Cavaliers Ride Big Two in Win Over Celtics: Behind the Box Score

Cleveland Cavaliers (16-7) 89
Boston Celtics (14-11) 77
[Box Score]

The first matchup of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics since their rowdy first round matchup in the playoffs last year certainly didn’t fail to live up to the expected emotions. On the surface this was just a matchup between two of the top eight Eastern Conference teams. There was a larger subplot at play, though, in the wake of Kevin Love’s injury against the Celtics last year along with Jae Crowder’s injury as well.

This game sort of played out like a playoff game. The Celtics came out with a lot of energy and hung in there with the Cavaliers for a while, but this game always had a sense of inevitability. The Cavaliers were running decent offense in the first half but were missing good shots, which allowed the Celtics to go into halftime with the lead. But in the second half the Cavaliers tightened up the defense and pulled away to secure the win.

The Celtics did their best to try getting under the Cavaliers’ skin with Jae Crowder especially running his mouth directly in LeBron’s ear in the first half. Making LeBron mad is always a curious strategy, but as usual, LeBron didn’t let the talking get to him and instead he just ramped up his defensive effort. It can be a good team exercise to find themselves in a chippy game every now and then, particularly when they use the intensity to channel a masterful defensive performance.

Outside of the defense, this was really a game about the Cavaliers’ Big Two as LeBron James and Kevin Love carried the offense for most of the game. This wasn’t the prettiest game they’ll play this season but it was a great way to close out the road trip. The Celtics are a good team (somehow) and they’ve been really good on offense this season. The Cavaliers have to feel good about the way their defense was able to clamp down on the Celtics as they took over the game.

Now a look at the numbers…

• 44 to 24 – The Cavaliers outscored the Celtics 44 to 24 in the paint this game. 20 of LeBron’s 24 points came in the paint. It was clear early on in this one that the Cavaliers had a game plan of attacking the Celtics in the paint with Kevin Love being active in the post early and LeBron attacking the paint nonstop. The Celtics really couldn’t find an answer for the Cavaliers inside the paint. The Celtics’ guards really like to extend on defense and put a lot of pressure on the perimeter, and the Cavaliers looked prepared for it as they tried to counter by pressuring the Celtics on the interior.

• 74.25% – The Cavaliers held the Celtics to 74.25 percent of their season scoring average. Boston came into this game 6th in the NBA in points per game at 103.7, but the Cavaliers’ suffocating defense held them to just 77 points. In fact, the Celtics scored only 31 points in the entire second half. With 6:16 left in the game, Evan Turner hit a shot to bring the Celtics within seven at 79-72. From there, the Cavaliers would only allow five more points as the Cavaliers held them to 25 percent shooting from the field over that stretch. The Celtics scored only 16 points in the fourth quarter, and that was actually more than they scored in the third quarter (15).

• 25 of 40 – In the first half, Kevin Love and LeBron James combined to score 25 of the team’s 40 points. The 3rd leading scorer at the half was Anderson Varejao with 4. Some of this was simply the gameplan of attacking the Celtics inside, with Love and LeBron getting the overwhelming majority of the looks. But some of it was also just poor shooting on quite a few good looks. LeBron finished the game with 24 points and Love finished with 20 while Mo Williams was the only other Cavaliers in double figures with 10. While this was far from the team’s best offensive performance this season, it was at least comforting to see their top two players shouldering the load so well.

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• 35:46 – J.R. Smith played a team high 35:46 in this game and his boxscore numbers won’t jump off the page at anyone, but J.R. had one of those games where he showed infectious effort and hustle, doing the little things to keep plays alive and extending possessions. J.R. also made a couple timely shots and grabbed six rebounds, but his impact was really felt mostly as a disruptive force.

• One – The number of injury concerns in this game that makes me uneasy? One. Iman Shumpert, playing in only his second game of the season, left the game in the second half due to a groin injury and did not return. Coach David Blatt said after the game that he didn’t have any information on Iman’s condition, but he said he was concerned about it. It would be a major bummer for the team to lose Shump after just getting him back, but unfortunately, this has become a big part of Iman’s career. I think everyone is really crossing their fingers and hoping for the best here. With Kyrie Irving getting closer to returning every day, it would be really nice to see the Cavaliers play at full strength for once.

The schedule has certainly eased up on the Cavaliers these last two weeks, and the Cavaliers really needed the lightened load as they look to get everyone back. Ending this stretch of four road games in their last five with a couple solid road wins should give the Cavaliers some good momentum as they prepare to host the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday.