Mazzulla Ball in Full Effect as Celtics Take Game One Against the Cavs
Boston - The Celtics are coming off of almost a week’s worth of rest, after defeating the Miami Heat in five games. The Cavaliers did not have such luck. They had a rough, lengthy seven-game series against the Magic. The Cavaliers will only be able to go as far as Donovan "Spida" Mitchell can take them. Even putting up a game-high, it wasn’t enough to steal a win. The Celtics shot the lights out from three in the second half to win 120-95. The Celtics have won five playoff games, including tonight, and have 11 more wins to go till they are the 2023-2024 NBA champions.
Jaylen Brown was unstoppable to open the first quarter. The Cal product scored the first seven points of the game for the Celtics, using his height advantage over the smaller Cavalier defenders. Isaac Okoro and Mitchell did their best impression of Tatum and Brown, each sinking two three-pointers in the opening six and a half minutes of the game. J.B. Bickerstaff, head coach of the Cavs, said the key to winning this game was outshooting the Celtics from the three-point line. They were off to a great start early on, in this regard. The Celtics found their way into the bonus at the 3:29 mark which helped regain the lead by sinking some free throws. With the amount of dynamic players, the Celtics squad has and the way the referees were calling the game, it was easy for them to get to the charity stripe. After a high-scoring first quarter, the Celtics had built a small lead 40-34.
After scoring 23 points in the first six minutes of the game, the Cavs were not able to score as consistently. Defense started to become the focus for the Celtics, and it showed on the box score. It wasn’t until the 7:22 mark for the Cavaliers to score their first point of the second quarter. After Brown scored 15 points in the first quarter, his offensive game slowed down a bit. Instead, players like Payton Pritchard and Luke Kornet picked up the slack at all ends of the floor. Kornet was a monster on the boards and a defensive anchor in the paint. Despite the offensive woes for the Cavs, they only trailed by 10 at the half. The Celtics are now 61-27 against the first-half spread this season. It is apparent that they like to get off to a hot start and they did just that against the Cavs.
It started raining threes in Boston to start the third quarter. Derrick White, the ultimate glue guy, seemingly couldn’t miss from beyond the arc. After a rather poor shooting performance from three, the Celtics picked it up in the second half. Darius Garland found an inadvertent elbow about halfway through the quarter and picked up a cut just above his eye. He looked to be in a world of pain but managed to play through the injury. Donovan Mitchell was doing everything he could to continue to narrow the lead. He ended up leading all scorers with 33. Mitchell was gassed by the end of the quarter and the lead only expanded. Pritchard swished a buzzer-beating three-pointer as time expired, extending the lead to 92-77.
Al Horford made his way to the party from downtown. The veteran forward finally got one to sink to begin the fourth quarter after not hitting one in the first three quarters. As a Celtics fan, hearing “JB for threeeee” from the PA announcer never gets old. He was right behind Mitchell in points scored in the game with 32. A couple of positives were found down the stretch of the final quarter for the Cavs. Evan Mobley, quietly, put together a great performance, scoring 17 points and grabbing 13 rebounds. The Cavaliers have failed to break the 100-point margin in all but two of their playoff games so far.
