Tonight, the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers have a chance to advance to the NBA Finals for a third consecutive season, where the Golden State Warriors await. To get there, the champs will need to close out the Boston Celtics in front of a hostile crowd inside TD Garden.
Despite being down 3-1 in the series, the Celtics, who are playing without Isaiah Thomas due to a hip injury, will be ready to put up a desperate fight. LeBron James and the Cavaliers know a thing or two about elimination games, however. Dating back to 2009, the Cavs have won 12 straight close-out games — 13 would be an NBA-record.
“The close-out game is always the hardest, and Boston is going to make it even harder,” James told Julian Benbow of The Boston Globe. “We have to go in with a bunker mentality that we had in Game 1 and Game 2, to go out and do what we do.”
“But we have to defend,” James continued. “We have to execute offensively. We have to have low turnovers and we have to try to make them miss because some of those guys play a lot better at home. That’s just how the game is played. But we’ll play the game, and we’ll see what happens.”
The Cavaliers torched the Celtics in the first two games of the series, with James recording 38 points in Game 1 and 30 points in Game 2. However, the Celtics shocked the champs on their home floor in Game 3 with a 111-108 come-from-behind victory by way of a buzzer-beating three from Avery Bradley.
“They’re well-coached, and they’ve got guys that have always kind of been counted out throughout their career, so they play with a lot of pride,” James said of the Celtics. “Then you add the green on their back and this is history. This is a franchise that you kind of no matter who’s out on the floor, you have to play for that franchise and play with pride. They’re giving us everything that they have, and we’re expecting it, and we want the challenge. It’s the postseason. At the end of the day you just want to win the game. It doesn’t matter who you’re going against or how you get the job done, you’re just trying to figure it out.”
Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals is set for 8:30 p.m. tonight on TNT. As coach Lue often says, “It’s time to put up or shut up.”