Underdog Celtics Aren't Just Happy to Be Here: Boston Can Compete vs. Cavs
The Boston Celtics overcame key injuries and theoretically crippling inexperience to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second straight season, eliminating the Philadelphia 76ers by a final score of 114-112 on Wednesday.
Without Kyrie Irving or Gordon Hayward and facing heavy underdog status at the outset of the series against Philly, Boston triumphed behind rookies and scrappers and backups and diabolically effective ATO sets. You'd think overachievement to that degree would result in a classic "happy to be here" mindset.
But it'd be a mistake—for the Cleveland Cavaliers and for us—to assume Boston is satisfied.
Yes, the Celtics are almost endearingly green. When TNT's Rosalyn Gold-Onwude asked Jayson Tatum about slowing LeBron James down in the next round, his response was perfectly appropriate for a 20-year-old.
"It's my first year, so I don't know," he said. "I don't have the answer."
Tatum had plenty of answers against the Sixers. The rookie scored 25 points to lead his team. Jaylen Brown, the grizzled vet by comparison at 21, scored 24. It wasn't just those two, though. Contributions came from everywhere. If it's possible for an entire team to become an unsung hero, the Celtics achieved it.
The defining late-game sequence included Marcus Smart following a Tatum miss with a putback, after which he played stout post defense on Dario Saric, forcing a turnover. Immediately after that, Smart found Tatum slipping inside for a layup. On the ensuing possession, Terry Rozier dug down to knock the ball away from Joel Embiid, whom Aron Baynes had just wrestled into two point-blank misses.
You don't see Hayward or Irving or even Al Horford in that breakdown (though, to be fair to Horford, he has been Boston's best player throughout the postseason). You see role guys and kids. It's basically unheard of.
And while we're here, let's specifically appreciate Smart's contributions to the stretch that won Boston Game 5:
Nobody was surprised by Smart's game-swinging impact:
The luxury Boston's competitiveness and alarmingly advanced maturity affords us is this: We don't need to burn calories wondering whether the Celtics will get complacent or play a little loose in the next round. They seem unlikely to view their trip to the conference finals as a chance to play with house money.
Their level of intensity and attention to detail on both ends are defining characteristics—traits unlikely to disappear just because the stage gets bigger and the opponent gets better.
So instead of hand-wringing over a young team's psychology, we can wonder about how Boston's lack of rim protection (it ranked 18th in frequency of shots allowed at the rim and 12th in opponent's conversion rate, mid-pack numbers that, in the playoffs, become exploitable). Will the Cavs' spacing produce layup lines down the middle for James? Will he run roughshod over the Celtics' interior D like he did the Toronto Raptors'?
We can note how the Celtics had the bodies—Tatum, Brown, Smart, Horford, Marcus Morris and even Semi Ojeleye—to throw at Ben Simmons. And we can appreciate how that means they're as well equipped as anyone to throw those same bodies at James in the next round.
We can rack our brains to figure out how many corner threes Baynes will hit against the Cavs. Five? Ten? Infinity?
We can appreciate how Horford's mobility and punishing post game will make life immensely more difficult for Kevin Love on both ends. No more taking apart Jonas Valanciunas in space.
We can worry about how Cleveland won't gift-wrap entire quarters by turning the ball over and fielding shaky, poorly spaced lineups like the Sixers did. Or how the Celtics could find a lot of the same success they had bullying JJ Redick and Marco Belinelli on the block against Kyle Korver, George Hill or Jordan Clarkson. Yet again, Smart's role in that regard will be key.
Boston, meanwhile, doesn't have a weak defender to pick on. Cleveland will have to earn its buckets honestly.
We can do all that. Pore over all the data, dissect the matchups, reconstitute them and cut them apart again. But what we can't do between now and Game 1 on Sunday (in Boston, by the way, which is another advantage for the Celts) is spend time on the idea that the Celtics are at risk of losing their edge or being overwhelmed by the moment.
This is not a team likely to wither under the gaze of James, who hasn't ended a season anywhere but the Finals in almost a decade, even if Tatum's not sure yet how to guard him.
If the Celtics fall to the Cavs, it'll be because they aren't good enough. It'll be because James is indomitable.
It won't be because Boston blinks.
Stats courtesy of Basketball Reference, Cleaning the Glass or NBA.com unless otherwise specified.
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