The whiplash Eastern Conference playoffs continued Tuesday with the young, tough Boston Celtics holding off a big LeBron James performance to take a 2-0 lead in their series. This was a weird, weird game. LeBron took a blow to the head early, put up a 42-point triple-double ... and still looked out of it most of the night.
Boston’s defense is putting the screws to Cleveland’s plan at every turn. The Cavs shot just 32 percent from deep. Take away LeBron and Kevin Love, and the other Cavs shot just 3-14 from three. Cleveland had 15 turnovers too, including six (some bad) from James and an inexplicable five from Jeff Green.
The Celtics, who should not be able to take care of the ball or hit threes, had just five total turnovers and hit the same rate of threes as the team starring Love and Kyle Korver. That’s rough. Cleveland’s defense just hasn’t been good enough to counter the effect Boston’s stellar defense is having on the Cavs attack.
And as Paul Flannery writes in his piece from the Garden, Boston has absolutely been the tougher team.
The series isn’t over by any stretch, but the Cavaliers’ backs are against the wall. Boston has a real chance here not just to knock LeBron out of the playoffs for the third time in history (2008 and 2010), but potentially to end this current Cleveland run of dominance for good. With every loss, it really feels like LeBron is a step closer to leaving in free agency. We don’t know anything about his plans. But this sure feels like an end of an era, just as the 2010 Boston-Cleveland series does in retrospect.
Meanwhile: why yes, I am absolutely furious at the Raptors.
Tuesday’s Score
Celtics 107, Cavaliers 94
Boston leads 2-0
Recaps: CelticsBlog | Fear The Sword
Wednesday’s Schedule
Warriors at Rockets, 9 p.m. ET, TNT
Golden State leads 1-0
Links Galore
The Phoenix Suns won the NBA Draft lottery after securing the league’s worst record this season. Tanking works! The Sacramento Kings will pick No. 2 and the Atlanta Hawks will pick No. 3. Here’s the rest of the lottery. The Cavaliers will pick No. 8 and the Sixers will pick No. 10. It’s going to be awful weird without Danny Ainge having a high lottery pick with a top-3 East team, isn’t it?
Rick O’Donnell’s instant reaction mock draft has Luka Doncic No. 1 to the Suns. That’s where I’d land, too. However, there are some indications it will be Deandre Ayton. The Kings will take whichever top prospect is left. Then things will get interesting with Atlanta at No. 3.
I wrote about what a tremendous farce the lottery has been. I also learned how many basketball fans don’t know what the word “farce” means.
Tim Cato urges you to just boycott the Cavaliers. Meanwhile, this Jason Lloyd piece on Cleveland’s Tuesday feels something like a eulogy. Brian Windhorst writes that LeBron looks simply exhausted by the Cavaliers.
J.R. Smith had one of the worst playoff games I’ve ever seen, capped off by a shove on an airborne Al Horford’s back, which almost got Smitty popped by Marcus Smart.
Can Sylvia Fowles repeat as WNBA MVP?
Awesome: NBA TV is tipping off the WNBA season on Friday with three straight days of live coverage. Then we get Lynx-Sparks on Sunday on ESPN2.
Jonathan Tjarks argues the Celtics are building something similar to what the Warriors have.
Tim Cato on the Rockets’ problem against Golden State: it’s not the stars. It’s everything else.
Scott Cacciola watched Game 1 of Rockets-Warriors with Grinnell’s head coach because, well, of course he did.
The Bucks appear to have narrowed their coaching search to Mike Budenholzer and Ettore Messina.
Good piece from Marc Spears on how the Knicks have built a rare NBA front office where African-Americans are in the positions of power.
Netflix and ESPN Films are producing a 10-hour Michael Jordan documentary in 2019.
An argument from Harry Lyles Jr. that legal sports gambling won’t ruin sports because any damage has already been done.
I could not be more excited for Bomani Jones, once a colleague here at SB Nation. The smartest dude in the game on multiple levels.
Be excellent to each other.
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