Celtics Live Blog: Cavs Finish Strong, Beat C's 99-91 In Game 2
Final, 99-91 Cavaliers: And that's all she wrote.
If you're searching for a positive from the Celtics, there's this: If they can get just a few more shots to fall and shoot a touch better than 38.8 percent, they can keep the Cavaliers within one possession. Beyond that, they may need a few instances of divine intervention in order to win multiple games in this series. But it shouldn't be considered out of the realm of possibility that the Celtics can beat the Cavs, if only once.
We'll see Thursday night whether the switch in venues makes a difference.
Fourth quarter, 39.7, 99-89 Cavaliers: That's all she wrote. Thomas hit those free throws, but LeBron then stripped Zeller on a dunk attempt, and the Celtics couldn't buy a rebound to save their lives. Tristan Thompson grabbed offensive boards on consecutive possessions, allowing the Cavs to score four points. An Isaiah Thomas turnover was sandwiched in between that, and it's all over but for the singing from the fat lady.
Fourth quarter, 2:30, 95-87 Cavaliers: LeBron James. He's good. His pal Kyrie Irving isn't bad either.
They continue to be just too much for Boston, and the Celtics shots continue to just not fall as often as they need to.
Nevertheless, Thomas is stepping to the free throw line, looking to cut the lead to six points. The margin for error is zero for Boston now.
Fourth quarter, 5:25, 91-84 Cavaliers: It's pretty amazing how quickly the Cavaliers can stretch a razor-thin lead close to double digits.
The Celtics got this one one two points -- twice -- on the strength of a three-point play from Thomas and later when Jae Crowder hit a pair of free throws.
But as quickly as the C's closed the gap, the Cavs reopened it. Irving drilled a 3 and a jumper, LeBron easily added five points, and just like that, the lead was back to seven.
The Celtics' offense is almost entirely reliant on Thomas. He'll need to be otherworldly for the Celtics to get back in this. Again.
Fourth quarter, 8:46, 81-77 Cavaliers: Isaiah Thomas just made this a ballgame.
Thomas has five points this quarter, including a couple of seemingly impossible running layups where nobody is quite sure how he made it work. You'd swear that he just got lucky if he weren't able to do that on a regular basis. But he is.
As a result ... things are at least a little bit interesting here in the fourth. The Celtics will have the ball coming out of the timeout.
End of third quarter,75-68 Cavaliers: The third quarter comes to a close with a pair of misses -- one from Thomas, one from Irving, and the Cavs take a seven-point lead into the final quarter.
The Celtics survived that third-quarter smack in the mouth from the Cavs, but they're hardly in a great position with 12 minutes to go.
What's worked best for them offensively has been hard drives to the basket from Sullinger and Crowder, with some help on the outside from Thomas. They'll need to keep that up, they'll need to rebound on their own end of the court ... and they'll need to get a little lucky if they hope to steal this one.
Third quarter, 2:13, 75-66 Cavaliers: Considering the home crowd got all riled up when LeBron floated a half-court lob to Kevin Love for an alley-oop, and considering the roof nearly blew off the place when Irving laid up an oop to LeBron, the Celtics are fortunate to only be down by nine.
The Cavs led by 14 after LeBron climbed on the ring and swung around a few times like a wild man, but the Celtics climbed back with six points by Sullinger.
Tristan Thompson continues to be a problem, as he now has seven rebounds -- three on the offensive end.
Third quarter, 8:06, 62-54 Cavaliers: The uphill climb is getting increasingly steeper for the Celtics, as the disparity in talent and size is starting to rear its head with each passing minute.
The Cavs have outscored the Celtics 11-4 thus far in the third quarter, as only Marcus Smart has scored for Boston. Cleveland is out-rebounding Boston 7-2 early in the third, too, helping them to stretch that lead.
Third quarter, 12:00, 51-50 Cavaliers: Second half has begun in Cleveland.
Halftime, 51-50 Cavaliers: All things considered, that could have been worse for the Celtics. Nevertheless, they lost the lead and allowed Cleveland to get some life heading into halftime.
That's not entirely surprising, considering the potency of the Cavaliers attack, but it has to be disappointing for a Celtics team that was handling itself quite well on the defensive end.
James, Irving, Love and Smith all got going in those final minutes, quickly turning that seven-point deficit into a one-point lead.
Some halftime stats for your perusal:
Tyler Zeller leads the Celtics in points (9) and rebounds (5). Thomas is tied for the team lead in points, but he's shooting 2-of-6 from the field.
Kyrie Irving leads Cavaliers scorers with 12, though James (11) and Mozgov (10) are not far behind. Tristan Thompson, who had six rebounds in Game 1, already has 5 tonight, leading Cleveland at the half.
Mozgov has four blocks. He hasn't recorded four blocks in a game since late February.
Second quarter, 5:56, 41-34 Celtics: The lead is back to seven points, thanks to an 8-0 run for Boston.
