Just not the same old Celtics
Are these two teams even playing the same sport?
There’s not much else left to wonder about what has become of the Eastern Conference finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Celtics. After a second straight instantaneous blowout at the Garden, how this is going to end is no longer debatable. Not that it ever was in the first place.
The only things worth debating are how far away the Celtics still are from playing the kind of NBA basketball the Cavs played last night in their 130-86 win and how in the hell these Celtics ever ended up with homecourt advantage in the first place.
By falling behind 30-19 after one quarter in Game 2 of a series — by law, it has to go at least four games, but could have been concluded fairly last night without anyone complaining too loud — the Celtics have now trailed by a combined 25 points, 6237, after both first quarters while the Cavs were playing NBA basketball and the Celtics were playing . . . well . . . beats me. And them. There are many reasons this happened for the second straight game, but one obvious reason was the disappearance of tiny Isaiah Thomas, who finally played like the little big man he is. Thomas was a Lilliputian wandering lost through a thicket of Brobdingnagians, all of whom not only towered over him but surrounded him like human Saran Wrap and squeezed the life out of him.
By halftime the Celtics’ most explosive scorer had two points. That is not a misprint. That is a mismatch, which is what this series has become. Actually, to be fair and balanced about it, it stopped being a mismatch after the first quarter of Game 1 and quickly became what it was last night. A massacre.
It is not a pleasant thing to write this but then it was far less pleasant to watch. With two and a half minutes to go in the first half, not only did the Cavaliers lead the Green by 37 points (6629) but LeBron James and Kevin Love led the Green by nine, (38-29). Not much you can say about that if you’re a Celtic but, “Where you going on vacation?”
This is not meant to imply the Celtics weren’t trying. Truth be told, watching them last night was trying. Very trying.
It is one thing to lose to a better team, which is clearly what the reality of this series is. But to be down by 41 points at the half after the final indignity of a turnaround jumper from the corner by JR Smith at the buzzer is, well, impossible to have predicted or to imagine.
All season long the Celtics were a scrappy band of warriors. They outplayed most teams and outfought all of them. They were not always great but they were always tough. Not last night. The fight went out of them, it seemed, after Cleveland went on an early 12-0 run in the first quarter and it completely dissipated during a 33-6 second quarter run in which it seemed like the Cavaliers were not in a playoff game. They were at shoot around.
This did not resemble a playoff game. It resembled North Carolina vs. North Adams. Both were playing for the money but only one team was playing for the win.
Generally speaking, there is no shame in losing to a superior opponent. The shame comes when you not only lose but fail to offer up even token resistance. I mean let’s be honest. The Cavs are good. But 40 points better than the Celtics?
No, that took some doing. Or not doing if you were a Celtic.
It would have been unseemly for Brad Stevens to have suggested to Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue that they play running time in the second half, but if he had done so it would not have been as unseemly as the way his team played during a second quarter in which they were outscored 42-13. How is that possible?
Not without some effort. Or actually only with no effort.
The Cavaliers not only built up a 41-point lead in the first half, they outscored the Celtics’ halftime total of 31 . . . in each quarter. It is not often you see a halftime score sheet in which every player is in single digits unless you’re at a Harlem Globetrotters-Washington Generals game.
For most of the night, the Celtics couldn’t shoot the basketball. They couldn’t rebound the basketball. They could, however, turn over the basketball. The latter was not particularly helpful but at least they did something with the ball.
One can talk today about traveling to Cleveland for Game 3 and playing for pride or whatever if you want but if you do you’ll sound Sean Spicer at a White House press briefing.
To avoid that fate, you could talk instead about having the overall No. 1 pick in the upcoming draft and all that it might mean for the future of the Celtics. The only problem there is if you do you’ll also have to admit what was made obvious last night.
It’s going to take a lot more than a 19-year-old point guard from Washington named Markelle Fultz to stop the buzz saw that ran through the Boston Celtics last night.
A lot more.