ECF: P2 | (2) Boston Celtics vs (4) Cleveland Cavaliers | Tied 2-2

[John Murdoch]

BOS/PHI was the real ECF

You mean Boston Bucks? Philly would have gotten swept if game 4 wasn't 5v8. Lets see what happens in game 3-4 before deeming this over though.

Bucks wouldnt have beat Philly tho in a 7game series

[AK47MVP]

On behalf of the D.Casey I apologize for the coaching I did in the series we just had with the Cavs.

Fixed it.

[Celts17Pride]

Philly would have beaten Cavs
Bucks would have beaten Cavs and Sixers
Toronto would have beaten Boston

Yawn!!!!!!!!!

Enjoy the off-season

[NetsDynasty2012]

Read on Twitter

[JXL]

Meanwhile an injured Kyrie would be more effective in this series for Cleveland than George Hill.

[Ill News]

Lebron had an amazing stat line but the effort defensively or hustle is terrible

Read on Twitter

?s=19

Lol. Tatum drives and misses the layup, Smart swoops in for the putback, all while Lebron stands like a turnstile in the paint. He must've been on one of his on-court "rest" moments. Hard to fault him though, seeing how he's been carrying the entire Cavs team...

[Gant]

BOS/PHI was the real ECF

You mean Boston Bucks? Philly would have gotten swept if game 4 wasn't 5v8. Lets see what happens in game 3-4 before deeming this over though.

Bucks wouldnt have beat Philly tho in a 7game series

They might if Middleton shot like he did against Boston. That guy was just fantastic.

[ISayshowmee]

Now, Lebron Fanboys please explain your statement that Lebron is a great facilitator.

Your hero has impressively scored in the 40's in several games in this year's playoffs. But but his teammates except for Love really have not made any impact in scoring.

So explain again why Lebron is a great facilitator ?

I brought this up because the Cavs are losing this series due to lack of scoring support outside of Lebron and Love. You know Kyrie used to fill this role.

[NetsDynasty2012]

Now, Lebron Fanboys please explain your statement that Lebron is a great facilitator.

Your hero has impressively scored in the 40's in several games in this year's playoffs. But but his teammates except for Love really have not made any impact in scoring.

So explain again why Lebron is a great facilitator ?

I brought this up because the Cavs are losing this series due to lack of scoring support outside of Lebron and Love. You know Kyrie used to fill this role.

Not like he's averaging 9.2 assists per game and 18.1 potential assists per game in the playoffs or anything

[drstarheel]

Lebron had an amazing stat line but the effort defensively or hustle is terrible

Read on Twitter

?s=19

Lol. Tatum drives and misses the layup, Smart swoops in for the putback, all while Lebron stands like a turnstile in the paint. He must've been on one of his on-court "rest" moments. Hard to fault him though, seeing how he's been carrying the entire Cavs team...

I think Lebron has a few too many on court "rest" moments. Here's some stats from an ESPN article ran in early May:

"During the regular season, James' average speed during games was 3.85 mph, according to Second Spectrum tracking data. Of all players who averaged at least 20 minutes a game, that ranked in the bottom 10 in speed. That's correct: James moved slower than just about any rotation player in the league. And since the playoffs started, James has gotten even slower. His average has slipped to 3.69 mph."

"James walks a lot. During the regular season, about 74.4 percent of James' time on the court was spent walking. Again, this was in the top 10 in the league. Almost no one walked up and down the floor more than James. And in the playoffs, he's walking even more -- 78.7 percent of the time."

"It isn't unusual to see James show fatigue at stretches during games, especially in the fourth quarter. Second Spectrum data shows that's when he runs the slowest, at 3.4 mph on average."

The worst part is, ESPN tried to spin this as something genius James does. They said he knows when to pick his spots to rest. I think all this rest allows his opponent to rest as well. Additionally, he's the undisputed leader of the Cavs. When he walks up and down the court it trickles down to his teammates.