Avery Bradley and Kelly Olynyk each hit a 3, while Shumpert, Love and Mozgov went a combined 0-for-4 during that stretch.
The 8-0 run was nice, but the C's need to finish the next six minutes out strong. They were in a similar position on Sunday but allowed Cleveland to head into halftime on a surge. The next 5:56 is crucial.
Second quarter, 7:58, 35-34 Celtics: The C's just regained the lead again, thanks to a semi-ridiculous spinning jumper from Kelly Olynyk that hit nothing but net.
Jae Crowder has turned on the afterburners for the second quarter, as he's been flying up and down the court, playing defense on LeBron and hitting a driving layup on the offensive end.
Zeller picked up a blocking foul against LeBron, but it's hard to blame him after what Mozgov got away with earlier in the game. Zeller probably figured the refs were going to let some physical play go under the basket. That may be true -- but not when LeBron has the ball.
End of first quarter, 26-25 Celtics: The C's are leading after a quarter, though it's by the slimmest of margins.
Kyrie Irving briefly began to start feeling it again, as he made Isaiah Thomas look silly before knocking down a 3-pointer to tie the game at 23. Sullinger followed up that possession by back-rimming a 3, but he got back in time to stand in front of a charging Irving to draw an offensive foul. That was Irving's second, and he headed to the bench.
The Celtics are out-rebounding Cleveland 15-12, including 7-1 on the offensive glass. That's been the biggest key for the Celtics in keeping it close.
LeBron still has just three points.
First quarter, 2:34, 20-18 Celtics: Man, Cleveland can close a gap quick. They came out of that timeout inspired, dropping eight unanswered points to tie the game at 16. That was concluded by Mozgov getting away with bulldozing Zeller under the basket prior to an easy dunk.
Zeller answered by picking up a rebound on a Sullinger miss and laying it in to get the lead back, but Mozgov hit a jumper down the other end of the floor to tie it up again. But Isaiah Thomas pulled up on a 2-on-1 break and hit a jumper to give the C's the lead back. But at this timeout, that lead doesn't feel quite as comfortable as the last time.
First quarter, 5:40, 16-8 Celtics: Marcus Smart just drained a 3-pointer to stretch the early Boston lead to eight points. It was big for obvious reasons, but also because it came off an offensive rebound following a missed Evan Turner runner. The glass was not kind to the Celtics in Game 1, and it figures to play an important role tonight.
On the negative side for Boston, Avery Bradley picked up his second foul in a fight for a loose ball, so he headed to the bench early. That means some early minutes for Isaiah Thomas.
LeBron has as many points (3) as he does turnovers.
First quarter, 7:41, 11-8 Celtics: The Cavaliers got a couple of 3's from Kevin Love and LeBron James early, but the C's are doing a good job of working the ball inside to Tyler Zeller and Brandon Bass. As a result, Kevin Love went to the bench after just 4:19 with two personal fouls.
Zeller has six points early, and Bass now has two.
First quarter, 12:00: This game is underway.
6:52 p.m.: We're about 10 minutes from tipoff. You just know that the Cavs want to come right out of the gates and blow the doors off the Celtics. It'll be up to Boston to try to limit the damage early.
6:30 p.m.: You have to love Brad Stevens' reaction to finishing fourth in the NBA's coach of the year voting.
"It's very nice when you're talked about for stuff like that, and I don't want to diminish how honored you are to be in that discussion," the coach said. "Other than that, meh."
Meh!
Stevens was also asked for his reaction to finishing ahead of the legendary Gregg Popovich/
"That's bad voting,"he said.
Brad Stevens, ladies and gentlemen.
4:30 p.m.: It's time for Game 2, and tonight we'll see how many adjustments the Celtics are able to make. And then we'll see if it even matters.
The Celtics looked good in Cleveland on Sunday -- for about 10 minutes or so. After that, save for a couple of runs, it was all Kyrie Irving and the Cavaliers.
Irving dropped 30 points, while LeBron James was happy to quietly contribute with 15 points, seven assists and six rebounds.
Isaiah Thomas led all Celtics in scoring with 22 points, with Evan Turner and Kelly Olynyk each scoring a dozen points.
Tonight, the Celtics are either going to have to pay some more attention to Irving or hope he has trouble hitting those impossible 3's this time around. Those typically stop falling at some point. Of course, more attention on Kyrie means less attention on LeBron, and less attention on LeBron means trouble.
It will be fascinating to see how Brad Stevens approaches this Game 2. The Celtics looked like they could hang with the Cavs to some extent on Sunday, cutting the Cleveland lead to six points late in the third, but the Cavs hit another level thereafter and rolled to the 13-point win.
We'll have updates and analysis right here all night, from pregame through the final horn, so check back early and often.
Read more from Michael Hurley by clicking here. You can email him or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
