By: Kylan Watson
The Cleveland Cavaliers were playing with house money after beating the Boston Celtics in Game 6 on Friday night, by a score of 109-99. The Cavaliers had a tough task in front of them, beating the Boston Celtics in Game 7 in Boston. However, the Cavs rose to the challenge, and did something no team has done during the 2018 NBA Playoffs, which is beat the Celtics at home. Now the Cleveland Cavaliers are heading to the 2018 NBA Finals thanks to the broad shoulders of LeBron James.
The Cavaliers did not start the game off well. LeBron James was the only player in a Cavs uniform who was playing like he wanted to go to the Finals. He scored the first 17-points for the Cavs and his teammates only accounted for six points in the first quarter. James scored 32 points, grabbed 17 rebounds, and had nine assists.
The first-half belonged to the Celtics. They dominated the first half of the game. The Celtics were able to attack the paint and use the three-point line to get out to a four-point lead by half-time.
The great first-half for the Celtics did not carry over to the second-half. The Cavs finally woke-up and gave LeBron some help. The Cavaliers outscored the Celtics in the second-half. The player that benefitted the most from the offensive surge was Cavaliers Forward, Jeff Green.
Green was inserted into the line-up because of an injury to Kevin Love. Green scored 19 points and grabbed nine rebounds. Green was also a valuable player because of his defensive versatility. Green was able to slowdown the Celtics best player, Jayson Tatum and was the defensive anchor for the Cavs.
The Celtics could not buy a basket in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter. A large reason for that was the Cavaliers not giving the Celtics wide-open three-pointers and easy opportunities in the paint. The Celtics were done in by their lack of experience and missing a go to player. However, the Celtics will be a force to be reckon with in the Eastern Conference for a long-time.
This was a hard-fought path to the Finals for LeBron James, who had to shoulder a lot of the scoring burden for the Cavs. During the playoffs LeBron has scored 34.0 points per game, grabbed 8.0 rebounds per game, and averaged 8.8 assists per game.
James did not get a lot of help from his teammates. His teammates have been very inconsistent throughout the 2018 NBA Playoffs. James has had to have some broad shoulders to carry this team to the Finals.
This is easily the weakest team James has carried to the Finals and this team will have to play the greatest basketball of their lives. If they want to beat the Houston Rockets or the Golden State Warriors in the 2018 NBA Finals.
