What the Celtics had to say about their suffocating defense
At the TD Garden on Sunday, black T-shirts implored the Celtics to “Protect The Parquet” in Game 1 against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Boston did just that, smothering LeBron James and company en route to a resounding 108-83 victory.
It was clear from the start that it wasn’t James’s afternoon. With four minutes left in the first quarter, the Cavs star tried to back down Al Horford, but the backbone of the Celtics defense held his ground and forced James into a fadeaway from an impossible angle.
The same turnaround jumper looped over the backboard and dropped in during Game 4 against the Raptors, but on Sunday it clanked off the rim. Jaylen Brown finished on the ensuing Celtics possession to put Boston into a 25-9 lead with 3:39 left in the first quarter.
James, who committed seven turnovers on his way to a minus-32, spent the final minutes of Game 1 watching the Cleveland substitutes run out the clock.
After his 15-point performance, James said, “Brad [Stevens] and the coaching staff did a great job in Game 1. You commend that. We have an opportunity to look at a lot of film tomorrow and see ways they were making us uncomfortable, making myself off-balance and not have a rhythm all game. So we’ll be much better in Game 2.”
Here’s what the Celtics said about their team defense in Game 1:
Brad Stevens
By committee, everybody worked hard. You just have to make it as hard as possible on LeBron. Easier said than done. He’s obviously not gonna have many games like that. The shooters around him won’t have many games like that. But I thought our guys were locked in, and we’re just going to have to be that again on Tuesday night.
We’ve got a lot of room to improve from tonight. I thought we missed some opportunities to close out the shooters. I thought some of our doubles were bad, and I thought offensively we got stagnant in their third quarter run. I think we’re very alert to the fact that we’ll get a heavyweight punch on Tuesday night. It’s another great opportunity to experience something for this team.
Marcus Morris
It’s a team effort, man. It’s not just me. Everybody played their part in guarding [James]. He’s obviously the best player in the game, and you need multiple guys and a team to guard him for an entire game. I just think we did a great job of that.
He’s the best player, you know? I’m going to be able to tell my kids this one day. It’s exciting, I love the challenge, but like I said, man, it’s a team effort.
Terry Rozier
I mean, LeBron is LeBron. He is going to make some crazy plays and he is going to do what he does. We are just going to try to make it as tough for him as we can. The other guys, obviously, [Kevin] Love and J.R. Smith, we don’t want to give them open looks. Kyle Korver, people like that, so we have to take that away, too. That has been a big emphasis the last couple of days. We did a good job and we just have to keep it up.
According to Brad, we can get a lot better.
Jaylen Brown
[Marcus Morris] was fantastic. It was a well-orchestrated game defensively. Cleveland is going to go back and make adjustments and they are going to come back and play a lot harder and a lot more controlled in the next game. We have to be ready for that.
Man, it’s the Eastern Conference Finals. So, I mean, what are we going to wait for? We have to come ready to play from start to finish. That’s what we did.
Marcus Smart
We got a lot of guys that really just don’t care. Our whole life we’ve been fighting bigger opponents than us. And playing LeBron and that Cavs team is great – they’ve been here for a reason. We have talent as well. We’re fearless.
