It was a rough Sunday night for LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, as they took a punch in a mouth from the Boston Celtics in a 108-83 loss in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. There are a number of reasons why the Cavs were beaten that badly by Boston. James explained one of them during the postgame presser, which happened to be the dreadful three-point shooting of the Cavs.
LeBron: “Three-point shots is a part of our DNA, what makes us the best team that we can be. I thought early, even with the shots that we had, we missed some wide open threes that just didn’t go. JR, Kev, G-Hill, they had some great looks, they just didn’t go down, and we’re okay with that. We’re absolutely okay with that.
The Cavs were undeniably ghastly from behind the arc in Game 1. They knocked down just four of their 26 3-point attempts for a hard-to-look-at 15.4 percent clip. James went 0-for-5 on his 3-point attempts. Even the likes of Kevin Love and Kyle Korver, who used to be money from deep, shot 1-for-4 and 1-for-5 from downtown, respectively.
The Cavs are currently just hitting 33.7 percent of their 3-point shots in the playoffs, which is a significant decrease from their 37.2 shooting percentage from deep back in the regular season.
While Cleveland’s sour outside shooting in Game 1 was also a testament to the Celtics’ stingy defense, the Cavs are going to jack up 3-pointers whenever their players get the chance. Korver leads the team in the playoffs with an excellent 46.0 3-point shooting percentage, while J.R. Smith is second with a 39.6 percent accuracy.
Down 0-1 in the series, the Cavs have to recover their outside touch sooner than later. Game 2 of the series will be held his Tuesday still at TD Garden before Cleveland gets its chance to host Boston on Saturday.