SteemSports Presenter: @dwin0603
SteemSports Editor: @theprophet0
LeBron James will head to his eighth straight NBA finals and his ninth in 15 seasons of playing in the NBA after an 87-79 victory over the Boston Celtics on Sunday night. How can you not appreciate the greatness of LeBron James after carrying this group to the NBA Finals? After trailing to the Celtics 2-0, this is one of the all-time greatest accomplishments in his 15-year career. He played all 48 minutes for his sixth straight Game 7 win. LeBron finished the game with 35 points, 15 rebounds, 9 assists and 2 blocks, including three 3-pointers and shooting 50 percent from the field. Jeff Green had a big night after starting in place of All-star forward Kevin Love who missed the game after suffering a concussion in a collision with Jayson Tatum in game 6. Green added 19 points, 8 rebounds and 1 block shooting also 50 percent from the field. Cleveland veterans Tristan Thompson and JR Smith played well as Thompson finished with 10 points and 9 rebounds while Smith had 12 points including three triples. “It was a team effort”, James said. His team mates played well, especially in defense. The veterans stepped up and trust their leader. Everyone trusted each other to get to this point and head to the NBA Finals.
The Boston Celtics got what they wanted; they pushed the King to the limit, forcing LeBron to play all 48 minutes of Game 7. Coach Brad Stevens said that their main goal was to force LeBron James to exert more effort and energy. They succeeded in their goal but the King still drained 35 points on them and took the win. If you look at this Celtics team, we can say that in the last eight years, they were the only team that had a bigger lead over LeBron’s team with the biggest chance to dethrone the King and eliminate him in the Eastern Conference Finals. It looked better because the Celtics did that without two of their best players (Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward). They have earned the right to have a lot of confidence for the upcoming years especially because Irving and Hayward will be available to play next season. The Celtics won 10 home games in the postseason but ended up losing to the Cavs in their last home game of the postseason.
The Celtics had a lot of chances to tie and take the lead but they couldn't get their shots to fall. The veteran center, Al Horford missed one of the most important shots of the game. He missed a wide open three pointer that would’ve tied the ball game with less than four minutes to play. The Celtics looked exactly like a young team who couldn’t handle the big moments. Boston shot only 18 percent from three-point range. They shot 7 for 39 and 36 of those are not contested. The Celtics had momentum in the first half after leading by 12 points by some time and keeping the lead up to four at the half. The Celtics must be missing Kyrie Irving after Boston guards Terry Rozier and Marcus Smart shot only a combined 3 for 24, including 0 for 14 from the three-point line.
The rookie Jayson Tatum was praised by LeBron James in the postgame interview. He said that Tatum is a great player and he loves everything about the kid. He also remarked that Tatum was built for stardom. Tatum posted 24 points and 7 rebounds shooting 52 percent from the field. This was a great experience for this young Celtics team. They improved a lot since the beginning of the first round of the playoffs and I’m sure that they’ve learned a lot throughout this whole season. The Finals will start on Thursday night.
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