The Celtics Just Got Their Asses Whooped And Were Completely Outplayed As The Cavs Dominate Game 2
Jesse D. Garrabrant. Getty Images.
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Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. As pathetic as it gets. This was the first road win for the Cavs all playoffs!
Once again, the Boston Celtics refuse to protect their homecourt advantage. Can we even call it an advantage at this point? 37-4 during the regular season and here we are, yet another playoff series where they drop Game 2 at home in embarrassing fashion. All this talk about the playoffs are a cakewalk blah blah blah is so fucking stupid. The playoffs are hard, the teams are good, and if you don't come to play on any given night you're going to get your ass kicked, just like we saw tonight.
Everything about the Celts performance tonight was embarrassing. Their defense was nonexistent, their energy was poor and their execution even worse. You're just not going to win games in the playoffs when you don't play defense, allow your opponent to go 13-28 from three and then on the other end not only are you not moving the ball and playing slow/isolation, you're also missing every shot you take. The Celts shot just 39/20% in this game, and while it had an eerily similar feel to the Heat Game 2 loss, the main difference was that loss was due mostly to prayer 3pt shooting. This loss had that, but it also came with the Cavs completely outplaying the Celts in all facets of the game. That's the inexcusable part. You should never be getting outplayed on your home floor in the playoffs to go up 2-0, especially when you JUST did this shit in the previous round.
You work all year to have this homecourt advantage, where all you have to do to win the title is win in your own building, and for some reason the Celts simply refuse to take advantage of it. These Cavs are not the Heat, yet we saw the Celts fuck around in the exact same way. Now they find themselves in the same situation as last round where a split in CLE is the bare minimum, and that certainly won't be easy considering the Cavs are undefeated at home this postseason.
For the millionth time, the Celts are making their life harder on themselves.
As always, it starts with the stars. Tatum and Brown were simply not good enough on either end. If you were asked which team had the best players on the floor in this game, the answer was not the Boston Celtics. That's an issue, especially when the Celts are also getting no-shows from their starting backcourt on both ends as well. Derrick and Jrue combined to shoot just 3-18 (1-10) while Garland and Mitchell took this game over in the second half. The game changed in the 3rd quarter when the Celts provided no resistance defensively and the Cavs started knocking down 3s (7-10) and from there the Celts were never able to recover.
Whatever high there may have been after Game 1, that's pretty much gone at the moment. As well as they played on Tuesday, they were that bad tonight. Sure it's a race to 4, but the entire dynamic of the series has shifted. It would be nice if the Celts didn't need these "wake up" calls considering how much playoff experience they already have, but such is out life.
Game 3 needs to be treated as a must win, because it essentially is. The Celts once again decided to fuck around, and it cost them another home loss. If they don't right the ship quickly, they aren't going to like what they find out.
We'll dive in more tomorrow. For now, let's just try and forget this dogshit performance even happened.