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LeBron James and Kyrie Irving combined for 56 points, including the Cavs' final 28 points overall, on Tuesday, leading the way to a 99-91 win in Game 2 of their best-of-seven series against the seventh-seeded Celtics.
Once again, Brad Stevens' club came out ready to play, making a concerted effort to press Cleveland's ball-handlers defensively, contest everything and take the fight right to the heavily favored Cavs. But despite missing 22 of their 29 3-point shots and committing 18 turnovers that led to 22 Celtics points, the Cavs were able to hold on behind the scoring prowess of James and Irving to take a commanding 2-0 lead with the stage set to shift to Boston.
"That's a very well-coached team. Very well-coached, very well-prepared," James told TNT's Rachel Nichols after the game. "For us being a new group together, we're learning on the fly. I think being down, being able to come back, face a little adversity, I think it's good for us. We can make a couple more mistakes at home than we can on the road, and we can't play how we've played in Game 1 and Game 2 come Thursday in Boston."
James scored 15 of his game-high 30 points in the fourth quarter, with Irving pouring in nine of his 26 in the frame. They outscored the Celtics 24-21 in the final frame by themselves, with James bouncing back from a sluggish start to take control down the stretch.
"[My teammates] needed me to be a leader [in the fourth quarter] and that's all I tried to do," said James, who made 11 of his 22 field-goal attempts to go with nine rebounds, seven assists and two blocks alongside six turnovers in 42 minutes. "Tried to score, tried to rebound, tried to assist. I've got 11 turnovers in two games. I need to clean that up — that's 5 1/2 per game, that's not good, I've got to clean that up — but I just try to do whatever this team needs to help them win."
While James started slowly for the second straight game, Irving picked up right where he left off in his sensational Game 1. The All-Star point guard scored nine points on 4-for-6 shooting in the first quarter, teaming with center Timofey Mozgov (eight points and three blocks in 9 1/2 minutes) to keep the Cavs' offense afloat as James, Kevin Love and J.R. Smith combined for just six points on nine shots in the first.
But while Irving and Mozgov were cooking, the Celtics were making their presence felt with hard-nosed defense, working to deny the ball and plug up passing lanes. Boston created four Cleveland in the first 6 1/2 minutes to take an early 16-8 lead behind hot starts from center Tyler Zeller and rookie guard Marcus Smart.
Cleveland would regain its footing with a flurry of buckets — one Kyrie layup out of the pick-and-roll, another off a fast-break dime from LeBron, and a pair of Mozgov dunks — but the Celtics rode hard work on the glass (seven offensive rebounds, 12 second-chance points) and opportunistic play off Cleveland cough-ups to a 26-25 lead after 12 minutes.
Boston kept the pressure on in the second, continuing to create good looks off purposeful ball movement that took advantage of a lackadaisical Cleveland defense while forcing the Cavs to take tough shots. An Avery Bradley layup off a sweet hit-ahead pass in transition by Evan Turner pushed the Celtics lead to 45-38 with just over 4 1/2 minutes remaining in the second, leading to some uncomfortable murmurs among the Quicken Loans Arena faithful:
The Cavs answered the call, however, closing the quarter on a 15-5 run to take a 51-50 lead into halftime, before opening it up in the third. Attacking play from Irving and Love resulted in trips to the foul line, and Mozgov overwhelmed Boston's bigs to get buckets for himself on the interior and create second-chances for his teammates. Before you knew it, the lead had ballooned to 14, highlighted by a pair of above-the-rim hookups among members of the Big Three.
First, there was James hooking up with Love on a reverse alley-oop dunk from a step past half-court:
Then, LeBron found himself on the receiving end of a runout lob from Kyrie, resulting in a thunderous throwdown:
The Celtics wouldn't go away, though, making a run once spark-plug reserve guard Isaiah Thomas came into the game to initiate offense. The diminutive point man's persistent attacking off the dribble against whichever Cav he came across — Irving, Matthew Dellavedova, Iman Shumpert — collapsed the Cleveland defense, and his ability to finish through contact helped did the rest:
With Mozgov on the bench for the final 6 1/2 minutes of the quarter after picking up his fourth foul, there was nobody in the paint to deter Thomas, whose dribble-penetration created openings for Jared Sullinger and Jae Crowder to cook. Behind big minutes from the bench, Boston closed the quarter on a 14-7 run that cut Cleveland's lead to 75-68 heading into the fourth quarter.
From there, Boston hung tough, drawing within a single bucket after this tough and-one layup by Thomas with just over nine minutes remaining:
But LeBron and Irving just kept providing answers every time the Celtics got close, keeping the feisty underdogs at arm's length before James put an end to things with a block on a Zeller runner in the lane followed by a layup right past the former Cavalier center on the other end:
The highlight doesn't show the two huge offensive rebounds — one by Shumpert, the other by Tristan Thompson, who absolutely terrorized the Celtics on the glass (11 rebounds, five offensive, in 26 1/2 minutes off the bench) — to extend the Cavs' final possession and give LeBron the opportunity to put the game to bed. After Boston controlled the boards early, Cleveland took over late, finishing with a 47-39 rebounding edge, a 20-19 advantage in second-chance points, and a 42-36 upper hand in points in the paint led by Mozgov (16 points, seven rebounds, five blocks) as they pulled out the win.
Thomas finished with 22 points on 6-for-14 shooting with seven assists and four turnovers in 30 minutes off the bench for the Celtics, who exit Cleveland down two games but having played the seemingly coasting Cavs tighter than many expected and feeling very much in the thick of the series.
"We're right there," Thomas said after the game. "I think we shot 38 [percent] and we're still in the game. We gotta lock in and get this next game."
To get it, they're going to have to find some answers for James and Irving. For his part, coach Stevens seems encouraged by the improvement his team made in that department between Sunday afternoon and Tuesday night.
"We made those guys earn everything they got, and I think that's a step in the right direction from Game 1," he said.
That's certainly better than a step in the wrong one, but at this time of year, moral victories get you nothing but one loss closer to the end of your season. The Celtics very well may be able to shoot and play better when action resumes at TD Garden on Thursday night; whether that would be enough to overtake a Cavaliers team that can throw a pair of All-World scorers and playmakers at them, though, remains an open question.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
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