[PierceFan4ever]

Brown is not better than Smith, Rozier is not better than Hill, Morris is not better than Green or Nance.
I also think Tatum is over rated in this series.
Korver is a better shooter than anyone on their roster etc.
Baynes is not better than Thompson defensively.
Regardless of how you see it, the reality is the Cavs are much better than you are giving them credit and they have Lebron
which you don't have anyone close too.

Read on Twitter

Ok. To to the cavs board and their game thread. Pistons fan starts it.

First post is Stillwater saying "getting a top 3 pick and our first win in the series"

Second post is also Stillwater saying "no top 3 pick, but no way we are losing this game or series"

Third and last post is also Stillwater saying "we played bad, GM will have a lot to do win or lose if it doesn't go to game 7."


LOLOLOLOLOL.

Lol this dude is so embarassing

[Roland2000]

I am betting Lebron changes his strategy yet again for game 3. Instead of trying to crush it early on, he's going to save more for the 3rd and 4th quarter.

So game three will be Lebron the facilitator early on and Lebron the finisher late.

[ItsMyPotPie]

One team is clearly missing Irving, and it's not the one he's currently contracted to.

[ITYSL]

LBJ's not going to want to get swept. The Cavs players aren't going to want to get swept in front of their home court. No one is viewing beating the Raptors in the playoffs as some type of accomplishment.

How the series will go will ultimately come down to two factors: (1) Whether Lue rotates his players more frequently so his starters aren't exhausted on the court in the second half; and (2) whether one of JR, Hood, Clarkson, and/or J. Green can have a good game four games out of this series. Boston is younger, deeper, and more athletic. Lue cannot play his starters 10 minutes uninterrupted per quarter, every quarter, against that team.

These two factors are pretty related to: can JR, Hood, Clarkson and J. Green add something or not? At the moment they can't, this can still change at home off course but talent wise they're just not good enough IMO. It's up to them to prove me wrong in the next four. I think we didn't particularly shoot well, while the Cavs did and still they couldn't beat us down. I think this gives us another mental advantage.

The big edge here is HEART & HUSTLE and the Cavs havent showed anything to me that's close to these two words. That JR move says it all IMO.

It's easy for posters to talk about heart and hustle when they're not in their 30s playing guys who are under 25 and who get a whole lot more rest because the bench is deeper.

In terms of the Cavs shooting well. Some players on the Cavs shot well. Our starting back court gave us 3 points the whole game. Even if they only give us 13 next game, that's 10 points. And although it's not the reason we lost, I don't think the Celtics will be the beneficiaries of the types of calls they got in the 4th quarter last night in Cleveland. That was a very favorable whistle.

With all due respect, Celtics fans have been hearing that kind of thing from opposing fans throughout the playoffs, things like "well they won't shoot that poorly from 3 again" or "their backcourt played horribly and you can't expect that to continue" and "Embiid should have went to the line at the end of the game and Smart traveled" and so on and so forth.

Outliers often happen in small sample sizes. Assuming the Cavs will be able to turn it around and shoot 40% from three and get 13 from their backcourt and that everything else will go their way and everything will return to their regular season mean is faulty logic in a best-of-7 playoff series. I think what makes the Celtics hard to beat is that they can withstand those poor outliers (ie. Tatum getting 11 points, ie. Morris/Smart shooting with really poor efficiency) and still win because so many players are capable of stepping up on any given night. What that leads to is the Cavs need all their pieces to fall in the right places to win, while the Celtics need all their pieces to fall in the wrong places to lose.

Of course, whoever wins this round will likely run into a GSW juggernaut that is like the Celtics on steroids.

[Ill News]

Lebron had an amazing stat line but the effort defensively or hustle is terrible

Read on Twitter

?s=19

Lol. Tatum drives and misses the layup, Smart swoops in for the putback, all while Lebron stands like a turnstile in the paint. He must've been on one of his on-court "rest" moments. Hard to fault him though, seeing how he's been carrying the entire Cavs team...

I think Lebron has a few too many on court "rest" moments. Here's some stats from an ESPN article ran in early May:

"During the regular season, James' average speed during games was 3.85 mph, according to Second Spectrum tracking data. Of all players who averaged at least 20 minutes a game, that ranked in the bottom 10 in speed. That's correct: James moved slower than just about any rotation player in the league. And since the playoffs started, James has gotten even slower. His average has slipped to 3.69 mph."

