Game 7 ECF: Cleveland Cavaliers (4-3) 87 - 79 Boston Celtics (3-4)
First published May 28th, 2018
I'm going to try not just to say that Lebron won this game because he's the best player alive and it's not even funny... The "younger legs" vs "experience" argument will always be used with the hindsight of who wins, but i thought when the game started that the Cavs were having real trouble keeping up with Tatum, Brown and Rozier's movement. I can particularly remember a Tatum cut that left Lebron miles behind him in the wing. However the absolute lack of transition points from the Celtics is an under-talked big point. The Lebron miss into easy points used to be bread and butter in the Cleveland losses.
Aaron Baynes' job on defense has been a revelation to me these whole playoffs. Even when guarding 1v1 outside the paint. And most of Lebron's "pounding the ball tracking back and long contested shot" plays looked and ended like this... Lebron had very though 1v1 scenarios during the first half. If he doesn't have the ability to destroy people on single coverage, the defense won't collapse or double him and this whole "surround Lebron by with shooters" thing won't work. However, let me be clear those "shooters" were only getting off bricks and this dynamic was a big issue for most of those two quarters.
Not having Kevin Love means LeBron has to box out more. Too many times it was too easy for Horford, Baynes or Morris to get position (usually whoever wasn't with Thompson, who was amazing this series and Larry Nance sucked tonight). I also understand that he tries to save himself since he's the only guy getting offense done, but that won't do if the the other team gets many second chance points.
Tatum's level of confidence and assertiveness in a game 7 of a conference finals blows me away. Look at him picking up Lebron. This dude's ceiling is whatever he wants it to be should health be on his side. This is not even about this game but more a comment on how much i love his potential. Dude's a fucking rookie and if you don't keep reminding yourself of how absurd that is you forget it fast by watching him.
But the outside shot wasn't falling for the Celtics either (and never would). With with some Horford PnRs and blown switches from everyone in a black jersey one time or another they were getting everything they wanted in the paint. Going back to doubling Horford helped keep Boston's offense more out on the perimeter and it was during this time that Cleveland made their second quarter run.
This Cavs run was also very much during a Lebron "rest during the game" period. But great job creating from Hill during most plays, the only time where the offense wasn't being carried by James. And the one Lebron heavy play resulted in JR getting his first three at the garden. Having a bit of a less predictable offense diminished their turnovers, where they had something like a 6-1 lead, and meant that the threat is bigger whenever LeBron does take the play for himself. They had to be happy going with such a small difference to the half.
The lineup with Hill, JR, Green, James and TT was great that second half. I thought Smith was abysmal at the start of the third but he got a bucket followed by a steal and we had a tied game so whatever. The second half of that quarter was just the Lebron show. Rest time was over and it wasn't even about scoring but he got looks for everyone and showed effort all around. On the other side we saw a lot of Rozier plays that went nowhere. He had a very unfortunate where nothing went in for him and he was constantly getting attacked off switches. A TL;DR of this stretch can be found here. I know it was his TO and he didn't get back on offense but that was awesome.
One thing i should mention is i failed to understand the multiple plays where the Cavs seemed scared to give space for a Marcus Smart shot when he was the ball handler in a PnR. I'm not sure why... I swear i recall something that looked like they were hedging. I haven't talked about Smart we know what he does and how good he's at it. His rebounds and strips are stellar.
Brad with 7 minutes to go on the 4th went to a line up with Smart as the smallest guy. I liked that there was no one to attack and every switch was something Boston can live with. However, they seemed to have issues with dealing with Lebron's high PnR, mostly because it was taking Horford out from defending inside and they became too scared to leave Jeff Green alone for a shot, something they previously were ok with fighting only with rotating and closing out.
Besides Rozier's ice cold shooting night, i thought Brown was also a particular let down on offense. Some of those "bail out time" threes were very very rough. It really must hurt to think how different this all could've been if Rozier could have made any of the huge amount of open shots he had the final 2 minutes. The James and-1 on the fast-break was the nail that killed this.
The Celtics really could be in the Finals right now but maybe the lack of offense is as much of a problem as we thought it was. Without Love they lost someone they were exploiting. Honestly can't believe the Cavs are in the finals after watching how the playoffs were going for them. And they didn't need to hit the usual amount of threes to get it done. Jeff Green went well above expected value, that Cavs lineup i mentioned played some good defense and Lebron James is still Lebron James. He played 48 minutes. I don't even know what to say about that. He's fucking amazing and it's insane to watch him.
(Reddit)
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