Cavs’ Jarrett Allen sounds off on looming revenge game vs. Celtics

The 2024-25 Cleveland Cavaliers continue to make history despite not being a trendy pick to compete for the Larry O’Brien trophy heading into the season. On Sunday night, the Cavs extended their season-starting win streak to 15 with a 128-114 win over the Charlotte Hornets despite missing Donovan Mitchell due to rest — becoming only the fourth team in NBA history to win their first 15 games to begin the campaign.

Night after night, the Cavs will be tested; the longer their streak goes, the bigger the target on their back becomes. But they may not face a more difficult early-season test than their impending NBA Cup clash against the reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics on Tuesday night — with this game meaning something extra for Cleveland. After all, it was the Celtics that eliminated the shorthanded Cavs from last season’s playoffs.

For Jarrett Allen, he knows how important this game could be for the Cavs even this early in the season. The Celtics, after all, have climbed the mountaintop of the NBA, and Cleveland can get a better sense of where they stand in the title-contending picture depending on how they perform against the best of the best.

“It’s the defending champs and the team that knocked us out last year. We’ve always wanted to test ourselves against the best, we’ve always wanted to see where we stand with the best teams in the league. And the day after tomorrow, that will be an excellent test for all of us,” Allen said in his postgame presser following the Cavs’ win over the Hornets.

The regular season is rarely a good barometer for how teams stack up against each other in the playoffs. But the Cavs can cement their place as one of the favorites to win it all if they manage to continue their hot streak against the Celtics. This should also be a redemption of sorts for Allen, as he wasn’t able to suit up for the final eight games of Cleveland’s 2024 playoff run.

Jarrett Allen, Cavs look for redemption against the Celtics

The Cavs ended up being the epitome of limping towards the finish line with the way they ended the 2024 NBA playoffs. Jarrett Allen was one of the first major injury casualties for the Cavs in the postseason; he suffered a crack rib in Game 4 of their first-round series against the Orlando Magic, and was unable to recover in time to return to playoff action.

By the time Game 5 of their second-round matchup against the Celtics came along, the Cavs were missing three major rotation players in Allen, Donovan Mitchell, Caris LeVert. It’s hard for any team to win a playoff game, let alone a series against the team that finished with the best regular-season record, and thus no one was surprised that the Cavs bowed out of the postseason with a whimper.

But now, the Cavs are expected to put up a much better fight now that they’ll be having their core four healthy on Wednesday night. That matchup against the Celtics should be a good one, provided, of course, that both teams show up and not disappoint unlike when the Cavs blew the Golden State Warriors out back on November 8.