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Recap: Tristan Thompson killed the Celtics tonight

Chuck - Red's Army April 21, 2015 Recaps 7 Comments

A man who did not score a point, nor take a shot absolutely demolished the Celtics tonight. I’m talking about Tristan Thompson and his 5 offensive rebounds, all of which seemed to come at crucial moments when the Celtics needed to have a stop. Thompson’s clutch hustle, LeBron James 30 points and Timofey Mozgov’s 5 blocks were the signature performances in tonight’s 99-91 Cavaliers victory.

The Celtics played hard. This was a 4 point game with 3 minutes remaining. But Boston isn’t going to win many games shooting 38% from the floor (27% 3 FG), never mind a road playoff game against a talented team.

The C’s built a small lead in the 1st quarter, thanks to the hot shooting of Tyler Zeller (9 points in the quarter). But Cleveland stayed close enough and closed the half on a 15-5 run to take a 51-50 lead into the break. The Cavs opened the 3rd with a 17-4 run (9-9 FTs) and stretched the lead to 14 midway through. The C’s made a mini-run, but a couple of misses by Jonas Jerebko and Isaiah Thomas kept the lead at 7.

The Celts kept fighting in the 4th, a 9-2 run brought them within 2 points but … the Cavs have LeBron and Kyrie Irving. The duo scored all of the Cavs 24 points. And when the Celts were lucky enough to get stops, they gave up offensive rebounds to Thompson and Mozgov.

Green

Isaiah Thomas led Boston with 22 points and 7 assists. He remains the only consistent scoring option.

Gross

Brandon Bass was 0-6. Evan Turner 3-11. Avery Bradley 3-9.

Jared Sullinger had the most deceiving stat line of the night: 14 points, 6-12 FG, 5 rebounds. Offensive production was there, but the Celtics needed him to bang and rebound and he looked disinterested and slow. He had twice as many 3 point attempts as defensive rebounds.

Should I mention the officiating? Those two awful calls against Bradley? Nah… I won’t mention them or Bennett Salvatore.

Greenlights

The Grid:

LeBron James 1st foul came at the 11 minute mark of the 4th quarter.
JR Smith shot 3-12
Jonas Jerebko logged 4 minutes

Box score

Coolrapquote

I’m loving this. Think about the experience our guys will get from this moving forward. Most of lebrons teams have never had to start playing with intensity until the second round. We’re forcing these guys to give their all right off the bat. If we win one game at home, that’ll be more than enough to keep me happy going forward. If not, whatever. We aren’t supposed to be here.
DRJ

Off. & Def. Ratings vs. CLE:
Cs’ Offensive Rating for this game = 101.1 (pts per 100 possessions) — not bad, equivalent to the league’s ~#28 offense this reg season. Considerably worse than Game 1’s performance.

Cs’ Defensive Rating for this game = 110.0 (pts allowed per 100 possessions) — equivalent to the league’s ~#28 D in the reg season. This is a huge improvement over Game 1, when the D was much worse than #30 (at ~121).

PACE: Each team had 90 possessions – a little lower than average for the NBA & the Cs. [League average in reg season = 93.8 possessions/game; Cs’ avg = 95.8 – #5 in NBA.]
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It seems pretty clear that the Cs can only go as far as Lebron will let them. Anytime he wants to, James can score, and no one can stop him – or even slow him down, except maybe occasionally with an offensive foul – and those are rare. No matter how close we get, Lebron will NEVER allow the Cs to actually win a game. Not gonna happen, imo.

Still, Cs’ defense today was much improved over Game 1, in which they allowed an abysmal 121 pts/100 possessions (way worse than the league’s #30 this reg season). Unfortunately, our offense didn’t do very well, dropping from Game 1’s 107 (#12 in reg season) to 101 pts/100 possessions (#28 in reg season). Maybe it’s the Cavs tightening up their D – because for sure, they couldn’t win any championships with the D they showed in Game 1.

If the Cavs’ defense ever gets actually “good” – it could be all she wrote for the rest of the league. It’s not there yet though, and probably won’t be this year.
art

Too many jump shots. Too many misses. Too many open misses. Better defense than game 1. Not enough talent to make big plays when they were needed. More energy needed in the 4th quarter to snag rebounds and make plays .Not a bad game at all. Made Cleveland sweat. Boston’s home court could be a difference maker.
Mike C

Damn these guys are showing alot of heart! I just hope they can get a win at home. They definitely deserve to be rewarded for there effort. This is clearly “David verses Goliath” out there. Lebron is a great player, but I can’t stand him or anyone he plays with.
- Mike C
  
  Hey Chuck, dont forget Mozgov running over Zeller (No charge) and J.R Smith fouling Smart while going for a steal (No Foul). As usual Refs get to collect there paycheck for missing 50% of the calls. I wish I could get away with only completing 50% of the work at my job and still get paid!
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