts from beyond the arc and also lost the rebound battle, 47-36.

Big leads really gives a chance for other guys to play.

Smart is really shooting better and is playing great with Kyrie. Competition is good, if Smart can shoot better, I have to think Jaylen and Rozier can only start scoring/shooting more efficiently too. Might as well include GH and Tatum as well, but I like Smart starting and Jaylen and GH coming off bench and killing 2nd teams.

Here's the game flow:

cowens/oldschool wrote:Smart is really shooting better and is playing great with Kyrie. Competition is good, if Smart can shoot better, I have to think Jaylen and Rozier can only start scoring/shooting more efficiently too. Might as well include GH and Tatum as well, but I like Smart starting and Jaylen and GH coming off bench and killing 2nd teams.

You would have to be blind not to see Smart's improvement in shooting the 3 ball.  His stroke looks pure, true and confident.  During the month of November he shot 37%.  I am reluctant to declare his shooting woes are behind him but I got to tell you that his shot looks great!

The other guy who has stepped up big is Kyrie Irving.  As we know he started the season off slow but during the month of November he averaged 25.2 PPG, 6.6 assists and 4.9 rebounds.  He also averaged 2.3 steals.  His shooting was also great at .505 FG %,  .427 from deep and .825 from the line.  I beg to differ with the notion that he is just a great offensive player.

I like that we won every quarter.  That includes garbage time.  They were undermanned without Kevin Love and George Hill, but we were without Al and Jaylen.  Still, we let them back into the game in the 1st quarter, let them hang around in the 2nd quarter but never took our feet off the gas long enough to lose a quarter.  That's the consistency we've been looking and waiting for all season.

When the top three scorers on the other team shoot a combined 15-43 (34.8%) you know you're doing something right.  That is 56% of their anemic total of 77 fgas.  All good.

Seven players in double digits.  Excellent balanced offense.  30 assists on 49 fgm.

Smart is playing SO well since starting.  5-7, 2-4 from 3.  Not a typo.  7 assists and zero turnovers.  Say what you will about Jaylen's athleticism, Smart just gets the job done.  He was flying all over the place last night, defending all over the floor.  Over his last 5 games he is shooting 45.5% from the floor and 38.9% from 3.  When he shoots like that, and runs an offense that produces 7 fgm and zero turnovers and defends like a crazy man he is ridiculously valuable.

Williams was given credit for 2 blocks in his 8 minutes.  I thought I saw a 3rd.  He's a jumping jack.

Yabusele got his longest stint of the year, I think, 15 minutes.  He was 2-7, not good, but overall was effective in my opinion.  He played good defense, rotated well and, most importantly, did a really good job down low defending Ante Zizic.  It would be embarrassing if the marginal big we sent to Cleveland as part of the Kyrie trade outplayed our current marginal big.  A little humor here, folks.

A win is a win is a win but...  We beat the worst team in the league, a team that is tanking so hard that even JR Smith couldn't stomach it, that was playing without 2 of their 3 most veteran players.  If we had won by less than 20 I would have demanded an autopsy to see if the Celtics had a heart.  Fortunately, they do.

Sean Grande
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Friday matched the 3rd largest win in the Brad Stevens era (432 games).

In 8 days, the Celtics have moved from 12th to 8th in the NBA in scoring differential (+4.2).  And only Utah (8 ) has played fewer games at home than Boston (9).

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401071000





bob



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The Celtics are supposed to beat dog teams. But they have not had a quality win since their OT game against the Raptors.

Tonight is a good test for them. They are on the road playing against a team that has been playing well lately.

My eyes always seem to light up when Robert Williams enters the game. He has a long way to go and it will be difficult for Brad to find minutes for him but his shot blocking skills cannot be overlooked.

The best thing that came happen for him is blow out games where he gets a chance to play.

There have been far too many games where the Celtics cannot protect the rim. Having a weapon on defense like Robert may be a factor down the road a bit.

Having seen how the Knicks threw Mitchell Robinson on the floor and let him play and play through his mistakes, we should be doing same thing with Williams. Al is 32 as is Baynes, we are gonna need a jolt of dirty work big time to get through Philly, Milwaukee and Toronto. Embid, Greek Freak, Lopez, Valanciunas, Siakim, Ibaka are a load of strong dynamic bigs to get past to go to Finals. Each one of these teams has gotten a lot better.

The next Abdel Nader.  






bob


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