Cavaliers flip the script against Celtics in Game 2, making this series a mystery

BOSTON – What a strange thing sports are.

One night, the Celtics can destroy the underdog Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of the second round of the NBA playoff series, confirming our preconceptions: the top seeds with 64 wins will advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. Forty-eight hours later, these Cavs can destroy the heavy favorites with a 118-94 victory, tying the series and forcing us to question everything. Can they really beat this?

Perhaps I was reckless to fall into the ebb and flow. Perhaps Cleveland’s ingenuity helped them flip the script from one game to the next by 49 points. Perhaps Boston is more of a fool for no-show nights than any other great team in recent memory. Maybe none of us will know anything until that happens.

You figure it out, because the Cavaliers aren’t going to help us.

“We definitely wanted to have a [in Boston],” said Cavaliers guard Isaac Okoro, stating the obvious (at least after Game 1), before going through his Rolodex of sports clichés. “We know it’s a game. We know we have to protect the home court and just enjoy every game, be physical and take it day in and day out.”

“I like how you added that too,” said teammate Darius Garland, tipping his cap at that last platitude.

They knew what they were doing. We’re all going through this rigamarole, making nightly conclusions, when we know it’s a seven-game series. The Celtics will have their ups and downs. So do the Cavs. Who do you really believe wins in the end? After two divergent discussions, I doubt you’ve changed your mind.

After all, Boston defeated the Miami Heat in Game 1 of the opening series, lost the run by double digits, and dominated the next three games by a combined 68 points, just as we imagined. The Game 2 loss was an anomaly, in which Miami made a franchise-record 23 3-pointers to Boston’s eight.

These Heat also didn’t have Jimmy Butler, and these Cavs have Donovan Mitchell, who played a seasoned superstar game. The Celtics were forcing the ball out of Mitchell’s hands, as he was the only one who hurt them in Game 1, so he complied, dishing out six assists in a first half that ended in a 54-all tie. Evan Mobley and Caris LeVert were the biggest benefactors of Mitchell’s gravity, combining for 27 points in the first half. And when their performance earned the respect of the Boston defense, Mitchell went back to his usual work, scoring 23 of 29 points in the second half. He took what he was given, to borrow a cliché.

“They guarded me a little different, a little higher in the pick-and-roll…so the guys are open,” Mitchell said. “I’m just trying to manipulate the game that way. And then in the second half when you have guys that are making shots, it’s human nature to go back to your man and spread the game out.”

For his part, Mobley felt his 5-of-5 effort in a miserable Game 1 fourth quarter put him on a pace that carried him into Game 2, when he had a playoff career-high 21 points on field goal shooting. 9 of 15. .

“I feel like in the last game, second half, I got a flow and started to see how they were marking me, where I could score from, and I watched a little bit of film, I came here and tried to do the same thing and attack those points” , said Mobley, who added 10 rebounds, five assists and two blocks “And that’s what I did.”

(While we’re breaking the fourth wall here, can momentum be born from garbage time? Can you sleep two nights on a shooting streak? Can you figure things out in 25? Funny thing, these sports.)

This Game 2 could also be an aberration, as the Cavs shot 46.4% from 3 to the Celtics’ 22.9%, but it didn’t feel like an aberration at the time. It felt like a beating, which Jaylen Brown of Boston called “unacceptable.”

Brown also said after Game 1, “It’s going to be tough for a team to have to beat us four times,” and he’s right about both. His guess is as good as theirs about whether anything from either game is replicable.

For one night, Cleveland’s game plan worked perfectly. The Cavs scored more points than they had in the entire postseason and limited Boston to the fewest playoff points. That plan relied on Mobley to do two things: 1) Defensively, take the Celtics away from the arc and let them protect the rim, and 2) offensively, own the paint.

The first part, well, everyone should know that, and the Cavaliers were quick to admit it.

“It is a great benefit for us to have [Mobley] way back,” said Cleveland coach J.B. Bickerstaff, whose team won its first road game in the playoffs. “Our players’ confidence level and understanding that it’s there makes their job a lot easier and gives them more confidence in the ball against. elite offensive players.”

The second part? LeVert may have let this slip through the cliché machine.

“They started the game with [Al] Horford as your five,” he said. He’s the only rim protector on that unit, and so they have [Luke] Kornet in the second unit. And after that, it’s just these two. I think we did a great job tonight of looking for the mismatches. Evan did a great job of punishing the switches, and then when Horford was on top of me or the other guards, I think we did a great job of beating him and finishing at the rim, so I think we represented a lot of mismatches for them that they you You’ll have to find out.”

Hey, someone told us how they really feel, that the Cavaliers have no fear in the front court without Boston’s Kristaps Porziņģis. On the other hand, Boston’s Jayson Tatum said after Game 1, “We have a lot of different ways to win a game, and I assume it’s difficult for the other team to try to figure that out.”

So who is right? Maybe they both are. Maybe this best of seven will last longer than we thought.

We’ll have a better idea of ​​how this series will play out after Game 3. No more tweaking, then. Just basketball, where anything can happen, but the best team usually wins the series. Or not. That It is Sports.