Don’t call it a must win but Game 5 is just that for the Celtics C’s can’t go back to Cleveland down 3-2 Steve Bulpett
Credit: Christopher Evans
Technically, the Celtics can lose Game 5 at home and still win the series.
But not really.
After watching what the Cavaliers did to the Celts in Cleveland, and what the Celts did to themselves, one would need dogmatic loyalty and maybe even a trip to the liquor cabinet to believe the Bostonians could stave off elimination in a Game 6 on the banks of the Cuyahoga River.
The Cavs looked ready for divorce on Causeway Street, but, with help from the C’s, they renewed their vows at home.
So tonight is looking rather Game 7-ish for the Brad Boys. The best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals are even at 2-2, yet the Celts’ backs are against the TD Garden wall.
Marcus Smart agreed with the bottom line, though he disputed the geographical implication.
“It definitely is a must-win for us,” he said late Monday night as the visitors’ dressing was just about cleared. “But it’s not because it’s difficult for us to win here. It’s because it’s the playoffs. It’s difficult wherever you go. You’ve got to come ready to play. And if you don’t, things happen that you don’t want to happen. So no matter where we’re at, it’s the playoffs. Everything’s amped up. You’ve just got to be ready to go.”
Which is different than ready to leave, which is what the Celtics have looked like in three trips to the Cavs’ gym this season. Quicken Loans Arena has been a house of horror (Gordon Hayward’s injury) and horrible in the Celts’ one regular-season and two playoff games in the joint. They have trailed by 18, 30 and 19 points in the season opener, Game 3 and Game 4, respectively. They have led by four, zero and two points in those affairs.
“I wonder why,” Smart said with a bit of a smirk.
A large part is because LeBron James plays for the Cavaliers, but the Celtics showed in Game 2 (and at other points in their history; Game 7 in 2008 comes to mind) that they could survive that. The greater difference is the Other Cavs shoot in Cleveland like the Celts shoot in Boston. There is a comfort and flow. Shots are released with more confidence and find the familiar strings.
That would seem to be less of a requirement for the far more veteran Cavaliers, but it’s been achingly so for the Celtics.
Missing early dunks and layups on Monday night put them in arrears and brought out their Mr. Hyde. The Celts are good when they play through their offense, move the ball and take advantage of the openings that inevitably come. The Celts are bad when they try to take things on individually. Like, hey, they just scored three hoops on us; I have to make something happen.
No, you don’t. In fact, trying to force something is more likely to lead to three more quick buckets by the opponent.
Smart acknowledged that the Celtics have gotten away from their collective game, especially on the road. Especially in the two games in this series.
“Yeah, we definitely have,” he said. “We took a lot of bad shots. We didn’t make them pay with the switching and the mismatches and things like that. But that’s something you learn from. You watch the film and you move on.”
But when the Celts sit in front of the video screen, they must feel as if they’re watching a rerun. They can get caught playing some hero ball in the Garden, but it’s more prevalent on the road. Remember when they drove into Milwaukee and lost three games by driving into traffic and taking poor shots? Remember Saturday and last night?
The Celtics are prone to getting flustered.
“I mean, I think that’s the case with all teams,” said president of basketball operations Danny Ainge. “When things aren’t going well, the hard thing to do is to maintain your togetherness and, like, trust each other. When things are slipping, individuals try to take it upon themselves to make a play, and they’re all capable of doing that. But I think that’s a never-ending thing in coaching and in playing. It’s a fine line of doing it together, moving the ball. I mean, there’s a lot of times the defense does a great job of taking you away from movement. It’s not just, ‘Oh, the team stopped moving the ball.’ It’s not that simple. There’s a lot more to it. Teams will switch, deny passes, and guys are left to their own abilities.
“That’s why the teams with the best players usually win basketball games, because they can make something out of nothing. Team defensive schemes can take away what you want to do.”
But more often the Celtics have taken away what the Celtics want to do. And most often that’s happened on the road.
And that brings us back to the critical nature of tonight’s Game 5.
Were the Celts to fall behind in the series, it’s possible on some level that they could return to Cleveland with a what-the-hell attitude on Friday and put the Cavs on their heels. The hosts certainly seemed willing to be challenged in Game 4, but the C’s could never sustain anything to create a real concern.
It’s therefore not exactly win or go home for the season tomorrow night. But win or go back to Cleveland down 3-2 feels a lot like that.
How does Boston escape LeBron James switches on Terry Rozier? LeBron shot a perfect 4/4 on Rozier with nine points in a game that the Celtics lost by nine. Other elements plagued the Celtics in Cleveland, but none were more glaring. How’s Boston adjust? Jared Weiss of The Athletic weighs in. By Bobby Manning
David Richard-USA TODAY Sports
LeBron James threw Celtics fans into a spin cycle over the course of two games of methodical picks, forcing him primary defender off the ball and forcing 6’2” Terry Rozier to defend him. The repeated carnage resulted in 4-for-4 shooting and nine points for James in a series-tying game four win by the Cavaliers.
Al Horford said Boston trusts Rozier in those scenarios, and that they’d be there help side to assist him. That worked sometimes, especially when the Celtics could switch again to get a big man onto James before he made his move. That succeeded more in Boston, but James had his way with the Celtics’ defense at home.
Where do the Celtics go from here as they continue to “autoswitch” to death? Jared Weiss wrote about the mismatch and the Celts’ defensive scheme this week for The Athletic and returned to the CelticsBlog Pod to break it down and how Brad Stevens can counteract it in tonight’s pivotal game four.
