Stevens this game is on you

[Eja117]

Brown, Rozier, Smart choked

Morris and Horford were invisible in the 2nd half

this is why we lost

Also Ainge inability to make a trade for a Tyreke Evans or a bonafide 3 pt shooter/specialist

TP for an interesting idea I wouldn't have thought of

[CelticD]

I feel like Brown and Rozier were trying to have their "Playoff moment". They took a lot of quick threes. They weren't necessarily bad shots, but they should've settled a little bit before taking them.

[Beat LA]

Let me repeat

IT WAS NOT CBS fault last night

The Cavs were protecting the paint/semi zone defense.  They dared the Celts to shoot long range shots.  And the team kept missing good shots

Jayson Tatum was hounded/covered tightly.   

CBS could have had Jayson Tatum bring up the ball - full court, but that is not a set they used all season long.

Umm, no, they really weren't, like at all, not to mention the fact that the Cavs have no shot blocking on the interior.

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

Let me repeat

IT WAS NOT CBS fault last night

The Cavs were protecting the paint/semi zone defense.  They dared the Celts to shoot long range shots.  And the team kept missing good shots

Jayson Tatum was hounded/covered tightly.   

CBS could have had Jayson Tatum bring up the ball - full court, but that is not a set they used all season long.

Umm, no, they really weren't, like at all, not to mention the fact that the Cavs have no shot blocking on the interior.

i figured they were collapsing to an extent but even if they were we should have just all 5 went to the paint to draw fouls and have 5 guys to get O boards. we were desperate at that point anyway nothing left to lose. seems we gave up posting up and PNR which woorked good early in game. much less driving,.

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

Brad Stevens at the post-game presser:

"I just called [my timeouts] when the mandatory timeouts were coming with exception of the JR Smith 3 in the 3rd quarter".

I'm grateful you're our coach Brad, but please, for the love of all that is good, spend a timeout earlier in the quarter if you see stretches like we've had in games 6 and 7, where both our offense falters and we're making defensive errors at the other end of the floor.  Settle the team, draw up a solid play, and chew out our players when they fail to communicate on defense.  We're not experienced nor good enough yet to "figure it out" and play through these bad stretches yet.  This has proven true time and time again this season, particularly in the 2nd quarter.

Heck, he even said that their inability to extend the lead in the 2nd quarter was one of the more notable stretches of the game for him.

Fix this, get healthy, and we're going to make a legitimate championship run next season.

Honestly, I thought that the game changed in the second quarter when the lead went from 12 to 2 or 4 in a matter of minutes where he should have called a timeout, only for him to eventually burn one and use the opportunity to draw up a play for a three by Jaylen Brown, who proceeded to miss it after coming right out of the huddle *facepalm*.

Like, that's the best that you could do? Really?

yeah this crap sammich is on hima nd the players. everybody needs to take a big bite!

[dreamgreen]

I like CBS but IMO he wasn't that good last night. We should have went up tempo run Lebron hard. Rozier should have been benched earlier, Smart should have been told don't shoot. Inability to adjust to the switch with Lebron  and Rozier.

I think CBS learned a lot last night too.

[Tr1boy]

Let me repeat

IT WAS NOT CBS fault last night

The Cavs were protecting the paint/semi zone defense.  They dared the Celts to shoot long range shots.  And the team kept missing good shots

Jayson Tatum was hounded/covered tightly.   

CBS could have had Jayson Tatum bring up the ball - full court, but that is not a set they used all season long.

Umm, no, they really weren't, like at all, not to mention the fact that the Cavs have no shot blocking on the interior.

Lethanos and TT says hi

Whenever the Celts were ready to dump it in to Morris or Horford,  the interior collapsed pretty quickly.   

Same with Brown trying to attack the basket

The Celtics lacked a true "floor general" who could penetrate and hit the rolling man or pass it to the open man (though what good that would have done, as the Celts couldn't hit a 3 to save their lives). 

Cavs played the same kind of D in game 5, 6, 7.   In game 5, the Cavs sukked even more and couldn't score. But not in game 6 and 7 and that was the difference

[Tr1boy]

I like CBS but IMO he wasn't that good last night. We should have went up tempo run Lebron hard. Rozier should have been benched earlier, Smart should have been told don't shoot. Inability to adjust to the switch with Lebron  and Rozier.

I think CBS learned a lot last night too.

Easier said than done

you do realize the Celts only played 7 players right?  Not easy to play uptempo then prepare to play solid D

Its too bad Larkin was injured and Semi didn't get a few mins last night. Because I think it would have helped

[Ogaju]

I like CBS but IMO he wasn't that good last night. We should have went up tempo run Lebron hard. Rozier should have been benched earlier, Smart should have been told don't shoot. Inability to adjust to the switch with Lebron  and Rozier.

I think CBS learned a lot last night too.

Easier said than done

you do realize the Celts only played 7 players right?  Not easy to play uptempo then prepare to play solid D

Its too bad Larkin was injured and Semi didn't get a few mins last night. Because I think it would have helped

When I posted the loss of Larkin was huge folks demurred...but Celtics did not lose a series until Larkin went down.

