There was pretty much an offensive and defensive foul on every shot the last 4 minutes. Another blatant bad call was Saric camping in the paint at least a good 5 seconds before hitting the behind his head layup.
Celtics defense is better than the Cavs defense. That is a HUGE regular season fact and although the Cavs improved greatly in the Toronto series the defensive edge still goes to Celtics - way more switchable players, fewer players to hide, better 3-pt defense etc... LeBron is a great trump card that has prevailed in the past, but that does not make the Cavs automatic to win the next series and while LeBron's presence alone gives the Cavs a puncher's chance v the West, the Celtics team defense is engineered both physically and conceptually to compete against teams like the Warriors and Rockets. Celts probably don't have the offensive horses to get it done this season, but they matchup better defensively against anyone than the Cavs do.
Boston average age 24.82, Philly 24.69 (link below, pre Kyrie injury!) - that is essentially the same. The difference is one of the key principals for the Celtics in Horford has tons of playoff experience and then Rozier, Brown and Smart were in conference finals last year. Philly has been a losing team until this season, they've succeeded in #1 to do of make the playoffs and shake off those bad habits (with help of experienced Reddick, Illyasova & Bellinnelli) but now learning how to win on most competitive game requires both eliminating those weaknesses you mentioned and making good plays in clutch situations (& experienced + inexperienced Sixers failed at this earlier in series). Wouldn't be surprised to see either Philly take a step back next year (but forward after that) or get to conference finals and learn more hard but productive lessons.
I would be surprised. They're going to have LeBron, and they'll be going to the finals after beating Boston in 6 or 7.
Honestly this series wasn’t too many plays away from Philly winning 4-1.
I don't know squat about how the trade would work, but isn't LBJ an unrestricted FA? Cleveland gets nothing.
Cleveland gets something IF LeBron wants the max salary and does a sign and trade. I'm not certain if he'd have to commit to multiple years to do that?
Boston's best player right now is Horford. He's experienced and settled down the youngins, who got to learn all year from Irving. Hell, Marcus Smart has experience on a winning team, too. Of the best Celtics players, only Tatum did not have experience playing in the playoffs before this series. Brown and Rozier played in the conference Finals last year...
I mean I wouldn’t trot a rookie SG out there who played 13 total games, in a series in which you are down, in the playoffs where every possession matters
It was pretty clear that my comment wasn't about the "numbers". It was using a guy that came through in the clutch in your description of a choke team. You could have said the Ollie/Purvis era.
I hear you. If Houston doesn't give the Warriors a series, then this year was much ado about a pre-destined outcome. Houston was the best team thru the regular season and absolutely everything they've done in personnel and style is geared towards beating the Warriors. The series should be at least very good and the defacto championship. Yet somehow I'm rooting for the Warriors to crush Houston b/c I'm not a fan of Harden's style & I've seen D'antoni crash & burn too many times. Maybe that'll change when the games start and if the Celtics take early games off the Cavs I will start rooting for the lesser opponent.
It is INSANE that Boston's #3 pick was the leading scorer in the series and the #1 overall pick Philly acquired from Boston could not get off the pine for a minute. Give Philly Tatum and Boston gets trounced by the Bucks if they even make the playoffs and the Sixers are favored over LeBron and a threat to the Warriors.
He also consistently wasn’t good at the end of games, so...