Should the Celtics feed Aron Baynes more minutes in game 5? Nothing Aron Baynes did in game four was pretty, but in short time he sparked some momentum with switch stops and offensive rebounds. Could his size counteract Tristan Thompson’s recent success? By Bobby Manning
David Richard-USA TODAY Sports
In 16 minutes against the Cavaliers in Monday’s loss, Aron Baynes hauled in five offensive rebounds. The last one hit his palms by surprise, bouncing off an abundance of players piled in the post.
As he froze, like someone catching a stack of cash that fell out of the sky in disbelief, Al Horford pointed his finger toward the rim as if he was guiding Baynes to the hole in the backyard to bury it.
Those moments in a slow, dragging, muddy game that Boston could have pulled out of with a win sparked some hope, but as Baynes arrived at the line after that rebound in the fourth quarter Brad Stevens pushed to insert Marcus Morris back in the game in his place. It felt like if he would have pulled Baynes off the free throw line if he could.
While Morris struggled with foul trouble guarding LeBron James, he also fell to a team-worst -69 this postseason for Boston on the road. In limited run, lineups including Baynes, Horford, Terry Rozier, Marcus Smart and either Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown outscored the Cavaliers by 10 points in a game that the Celtics lost by nine, according to Jared Weiss.
The case for more Baynes minutes, averaging only 20 per game in this series, existed but faded in favor of small ball. Stevens started Tatum, Morris and Horford in the front court for the fourth straight game and lost the first quarter by 16 after falling behind 15 through 12 minutes in game three.
While the Celtics posted a -9.9 net rating this postseason when they simply place Baynes in with the starting four over Morris, combining him with Smart has paid dividends across a variety of five-man rotations that played over 13 minutes together this postseason.
Baynes over Morris and Smart over Brown rated a +8 in 49 minutes with the other three regular starters. Narrowing that down to this series, Baynes appeared in five of the Celtics’ most-used lineups and all five posted a positive net rating.
Only two of 12 Baynes lineups used against the Cavaliers through four games have been outscored per 100 possessions.
That’s no surprise after a regular season where three of Boston’s four regular rotations after Kyrie Irving went down featured Baynes and all posted positive ratings. Baynes even took the initiative to add a three-point shot, which he’s unloaded once per game in the playoffs at 52.4 percent efficiency to make himself capable on the offensive end.
Down 39-22, Baynes effectively drew Thompson far enough out of the paint in the corner on this play to remove him from pick-and-roll action for Horford.
Toward the later end of the quarter he successfully switched on to and stopped James in the half court. On another play, Baynes quickly removed Rozier off one of the deadly James switches he threw Rozier’s way throughout game four, but a series of quick passes found Rozier’s next assignment, Kyle Korver, on the opposite side of the court for a corner three.
Baynes will not stifle the fiery production James is beginning to induce on Boston’s defense with precision passing, he missed switches in game three, he’s not swift on his feet but his size removes a layer of dominance on the interior that the Cavaliers have exerted on Boston.
At this point, the Celtics aren’t winning the series by outshooting Cleveland. They’re going to grind out games on the defensive end the way they did in games one and two.
A Baynes lineup effectively jammed the lane on the defensive end late in the third quarter, allowing Smart to block a James drive inside after Larry Nance poured in a three-point put-back on the previous possession. After an early make by Rozier to start the third, that lineup pulled Boston within 10.
As Brown and Horford attacked the interior with Thompson off the floor through the middle portion of the fourth, Baynes effectively attached a defender to him on the perimeter. Boston pushed further, getting within six.
Baynes’ direct contributions to the scoreboard were small, but his presence helped grind down the pace of the game as Cleveland tried to soar away. This play wasn’t pretty, but important.
Morris stood on the sideline, ready to enter the game for the final seven minutes but couldn’t with Baynes at the line. On the other end of the floor he broke around a Thompson screen and stuffed Korver’s shot into the stands, securing his biggest play of the game and his exit.
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From that point on Cleveland outscored Boston 15-13 and sealed their win.
Per usual, Stevens remained coy on lineup changes at shootaround today, but it wouldn’t be stunning to hear Baynes’ name called over the PA speakers at TD Garden tonight before tip-off.
Brad Stevens on the cure for his team's desperate shot selection By TomLane
Photo via Maddie Meyer/Getty Images North America
Whatever the reason for the Celtics numerous missed jams and layups in Game Four against the Cleveland Cavaliers, I doubt we will see a repeat of that.
According to the NBA's Taylor Snow, Boston missed 15 shots at the rim, and had they made half of them, we could have expected a different outcome. "The missed dunks. Those happen." is what coach Brad Stevens had to say about the wayward shot attempts.
Stevens also cited poor decision-making and Cleveland's physical play in the paint as other culprits. Desperate, rushed shot attempts were also to blame as the Celtics fell into a 19-point hole in the first half. Home court and the loyal Boston fans may help cure a lot of that (per NBA's Taylor Snow):
"On some plays at the rim, [the Cavs] have done a great job of getting to us, contesting us, making it as tough as possible," Stevens via conference call with the media. "And at that time, we either have to finish with authority, or we have to make a kick-out (pass).”
One of the reasons why Boston's offense struggled in this area was because it was generally playing too rushed. The C’s fell behind by as many as 19 points during the first half, which naturally caused them to play with a sense of desperation.
“Sometimes you get that way when you’re behind so much,” said Stevens. “You try to hit home runs and you try to do that kind of stuff. Obviously you’re playing against the best of the best on a great stage and I thought that we did get hurried a little bit."
So the series is tied at 2-and-2 and Game Five is at home tonight. The Celtics could certainly use some Shane Larkin energy if he is able to play, but it might also give Cleveland another chance at a mismatch for Lebron James. A lineup change? With Brad, no one ever knows. One thing is for sure. We won't be seeing so many rushed, desperate shot attempts. Not at home in front of Boston fans.
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