Celtics stun Cavs on Bradley’s buzzer beater

“My performance personally was all on me”.

His team is back in the series after being blown out in Games 1 and 2 at home, and Stevens probably didn’t want to rankle James.

In James’ absence, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love both impressed. Game 4 is on Tuesday Night in Cleveland.

“I think he’s going to be aggressive”, said Avery Bradley, who scored 20 points and made the game-winning 3-pointer. “We never counted ourselves out.”.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Marcus Smart’s performance. “As good as they are and they are tremendous, that might have been the best game I’ve ever seen a team play against us”, he said.

Lue defended James when he was asked how much blame should be pointed at James for the Cavs blowing a 21-point second half lead to the Celtics. In nine of his ten previous Playoffs games this season, the OH native scored at least 30 points. The Cavaliers shot 11-for-35 in the second half and failed to protect the ball.

A 29 percent three-point shooter, Smart drained seven threes while finding Bradley for the one that mattered most.

The two teams went toe-to-toe in crunch time, with Jonas Jerebko putting Boston ahead, 108-106, with 30.3 seconds left before Kyrie Irving sliced into the lane for a lay-up that tied it at 108 with 10.7 seconds to go.

Prior to addressing the media, James exchanged a few words with a fan in a hallway while walking from the locker room to the podium.

“You have to score the ball first, especially against these guys”, said Coach Stevens.

Even though the loss was frustrating, it’s not all doom and gloom according to James.

CLEVELAND – Of LeBron James’ many attributes, one that was easily taken for granted over the past seven or so years is the perception that he is immune to having bad playoff games.

Let’s break down how it happened. “Let’s get back to playing desperate basketball, which they did [Sunday night]”.

And apparently LeBron James is human.

Tristan Thompson scored 18 points and grabbed 13 rebounds.

Michael Jordan tops the playoff scoring list with 5,987 points. “We need Smart to play that way all the time”. “Because I was guarding him, forcing him to the baseline, and I was forcing him to the fadeaway”.

“I couldn’t see, but I knew it was something”, said Brown, whose answer can be seen in the video at the top of this post.

Stephen Curry added 21 points and became the franchise leader in postseason points, passing Hall of Famer Rick Barry. But Cleveland got complacent, Smart got hot and the Celtics, who arrived at Quicken Loans Arena on Sunday morning for their shootaround without Thomas and looking somewhat defeated, never gave up.

“They have a scrappy team”, he said.

“He knows that. We know that”.

James went to the bench midway through the second quarter after reserve guard Terry Rozier drew an offensive foul. “And Game 5, we’ve gotta win”. “We look forward to the challenge”. It’s a loss in the postseason. “We fought and came out with the victory”.

The Celtics “sixth man”, oftentimes added to the lineup for toughness usually on the defensive end, played 41 minutes while handling the point guard duties.

Sure, he gets a bit of a friendly bounce, but a game-winner is a game-winner.