NBA: 30-point blowout! Cavaliers report back to Boston

The Cleveland Cavaliers have reduced the Conference Finals against Boston Celtics to 1:2. In their first home game of the series they dominated from the start and celebrated a clear 116:86 victory. LeBron James presented himself in excellent condition.

Both coaches offered their lineups from game 2, so the Cavaliers again relied on Tristan Thompson as centre and the resulting economies of scale.

There were also advantages for the Cavs in the initial phase: Their defense came along much improved and after 7 minutes only 4 points admitted. On the other hand, George Hill was involved in his team’s first 9 points, plus three from LeBron James and J.R. Smith – that was 20-4 and the Celtics’ offensive then returned to normal a bit, but they did not make many stops: 32-15 after the first quarter.

In the second quarter the Celtics found a better throwing rhythm. However, their backlog did not get smaller because the landlords kept their litter quota high. The next LeBron threesome was +20, he also had a spectacular reverse dunk in his quiver and assisted to a very difficult Smith threesome. A blowout was imminent, at halftime it was already 61:41.

After the break, it didn’t take Cleveland 2 more threesomes to sink, while Boston had trouble getting free throws. Jaylen Brown also took the fourth foul. There was not much hope for a comeback. Nevertheless, it remained heated, Marcus Smart and Smith clashed. There were also sporting highlights in the form of James-Alley-oops. Tension was gone: 87:63.

Also in the final section the guests did not manage to get back on their feet. Kyle Korver hit a few longballs that increased the lead to 30 points. At this point at the latest garbage time was called for (which by the way took place without Rodney Hood). In the end it was 116:86.

LeBron James scored 27 points (8/12 FG), 12 assists and 5 rebounds, Korver (5/5 FG) from the bank 14 points, Kevin Love (14 rebounds) and Hill each reached 13th top scorer of Celtics was Jayson Tatum with 18 points.

Game 4 goes up in the night to Tuesday at 2.30 (live on DAZN).

Cleveland Cavaliers – Boston Celtics 116:86, Series 1:2 (BOXSCORE)

He dictated the action at will, used his teammates according to their strengths and at the same time tried out new things like a one-handed spin pass (with the left hand) through numerous arms and legs. Highlights in the form of cracking dunks and alley-oops were on top of that, furthermore he remained without mistakes from the triple line (3/3). His plus-minus value of +31 was not surprisingly the best of the evening.

He is the most important player of the team, but never found in the game. Usually he was aggressively and closely defended, whereby he had to give up the splitting quickly. In total, he only came out of the field with 4 finishes (2 goals). Defensive also weak – but that was true for his whole team this time.

There were hardly any tactical changes compared to game 2. In the first half, Brad Stevens tried to compensate Thompson’s influence with his own large line-ups, with Baynes and Yabusele, for example, seeing minutes together. This also helped against the Cavs dominance on the board – but hurt in other areas. The Cavs managed much better to involve the “real” opponents in pick-and-rolls, which were always dangerous thanks to James. And since the Celtics’ defensive alliance didn’t work as well as it did last time, even apart from their individual weaknesses, and on top of that they had no advantages in terms of aggressiveness and commitment, there were simple points for the vice-champion.