This was the Celtics’ fourth “big game” in less than a week. After facing Chicago, Golden State and Charlotte and playing wire to wire in all three of them (coming out with wins in two), this was another tough match up, one that the Cavs took, 89-77. Cleveland came in riding a three game winning streak, and the Celtics’ only real advantage was a couple days of rest coming off the Charlotte game. Unless you count the officiating as an advantage to the C’s brand of physical defense. The referees were transported to the game direct from 1985. It was, shall we say, a loosely officiated affair.
Unfortunately for the Celtics, they shot poorly in the first half and worse in the second and that was pretty much the tale of the tape. They got good looks, routinely passing around the Cavs’ half-court defense to find the open man on the weak side, but they couldn’t buy a bucket.
Fatigue seemed to be a factor, at least mentally. The Celtics have been playing a pretty tough stretch lately, and if this isn’t a team that allows itself ‘schedule losses’ on the second night of a back-to-back, they’re certainly not immune to the phenomenon.
The Celtics started the game off hot, building a five point lead in the early going, before they got cold and Cleveland started to make shots. The Cavs had a three point lead midway through the quarter, but at the end of the quarter, the C’s were up two, 25-23. The Celtics were getting good looks on nearly every half-court set, and could’ve been up more if they hadn’t bounced about a dozen shots off the back of the rim.
The second quarter started off with the Cavs running a lineup of guys that qualify for senior discount coffee at Denny’s (before tonight, I had no idea Richard Jefferson was still in the league), and the Celtics couldn’t take advantage, as their bench crew proved to be as bad at hitting the basket as the starters were in the first. It would be nice to say that the Celtics’ shooting got better as the quarter progressed, but it would also be lying. Instead, the game just got kind of chippy. JR Smith was unable to stay in front of Isaiah Thomas and just as incapable of controlling his temper. A pair of hard fouls that left IT on the floor, along with the expected dose of LeBron whining (did you know he got called for a travel in the first quarter?) did a lot to escalate the tension.
The Celtics ended the half on a small run, and took a 6 point lead into the locker room, 46-40. At the half, the Celtics were shooting almost as well from outside the arc (35.7%) as they were inside it (38.7%), and the Cavs had notched a grand total of five assists, with no player making more than one.
Cold shooting followed the Celtics into the third quarter, in fact it got worse, and the Cavs closed the gap, tying the game at 50 five minutes into the quarter and then building a 10 point lead before the Celtics found any kind of offense, and even so, they only trimmed the 10 point deficit to 8 by the end of the third. The Cavs outscored the Celtics by 14 in the 3rd, and if anything, the Celtics looked like they were finally starting to feel the weight of their recent schedule. The Cavs are not a team that pushes the pace, and the Celtics, by the end of the third, looked slower than the Cavs.
A few Kelly Olynyk threes kept things deceptively close at the start of the 4th quarter, but the Cavs soon extended the lead to 13, 79-66, less than three minutes into the period. After that, the Cavs just had to hold the Celtics at arms’ length the rest of the way. The Cavs are good enough to do that, and the game ended less with a bang than a whimper, as Stevens subbed in his rookies with under a minute to go and the Cavs won by 12.
Green
Well, the first half was nice, as far as that goes.
Gross
The second half was a disaster. Celtics shooting was abysmal. They only hit 11 field goals in the second half. 11 field goals on 42 attempts.
The Celtics shot 32.2% for the night.
Greenlights
Avery Bradley dunks on all the Cavs https://t.co/o8riyESCrC
— John Karalis (@RedsArmy_John) December 16, 2015
James Young rebound wrestling. https://t.co/e5ECJJ97dL
— Chris Forsberg (@ESPNForsberg) December 16, 2015
Grid
The Celtics missed 59 shots tonight.
That’s all you need to know, really.
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