[2short]

Stevens did an AMAZING job keeping this team together and getting to the ECF
Add one player to our team, Irving and we are in finals with a very good chance of winning the title.
Please remember we were down, Irving, Hayward (whole season), Theis plus periods of no smart, Morris etc

[wiley]

I like CBS but IMO he wasn't that good last night. We should have went up tempo run Lebron hard. Rozier should have been benched earlier, Smart should have been told don't shoot. Inability to adjust to the switch with Lebron  and Rozier.

I think CBS learned a lot last night too.

Easier said than done

you do realize the Celts only played 7 players right?  Not easy to play uptempo then prepare to play solid D

Its too bad Larkin was injured and Semi didn't get a few mins last night. Because I think it would have helped

When I posted the loss of Larkin was huge folks demurred...but Celtics did not lose a series until Larkin went down.

I agree.  Larkin was a spark plug in a number of games.  He would come in and seemed to surprised the other team with a different look than the regular guards...and yes Rozier would have got just a bit of rest and a bit of a chance to reset mentally if Larkin were healthy... underrated loss on top of all the other losses..

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

I like CBS but IMO he wasn't that good last night. We should have went up tempo run Lebron hard. Rozier should have been benched earlier, Smart should have been told don't shoot. Inability to adjust to the switch with Lebron  and Rozier.

I think CBS learned a lot last night too.

Easier said than done

you do realize the Celts only played 7 players right?  Not easy to play uptempo then prepare to play solid D

Its too bad Larkin was injured and Semi didn't get a few mins last night. Because I think it would have helped

When I posted the loss of Larkin was huge folks demurred...but Celtics did not lose a series until Larkin went down.

not me. i agree with u. we needed larkin bad. hell i woulda played monroe down low. i woulda played semi some maybe even nader if we needed fresh legs to run some.

[ScoobyDoo]

Not many guys I'd rather having coaching the C's than Brad but I do think a lot of the loss should lie fully on his shoulders. All the players, even the best ones will struggle, it's the coach's job to mitigate that with in game adjustments. Clearly, I am no expert here, but a few of the in game adjustments I would have made are:

1. After watching Rozier and Smart get roasted about 600 times on pick and roll and after the Cavs did it to us about 1-2 times straight in Games 6 and 7, I would have gone to a lineup of Baynes, Horford, Morris, Brown and Tatum or Horford, Morris, Ojeleye, Brown and Tatum - could "not" have been worse than what was going on with Smart and Rozier on the pick and switch BS the Cavs ran relentlessly. I would have taken my chances with Brown or Tatum on George Hill and would have had confidence that tatum and Horford, between them, could get the ball over half court and get the offense rolling.

2. I would have face guarded/denied James the ball 94 feet for 48 minutes. Ideally force someone else to initiate the offense and if he did get the ball I'd back off a bit but make him  change directions all the way up the court. Would have worked him relentlessly. We "did not" make it as hard as we could on him.

3. I would have made every possession a sprint up the court - even after made baskets. If needed I would have played Ojeleye and Moose a bit more if needed to rest guys. We had the younger legs and way too often particulalry in Game seven we walked the ball up, making it easy on James like. I would have tried to run him off the floor - you can rest all summer....     

[Beat LA]

Let me repeat

IT WAS NOT CBS fault last night

The Cavs were protecting the paint/semi zone defense.  They dared the Celts to shoot long range shots.  And the team kept missing good shots

Jayson Tatum was hounded/covered tightly.   

CBS could have had Jayson Tatum bring up the ball - full court, but that is not a set they used all season long.

Umm, no, they really weren't, like at all, not to mention the fact that the Cavs have no shot blocking on the interior.

Lethanos and TT says hi

Whenever the Celts were ready to dump it in to Morris or Horford,  the interior collapsed pretty quickly.   

Same with Brown trying to attack the basket

The Celtics lacked a true "floor general" who could penetrate and hit the rolling man or pass it to the open man (though what good that would have done, as the Celts couldn't hit a 3 to save their lives). 

Cavs played the same kind of D in game 5, 6, 7.   In game 5, the Cavs sukked even more and couldn't score. But not in game 6 and 7 and that was the difference

Lethanos? I guess that that's supposed to be Lebron, right (duh)? I just don't get the reference.

Anyway, sure, he can block shots, but predominantly in transition as opposed to the half-court, and Thompson is long, yes, but he didn't have a single block, yesterday. Besides, did you miss as to how every single time Boston went to Horford when he was being guarded by George Hill, LOL, he scored (and as he should have done, btw), not to mention off of those two lobs, iirc? Cleveland routinely left Hill on Horford during many occasions where the Celtics opted to keep chucking threes instead of taking the best shot available. That's what's so frustrating.

[pearljammer10]

No way this loss was on CBS entirely.

We started off the game strong, feeding Al in the post and attacking the basket. It gave us a 12 point lead. We got comfortable with it and started playing hero ball and heavy isolation which is something we haven’t done all season long unless we’ve had Kyrie bail us out with it on possessions. We stopped going to the basket and it had nothing to do with Cleveland’s defense in anyway. We beat ourselves last night by not playing smart and forcing bad threes.

Perfect example was in the 4th, we were down maybe 4 and Rozier drove, had a perfect opportunity for a layup with his right hand.... Stopped.... pulled it out... and shot a fadeaway step back three which didn’t even come remotely close, leading to the Cavs easy scoring opportunity and putting us down and out. Terrible decision making last night, mainly from three of our guys, that was the difference.