Cavaliers (48-10) at Celtics (42-17) Game #60 2/28/25

[celticinorlando]

Jarrett Allen was a -23 in only 24 minutes.

Cavs are much better with Mobley at the 5 and Allen on the bench.

[Who]

D Mitchell with a superhuman 41pts on 13-26 FGA and 10-11 FTA plus 5 assists. So 41pts on roughly 31 possessions. Only 2 turnovers.

Tatum with 46pts 16reb 9ast and 3blks. Crazy numbers. He was 19-37 FGA 4-5 FTA. 37 shot attempts! Massive number. So 46pts on roughly 39 possessions. Only 3 turnovers.

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Other than D Mitchell, E Mobley was the only guy to show up in a major way. D Garland was only 9-23 FGA for 20pts 7ast. J Allen struggled all game and played only 24min. D Hunter had 12pts and 5reb. He was the only other guy in double digits. The bench guys all played solid but no major show-outs. It was mainly D Mitchell and E Mobley (in Q4) dragging them to victory.

On the Celtics side, it was mainly Tatum & Jaylen dragging them along on their backs.

Neither side had a strong team game. It was (largely) a duo of stars against another duo of stars.

[SparzWizard]

I think the Cs will end up the 3 seed. Only 2 games up on the Knicks now and Boston is mired in a losing streak.

NY will pass them here eventually. So I am prepared to play the Pistons in round 1.

Not even a given that the Celtics can beat the Pistons in round 1

[Who]

I think the Cs will end up the 3 seed. Only 2 games up on the Knicks now and Boston is mired in a losing streak.

NY will pass them here eventually. So I am prepared to play the Pistons in round 1.

It would be great to get NY in the 2nd round. I'd like to avoid MIL. Let them duke it out with CLE. They are the top 2 teams after BOS. NY is only 4th best.

[jpotter33]

I think the Cs will end up the 3 seed. Only 2 games up on the Knicks now and Boston is mired in a losing streak.

NY will pass them here eventually. So I am prepared to play the Pistons in round 1.

Not even a given that the Celtics can beat the Pistons in round 1

Oh good Lord. You all are ridiculous with your constant extreme pessimism. Such non-sense hot takes.

[Kuberski33]

The Celtics need Holiday and Porzingis to beat these guys. They sought out Hauser tonight defensively.
And Hauser wound up guarding Mitchell way too many times. Why would you have your weak link defender on their best guy when he's hot?

[Who]

I think the Cs will end up the 3 seed. Only 2 games up on the Knicks now and Boston is mired in a losing streak.

NY will pass them here eventually. So I am prepared to play the Pistons in round 1.

NYK got a good win tonight against MEM. Mitchell Robinson returned and looked like he gave them a lift in his minutes as Towns struggled with foul trouble and did not play that well.

But looking at the rest of the Knicks bench, it is terrible. They have Mitchell Robinson and Miles McBride and ... nothing else.

They are literally a 7 man team. We saw the Celtics tonight and how limited they were with only a 7 man rotation because we were down 2 starters. But at least we have a 9 man team when we are healthy. NY have a 7 man team when they at full strength and less than that when someone is injured.

The rest of their bench are all 3rd stringers. Precious Achiuwa is their next best bench player. Then Landry Shamet, Cam Payne. Rookies like T Kolek, P Dadiet. Matt Ryan. New addition Delon Wright. Delon Wright is a decent talent. He might be able to add something to them. He wasn't able to add anything to Milwaukee. He seems to be hit-or-miss whenever a team adds him.

[Billz401]

The Celtics need Holiday and Porzingis to beat these guys. They sought out Hauser tonight defensively.
And Hauser wound up guarding Mitchell way too many times. Why would you have your weak link defender on their best guy when he's hot?

Typical Joe Mazulla making zero adjustments. There was no reason to play trash bag Sam Hauser 38 minutes. And he went with the dumb 2 big lineup for way too long in the 1st half and blew our 22 pt lead. This loss is on him

[tenn_smoothie]

The Celtics need Holiday and Porzingis to beat these guys. They sought out Hauser tonight defensively.
And Hauser wound up guarding Mitchell way too many times. Why would you have your weak link defender on their best guy when he's hot?

Why ?  Because you have an incompetent head coach, that's why.

