Cavaliers blitz Celtics to take Game 1: 3 takeaways

The Cleveland Cavaliers blitzed the Boston Celtics to take Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, 117-104.

Be honest: When did you turn off Game 1 between the Cavaliers and Celtics? After the first quarter? At half? After the third? Didn’t even bother to watch because you just knew the Cavs would win?

Fortunately for you — and unfortunately for the state of the NBA Playoffs — any of those choices was the correct answer. Blame Tristan Thompson’s dominance on the offensive glass, or blame Kevin Love’s ridiculous shooting or blame LeBron’s dominance.

The Cavaliers continued their tear through the Eastern Conference, adding three more 30-point quarters. Their offense was so good, coupled with their energy and effort on defense, the Celtics didn’t pass the Cavaliers’ first-quarter total until 2:41 left in the first half. In other words, the Celtics didn’t break 30 until about three minutes left in the second quarter.

Even better, LeBron sat for 2:56 to start the second quarter, leaving a lineup that had played two minutes the entire season. When’s the last time LeBron sat for almost three consecutive minutes without the Cavaliers nearly sinking?

The Celtics had their moments, though the actual number of moments barely reaches a benchmark to warrant the plural form. Jaylen Brown had a good game for a 20-year-old rookie with 10 points 5-7 shooting. Marcus Smart, for all his flopping, sparked the mini-run the Celtics went on in the third quarter with his tenacious and pesky defense and hustle — though the monkey wrench is the mini-run made what was a 26-point game to a 17-point game.

Here are three takeaways from Game 1.

Takeaways

LeBron James and company feasted at the rim: The Cavaliers were the best team in the NBA when it came shooting 3s. In Game 1, that was unnecessary:

In today’s NBA, when a team gets out to a double-digit lead without hitting a 3, then those are the games you turn off at the half.

Allow this play to speak on the first half for the Celtics:

Poor Kelly Olynyk, he never had a chance. The Celtics tried everything. You name a player and odds are they were switched onto an island against LeBron beyond the 3-point-line. In the first half, LeBron attempted 15 shots, something he hadn’t done in a first half in the regular season and only one other time this postseason. He got to the rim whenever he wanted, driving into the chests of Jae Crowder, Olynyk and Al Horford.

As a team, the Cavs followed their superstar, shooting 68 percent from within the restricted area in Game 1. They shot 26 of 38 from in the paint. If they win the title and upset Golden State, it will be with their 3-pointers. But as they steamroll through the East, it’s not as dire.

This is the Tristan Thompson series: On this team, and in the reality that is the NBA, there’s really no such thing as a Thompson series when your teammate happens to be at worst the second-best player in NBA history. Every series with LeBron James is a LeBron James series.

But Thompson will be a huge factor for the remainder of this series. His never-ending assault on the offensive boards — he had half of the Cavs’ 12 offensive rebounds — will continue to cause problems for the Celtics’ lack of size. His energy has already gotten under the skin of Smart and Isaiah Thomas, though that could partially be attributed to the emotions of the playoffs.

But if a game gets close at all, Brad Stevens showed he’s willing to resort to Hack-a-Thompson, which not only mitigates the onslaught of the Cavs offense, it stops LeBron James from being LeBron.

Thompson won’t get the glory of dropping 30 points, but it doesn’t mean he won’t be a key part to another Finals trip.

Kevin Love continues to score early in a series: The Love saga in Cleveland is filled with chapters of ups and downs. At some points Love looks like the dominant 24-12 force he was in Minnesota, while others he makes you wonder if the Cavs were better off keeping Andrew Wiggins as LeBron (they weren’t) eases into twilight of his prime — though the exact trajectory seems interminable.

The 2017 NBA Playoffs haven’t been much different for Love, even if the Cavaliers hadn’t exactly needed his production to ensure their 9-0 start. He wasn’t on the floor for the Cavs’ 26-point comeback against the Indiana Pacers, and his scoring production seemingly fades the longer a series goes on.

But, early in a series, Love shows out. In Game 1 against the Celtics, he scored 32 points on 9-16 shooting and 12 rebounds. He finished plus-17. In three Game 1s, he’s scored 17, 18 and 32 points. His four best games this postseason have come in either Game 1 or Game 2.

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It could be nothing, a moment of apophenia — searching for patterns where there aren’t any. But if one’s an incident and two’s a coincidence, then three is a pattern. We’ll see if it’s a pattern with Love by Game 3 on.