The Cleveland Cavaliers led for all but 21 seconds on Sunday afternoon as they dispatched of the Boston Celtics, competing a four-game sweep with a 101-93 win at TD Garden. Cleveland led by as many as 21 points, but showed some frustration with Boston’s competitive spirit.
The Celtics failed to win a game, but the Cavaliers didn’t advance unscathed. They move onto the semifinals where they’ll face the winner of the Milwaukee Bucks-Chicago Bulls series. They may begin that series shorthanded. Kevin Love dislocated his left shoulder in the first quarter and didn’t return. The NBA could also discipline Kendrick Perkins for slapping Jae Crowder near the end of the second quarter and J.R. Smith for an incident in the third.
Smith was ejected for elbowing Crowder in the head while battling for a rebound. He told the media afterward that he was “scared as hell” that he’d be suspended, claiming the elbow wasn’t intentional.
“There’s a lot of intensity, there’s competitive, high-achieving athletes on both sides of the floor, tensions are going to flair,” Brad Stevens said.
The Celtics and Cavaliers had different takes on the Love injury. Olynyk was called for a loose ball foul as the two locked arms less than seven minutes into the game. Love immediately ran to the locker room holding his shoulder. The Cavaliers issued a press release that Love would be evaluated when the team returned to Cleveland.
“I didn’t see it, I watched it on film after the fact. I was told that it was two guys -- I guess he had his arm or something, Kelly had his arm -- I didn’t see it live,” said Stevens, who didn’t think Cleveland retaliated with Perkins and Smith. “I thought it was two guys locking each other. I thought the foul call was correct on Kelly. I can’t imagine there was any negative intent, that’s not the type of person he is. I hope Kevin’s OK to play whenever they play next.”
David Blatt agreed with Stevens, but didn’t completely rule out ill intent.
“I hope that it wasn’t a play on purpose,” Blatt said. “I don’t think it’s in the character of Olynyk to do that, but I hope not.”
As you might expect, Cleveland’s players had a different take.
"I thought it was a bush-league play," Love said. "I have no doubt in my mind that he did it on purpose.”
LeBron, who says he welcomes physical play, was suspect of Olynyk and, to a degree, Smith.
“I’ve seen the replay and it didn’t look like a basketball play,” James said. “I’ve seen a lot of tie-ups in my day and that tie-up was a little different. We want to play the game of basketball the right way. You want to be physical, but you never want the game to get out of hand where you have injuries. We had two of them tonight and you don’t wish that on nobody.”
The Cavaliers raced out to an early lead and had a 19-10 advantage when Love went out. Stevens saw signs of a problem early. He called an uncharacteristically early timeout after Cleveland accumulated five second-chance points on their first three possessions.
From that point out, the Celtics fought just to remain within single digits. Cleveland clamped down on defense in the second, holding Boston to 31.6% shooting and forcing seven turnovers. That allowed the Eastern Conference’s No. 2 seed to take a 57-36 edge into the second half.
“We talked very frankly at halftime. We wanted to come out and show ourselves better,” Stevens said. “We did, but we had put too much pressure to make every shot on us. I think we’ll look back and say, if a couple of those shots go down it’s a different story, but we weren’t very good in the second quarter.”
Picking up where things left off near the end of the half with Perkins and Crowder getting into it, play was aggressive in the third. The Celtics were without Crowder for much of the second half. He suffered a left knee injury while falling as a result of Smith’s elbow. The Celtics said after the game that his knee, not head, was the concern.
“I haven’t seen it, but we don’t know exactly what the deal is yet. He has a lower leg injury, as he fell, but he’s going to go get an MRI and everything else,” Stevens said. “I guess he got elbowed in the head and that’s how he fell, but I shouldn’t really be saying that. I couldn’t really see the play from my vantage point, but that’s what I was told.”
Even without perhaps their best two-way player, the Celtics trimmed Cleveland’s lead from 21 to nine after 36 minutes. Isaiah Thomas, who went 0 for 7 in the first half, was a big reason why. He broke out of his scoring slump with 11 points despite missing four of six shots. Cleveland’s offense sputtered as well -- they went 1 for 9 from three and 4 for 20 overall in the period -- which gave the Celtics a chance down the stretch.
Stevens started the fourth with a very small three-guard lineup featuring Phil Pressey, Marcus Smart and Thomas. The experiment didn’t last long, but at that point he had already played all 13 of his active players and even briefly employed a zone defense.
The Cavaliers led 91-75 with 3:14 left, but the Celtics pulled to within six with 37.1 seconds remaining. Gigi Datome then missed a three that could have made it a one-possession game.
In the end, the Celtics simply didn’t have enough.
“Above the four games, maybe the last four months,” Stevens said of the learning experience for his team. “Having to play from behind over the last few months and accomplishing something. Measuring yourself against the best in the East, in a lot of people’s eyes, we have a lot of information. That’s really good. We know where we can get better and we know individually where we need to improve, collectively where we need to improve. The best thing that I take from this year is that there’s growth, there’s building, there’s progress. Now we have to build on it. That’s the challenge, right? That’s the hard part.”
While the Celtics prepare for an important offseason, LeBron believes the brief series has better prepared the Cavaliers for the remainder of the postseason.
“The Celtics gave us the test that we needed,” he said, “some things that we haven’t seen in the regular season, and it will prepare us for the second round, which will be much tougher, we know that.”