Bedard: Cavs decimate a Celtics team that had bought its own hype

CLEVELAND — Youth in basketball can give you a lot of things. A short memory. Energetic legs that run forever and deal with games in a short timeframe. Fearlessness because you don't know any better.

That's the advantage the Celtics had over the Cavaliers in the first two games of the Eastern Conference Finals, and they made it look easy. While the Celtics flew all over the floor and through the air, the veteran Cavs looked like they were wheezing trying to keep up. They also, from past experiences and years spent in a league filled with astronomical salaries and pampered living, had some attitude and communication issues to the point where they looked like they were in a bad marriage going nowhere, and they all knew it.

Through two games, the Celtics were the far better team and they were the unit that was playing together, smartly and unselfishly. One team (the Celtics) was playing well-oiled team ball, while the other engaged in disjointed hero ball.

If that kept up, there was little chance the Celtics were going to drop this series.

But something happened during the lengthy, almost four-day layoff between Games 2 and 3. The drawbacks of being young suddenly bubbled to the surface. The advantage of being a veteran team — professional pride — kicked in.

The result was a classic, 116-86 butt-whipping by the Cavs on the Celtics on Saturday night. It was, in a word, embarrassing.

The game was over at 20-4 with 5:02 left in the first quarter after a sequence that saw LeBron James block an Aron Baynes dunk, George Hill beat Marcus Morris to a loose ball, and then James nailed a 3-pointer.

Thanks for coming. Tip your waiters. Those Celtics who showed up for Game 3 were not coming back, and they didn't.

The question that needs to be answered — immediately, in Game 4 on Monday night — is, was that just an aberration, or can the Celtics get their groove back?

Basically, the answer to that is: are the Celtics going to continue to play like a young team, or they going to grow up?

The problem with being young — and out of the six players to play more than 20 minutes not named Semi Ojeleye, only two (Al Horford and Marcus Smart) have played regular big minutes in the Eastern Conference Finals — is you're not used to being on this stage. There's a lot that comes with that, positive and negative. If you haven't been through it, it can seep into your game without you even being conscious of it.

At the final four level, there's basically one game every night and the entire basketball world watches. Then, in the aftermath, every talking head gives their opinion and it's played on a loop endlessly until the next game finally comes.

Four days is a long time for Terry Rozier to hear that he's been the breakout star of the postseason and is poised to strike it rich either this offseason or the next.

That's a lot of time for Jayson Tatum to hear comparisons to and by Paul Pierce. As spectacular as Tatum has been, let's slow the roll on the comparisons to a guy who delivered a title and has his number hanging from the rafters.

It's an echo chamber for Jaylen Brown to be told that's he's holding his own against the James, and Brown is exposing James on the defensive end.

That's a lot of time for Morris (with four playoff games before this season despite being in the league for seven years) to be told he's the physical enforcer for this Celtics team and how he could be trade bait this offseason.

Even among the players who have been through this before (no one has to worry about Horford having his head screwed on straight), Smart is headed for a payday after this season and it's not helping for him to listen to talk that he's going to get paid (stop reading BSJ during the playoffs, Marcus) because of all that he's shown this postseason.

Let's not leave the coach out of this, either. Brad Stevens has been referred to as something between a wizard and Bill Belichick — and we don't disagree — but he's never really been in this spot, either. Yeah, the Celtics reached this stage a year ago, but no one took them seriously and for good reason: they got blasted in the first two games at home and fell to the Cavs 4-1.

It's a whole different challenge to handle a group of young professionals after beating The King by an average of 19 points at home in the first two games. It's one thing to design some killer ATO plays and study the heck out of the film and target the weaknesses you've seen. It's another thing to deal with young players who might be getting big heads because they've been getting smoke blown up their compression shorts the past four days.

That's what it looked like on Saturday night. It looked like the Celtics have been watching too much ESPN, hearing about the demise of the Cavs, how the Celtics were on their way to the Finals to play the Warriors, and that they're set to be the East force for the next decade.

There's Rozier (missed final five shots of first half) and Morris (1 of 5 in the first quarter) pulling up for fadeaway jumpers.

There's Brown falling asleep on defense, and turning the ball over twice in the first quarter.

There's Tatum getting pushed around a bit more than he's used to.

See, this is where Stevens could use a little more time with Belichick, instead of comparisons to him.

If Belichick were coaching the Celtics, he would have spent all day and every day since Game 2 telling the Celtics how terrible they were and how they hadn't accomplished anything yet. The players wouldn't have time to listen to the adulation on the networks, and he would have made sure every television was tuned to PBS instead of ESPN. "Ignore the noise" signs would have been plastered on every wall in the facility, and on every locker.

Stevens obviously didn't do that, and the Cavs took care of the course correction for him.

"We needed to get our butts whipped, come back to reality," said Smart, "and take care of business on Monday."

The Cavs, on the other hand, looked young and hungry in Game 3. They were in the Celtics' shorts from the jump ball, and they didn't stop until they had a 30-point lead in the fourth quarter. It looked like the Cavs took advantage of the long layoff to go through some couples counseling because they looked like a completely different and cohesive unit. The Cavs actually resembled a team in Game 3, and not the 13 guys who probably took 13 Ubers in Boston last week.

"I think tonight as a group, even when things broke down, we just covered for one another," James said. "We made them make extra passes. We made them make extra dribbles. We were flying around, and I just happened to be one of the guys on the floor that wanted to fly around as well."

See, the Cavs have been through this before — all of them — countless times. They don't care what Stephen A. Smith or Jeff Van Gundy says. The smoke has been blown up them and down them many times over, and they know it doesn't matter.

That's why this is different than Game 3 in Milwaukee. That's why it's not so easy to dismiss.

The Celtics are still in the driver's seat in this series — for now. Another performance like that on Monday, and suddenly they're headed back home looking for answers against an experienced, talented and now-confident Cavs team.

If the Celtics want to actually accomplish something and show that they're deserving of all the hype, then they'll win on Monday here and grab a 3-1 lead.

That's what the "next" team in the East would do. They'd put their foot on the necks of the reigning, aging champions and announce the Cavs' time is done in front of their home fans.

It's there for the Celtics to do that, especially after getting a strong and needed dose of reality.