The Boston Celtics lastly came upon who their second-round opponent might be after the Cleveland Cavaliers prevailed over the Orlando Magic in Sunday’s Sport 7.
With Cleveland coming to city for Tuesday’s sequence opener, followers will certainly be conversant in their stars, Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland. The 2 All-Star guards (sometimes) present a implausible scoring punch for the Cavs. Mitchell has been unbelievable to this point within the playoffs, particularly in Video games 6 and seven towards Orlando, the place he scored 50 and 39 factors, respectively.
Regardless of the sheer expertise between the 2 guards, I personally am extra involved with a pair of Celtics villains sitting on Cleveland’s bench.
Max Strus and Caris LeVert have constructed fairly the “followers in Boston ought to boo us after we contact the ball” resumes for themselves through the years.
LeVert is somebody who has earned the repute of a “Celtics killer.” His profession scoring common jumps up almost three factors per sport when he performs the Cs. He would be the most common participant who simply appears to get superpowers any time it’s time to play Boston.
His career-high of 51 factors got here in a comeback win over the hosts in March of 2020. LeVert shot 17-of-26 that night time and drilled 5 threes within the strategy of sinking the Cs.
Levert’s Cleveland debut towards the Celtics happened three-and-a-half years later. On October 28, 2023, he completely spoiled my birthday with a 41-point masterclass for the Cavs. The person, once more, couldn’t miss. He buried six of eight makes an attempt from past the arc and 12-of-21 for the sport.
Just a few months later, he had one more sturdy outing towards our boys in inexperienced. Happily, LeVert’s 26-point outburst in December of 2023 wasn’t sufficient to get Cleveland the victory.
Although the checklist of LeVert masterclasses towards the Celtics isn’t fairly so long as I remembered, I’m nonetheless not thrilled that he’s going to have a playoff stage to attempt to cook dinner this time.
A person who has expertise squaring off towards Boston on the playoff stage is Strus, the previous Celtic-preseason hopeful who discovered his approach to Miami and have become part of “Warmth Tradition.”
(I’ll let you know what, if I by no means heard something about Warmth Tradition once more I’d be the happiest man on the planet.)
As a substitute, after Boston eradicated the Warmth and their tradition final week, they’ll be squaring off towards the final dwelling (in a playoff sense) instance of that mantra.
Strus hasn’t ever been a “Celtics killer,” however I’m sick and uninterested in watching these Miami 3D-printed Warmth Tradition guys play towards them. He was a key a part of the back-to-back grueling Jap Convention Finals sequence and definitely will deliver a degree of expertise to a Cavaliers crew that lacks it.
The Celtics having to play towards Strus after taking out Miami is the basketball equal of Eddie Brock leaving a small piece of the Venom symbiote within the Marvel Cinematic Universe earlier than being transported again to his personal world within the “Spider-Man No Method House” post-credit scene.
Boston actually doesn’t want Strus conjuring up any of Miami’s black-magic voodoo on this second spherical. Within the opening-round sequence towards the Magic, he averaged simply 9.1 factors per sport on 45.% capturing general and 31.1% from past the arc.
It will be the least-shocking improvement ever if he hastily began hitting threes at a forty five% clip for the Celtics sequence.
As ridiculous as this all is, the very fact of the matter is that each groups have expertise in direction of the highest of their rosters. The distinction comes whenever you take a look at the blokes rounding out the sides. Boston has dependable figures like Al Horford, Jrue Vacation, Derrick White, and Sam Hauser (throw Payton Pritchard in too, why not) supporting Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
For Cleveland, the assistance is way extra scarce. Nevertheless, if Strus and LeVert discover their anti-Celtics powers on this sequence, issues might be swung a bit much less in Boston’s favor, which, after all, is way much less enjoyable.