"James walks a lot. During the regular season, about 74.4 percent of James' time on the court was spent walking. Again, this was in the top 10 in the league. Almost no one walked up and down the floor more than James. And in the playoffs, he's walking even more -- 78.7 percent of the time."

"It isn't unusual to see James show fatigue at stretches during games, especially in the fourth quarter. Second Spectrum data shows that's when he runs the slowest, at 3.4 mph on average."

The worst part is, ESPN tried to spin this as something genius James does. They said he knows when to pick his spots to rest. I think all this rest allows his opponent to rest as well. Additionally, he's the undisputed leader of the Cavs. When he walks up and down the court it trickles down to his teammates.

Yeah, I was referencing that Windhorst piece. It's an understandable thing for Lebron to do (again, he's carrying his team like Atlas holding up the world), but these on-court "rests" feel like a convenient excuse for his laziness on the defensive end. At this point in his career, it seems like he needs defense-first teammates to cover up for him, something hard to fathom considering his incredible physical gifts and BBIQ. Father Time is starting to catch up with him.

[Curmudgeon]

One reason why the Bucks took the Celtics to 7 games was the fine coaching job by Joe Prunty, who is probably out of a job. Stevens outcoached Brett Brown and so far has outcoached Lue, but he did not outcoach Prunty.

[My2CentsR]

LeBron shouldn't be bringing the ball up so much. It might be a little late for such an adjustment this year, but he has no energy for defense when he has to set the plays each time. He had 6 turnover last night and played 39 minutes, that's largely physical and mental lethargy.

[ITYSL]

LeBron shouldn't be bringing the ball up so much. It might be a little late for such an adjustment this year, but he has no energy for defense when he has to set the plays each time. He had 6 turnover last night and played 39 minutes, that's largely physical and mental lethargy.

Just realized this: Lebron had more TOs last night than all Celtics combined.

[EdgeofForever]

LBJ with 42 points and Celtics still won comfortably.

[jbk1234]

These two factors are pretty related to: can JR, Hood, Clarkson and J. Green add something or not? At the moment they can't, this can still change at home off course but talent wise they're just not good enough IMO. It's up to them to prove me wrong in the next four. I think we didn't particularly shoot well, while the Cavs did and still they couldn't beat us down. I think this gives us another mental advantage.

The big edge here is HEART & HUSTLE and the Cavs havent showed anything to me that's close to these two words. That JR move says it all IMO.

It's easy for posters to talk about heart and hustle when they're not in their 30s playing guys who are under 25 and who get a whole lot more rest because the bench is deeper.

In terms of the Cavs shooting well. Some players on the Cavs shot well. Our starting back court gave us 3 points the whole game. Even if they only give us 13 next game, that's 10 points. And although it's not the reason we lost, I don't think the Celtics will be the beneficiaries of the types of calls they got in the 4th quarter last night in Cleveland. That was a very favorable whistle.

With all due respect, Celtics fans have been hearing that kind of thing from opposing fans throughout the playoffs, things like "well they won't shoot that poorly from 3 again" or "their backcourt played horribly and you can't expect that to continue" and "Embiid should have went to the line at the end of the game and Smart traveled" and so on and so forth.

Outliers often happen in small sample sizes. Assuming the Cavs will be able to turn it around and shoot 40% from three and get 13 from their backcourt and that everything else will go their way and everything will return to their regular season mean is faulty logic in a best-of-7 playoff series. I think what makes the Celtics hard to beat is that they can withstand those poor outliers (ie. Tatum getting 11 points, ie. Morris/Smart shooting with really poor efficiency) and still win because so many players are capable of stepping up on any given night. What that leads to is the Cavs need all their pieces to fall in the right places to win, while the Celtics need all their pieces to fall in the wrong places to lose.

Of course, whoever wins this round will likely run into a GSW juggernaut that is like the Celtics on steroids.

Well, if the Cavs can't even get 13 points a game from their entire back court, for even one game, then the Celtics will probably sweep.