[keevsnick]

The bench scoring isn't really that surprising. When a team is down two starters the place it shows up is in bench production, since two guys (Hauser and Horford) who would normally be on the bench shift to the starting lineup.

I just have a hard time getting too worked up about this game. your main problems were

1) A lack of a third scorer which is solved by Porzingis being back.
2) Mitchell attacking Hauser in the 4th, which is helped a lot by Holiday being back

If the C's are healthy come playoff time I like their chances vs the Cavs. If the C's aren't healthy it will be very tough. The C's don't have enough playable depth to be down 2 guys.

[tazzmaniac]

Not having watched the game it is really hard to sync the boxscore with some of these posts.  Hauser was a team leading +18 in 38 minutes.  That means in the 10 minutes he was off court the Celts were -25.  Meanwhile Pritchard was -36 in 25 minutes, Kornett was -26 in 19 minutes and Craig was -8 in 3 minutes.  And yet there are all the posts on here about Hauser playing poorly and getting beat on defense over and over.  I know +/- is a weird stat especially looking at a single game but it is hard to make sense of the dichotomy.

[mobilija]

Not having watched the game it is really hard to sync the boxscore with some of these posts.  Hauser was a team leading +18 in 38 minutes.  That means in the 10 minutes he was off court the Celts were -25.  Meanwhile Pritchard was -36 in 25 minutes, Kornett was -26 in 19 minutes and Craig was -8 in 3 minutes.  And yet there are all the posts on here about Hauser playing poorly and getting beat on defense over and over.  I know +/- is a weird stat especially looking at a single game but it is hard to make sense of the dichotomy.

I watched the 2nd half and pretty much agree w you. Hauser was getting targeted on defense but he held his own pretty well for the most part. Mitchel is a shot maker.

Where the game was lost was not having someone that could matchup w Mobley. He had small stretch of rebounds and about 8-10 points that made it a one possession game. Couple that with Tatums complete lack of respect from the officials (dude was getting absolutely beat up on going to the hoop w no whistle) and no other reliable 3rd scorer (credit here to some good Cavs def).

The Cavs are really good and deep. They?ll be tough out. Will likely come down to which team is healthier.

[celticinorlando]

I think the Cs will end up the 3 seed. Only 2 games up on the Knicks now and Boston is mired in a losing streak.

NY will pass them here eventually. So I am prepared to play the Pistons in round 1.

Not even a given that the Celtics can beat the Pistons in round 1

I actually like getting the Pistons in round 1. Think that would be a 5 game series. I am not worried about the Cs in the playoffs. It is just getting to the finishline at this point.

[celticinorlando]

Not having watched the game it is really hard to sync the boxscore with some of these posts.  Hauser was a team leading +18 in 38 minutes.  That means in the 10 minutes he was off court the Celts were -25.  Meanwhile Pritchard was -36 in 25 minutes, Kornett was -26 in 19 minutes and Craig was -8 in 3 minutes.  And yet there are all the posts on here about Hauser playing poorly and getting beat on defense over and over.  I know +/- is a weird stat especially looking at a single game but it is hard to make sense of the dichotomy.

I watched the 2nd half and pretty much agree w you. Hauser was getting targeted on defense but he held his own pretty well for the most part. Mitchel is a shot maker.

Where the game was lost was not having someone that could matchup w Mobley. He had small stretch of rebounds and about 8-10 points that made it a one possession game. Couple that with Tatums complete lack of respect from the officials (dude was getting absolutely beat up on going to the hoop w no whistle) and no other reliable 3rd scorer (credit here to some good Cavs def).

The Cavs are really good and deep. They?ll be tough out. Will likely come down to which team is healthier.

Boston really needed KP tonight on the boards in the second half. And they missed Holiday on defense and he can guard switches. Cavs have not beat the Cs at full strength and their 2 wins this season took Mitchell to carry them in the 4th quarter.

Thought the game changed with the Cs up 14ish and Brown got his 4th foul. That allowed the Cavs to go on the run in the 3rd. Officials were terrible.

[Phantom255x]

I've loved the growth of PP and Kornet this season, but they looked awful last night. I hope it's not a thing where these two are "unplayable" in a series with CLE. Can they at least give us 10-12 solid minutes a game against CLE?