Cavaliers open as favorites over the higher-seeded Celtics

The Cavaliers should definitely be favored to win the East Finals, but nobody is going to fight them harder than these gritty Celtics.

Before the playoffs began, Terry Rozier was asked how far he believed the Boston Celtics could go, and he gave a simple answer.

“Finals,” he said.

It definitely seemed like a bold statement, considering Boston was entering the 2018 NBA playoffs without its two best players, Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward. But after outlasting the Bucks in seven games, then shocking the favored 76ers in five games, the Celtics are just four wins away from proving the confident Rozier right.

There’s only one problem. Standing in their way is LeBron James and the Cavaliers. The Cavs have won the East the last three seasons, and James hasn’t missed the NBA Finals since 2010, going to four straight Finals as a member of the Heat. This is also a rematch of last year’s Eastern Conference Finals, when the Cavaliers eliminated the Celtics in five games.

As expected, Cleveland will be opening this series as a minus-275 favorite – not a surprise at all considering LeBron and the Cavs just manhandled the Toronto Raptors, the top seed in the East, in a four-game sweep. LeBron is the greatest basketball player in the world today, and maybe the greatest of all time (that debate will never be settled, though I personally prefer Jordan), and he’s playing absolutely out of his mind right now, as he does every year in the playoffs.

The Cavaliers should definitely be favored in the series simply for the fact that they have James, but this particular Celtics team can’t be counted out. Even with Hayward at home and Irving watching from the bench, Boston has been playing top tier basketball in these playoffs, especially on their home court. The Celtics have not yet lost at the TD Garden in the postseason (7-0 so far), and as the two-seed in the East, they will have the home court advantage against the fourth-seeded Cavs.

The most impressive part has been the play of the 20-year-old rookie Jayson Tatum, the No. 3 overall pick in last year’s draft. He’s averaging 18.8 points in these playoffs, and he’s scored at least 20 points in seven-straight games, the first rookie in Celtics history to achieve that. Rozier has also shown superstar potential in these playoffs, averaging 18.2 points.

The duo of Rozier and Tatum has been the biggest reason why the Celtics are soaring into the East Finals. If they keep playing at this level, they will give the Cavaliers some problems. On top of that, the Celtics have been getting stellar defensive play from guys like Marcus Smart, Al Horford and Aron Baynes, who was the biggest reason why they were able to keep Joel Embiid contained in their last series.

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James has yet to face a team in the playoffs quite like these Celtics. They are tough, they are gritty, they have a handful of young superstars in the making, and their team chemistry is something special. Don’t count the Celtics out.