Four things to watch for in Celtics-Cavs showdown

It's easy to forget given the hoopla around the Isaiah Thomas video tribute postponement, but there is an actually a basketball game being played tonight at the TD Garden between two of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. The Cavs took the opening night matchup in a 102-99 thriller that will always have an asterisk next to it for being the night Gordon Hayward unfortunately went down with his leg injury.

With only three regular season contests between the two teams this year in total, the season tiebreaker could be clinched by the Cavs tonight with a victory. Thomas won’t be in action, but there is still plenty of intrigue leftover to see how these young Celtics matchup with LeBron and company midway through the year. Let’s examine a few areas to keep an eye on for tonight’s showdown.

1. Marcus Morris defending LeBron James: All summer long, we’ve heard about how Morris is one of the better LeBron James defenders in the NBA. The veteran forward missed the first matchup of the season with James due to a sore knee so this will be our first look against him in a Celtics uniform. Morris isn’t at 100 percent yet but he’s looked solid over the last game and a half from a mobility standpoint. He’ll still be on a minutes limit but he’ll get his chances against James. The question is whether he’ll be able to slow down the MVP candidate at all. Playing with the NBA's best defense this year should help the cause on that front.

2. Does Brad Stevens mix up the starting five? The Cavs have started games with a small ball lineup for most of the year, with Kevin Love at center and Jae Crowder/LeBron James at power forward. That’s a tough matchup for the C’s usual starting five with Aron Baynes at center. Stevens has shown a flexibility to adapt his starting five, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Morris get his first start tonight since returning to the court last week. That way, Stevens could save Baynes to battle on the glass with Tristan Thompson off the bench. Daniel Theis could also be an option to start, since his mobility makes him a better matchup for Love than Baynes. Either way, the bet here is Baynes comes off the bench tonight.

3. Which team puts some effort into offensive rebounding? Both teams are two of the worst offensive rebounding squads in the NBA, but both can also be vulnerable on the defensive glass too, particularly when bigs like Baynes and Thompson spend big minutes on the bench. Love and Thompson have given the Celtics headaches for years on the glass, but the C’s have more length this year to combat those guys. It will be an interesting conundrum for Stevens as tries to balance out spreading the floor offensively with a small ball lineup and protecting the boards and paint with Baynes and Theis anchoring the middle. In matchup one, he played small for most of the game (Baynes played 19 minutes, Theis was DNP-CD), but things have changed a lot since then. Theis could be an interesting wildcard in this matchup, if Stevens wants to play it. Otherwise, it will be up to the wings on both squads to try to find openings on the offensive glass.

4. Kyrie Irving is set up for a big game: Jose Calderon is starting for the Cavs and Iman Shumpert is out with a knee injury. Both of those items bode very well for Irving’s potential scoring line on Wednesday night. The Cavs have gotten back on track in the standings but their defense is still woeful on many nights. They still rank 27th overall in the league in defensive rating and lack rim protection with Thompson playing a limited role off the bench and Love manning his minutes at center. The Celtics have proven shooters around Irving now in the starting five so the Cavs are either going to have to give those guys (Tatum, Brown, Horford) open looks or let Irving feast upon one-on-one matchups all night.