CLEVELAND — There weren’t a lot of surprises over the course of Game 6 at Quicken Loans Arena on Friday night. LeBron James delivered his usual masterpiece performance with his season on the line. The Celtics delivered their usual postseason road lull, waiting until the second quarter to fall apart at the seams on the offensive end for a few crucial minutes.
Despite these expected developments, the hot shooting of Terry Rozier and Jaylen Brown gave the Celtics a chance deep into the second half of this contest. They remained within striking distance for virtually the entire fourth quarter as they chipped the Cavs lead down to seven on multiple occasions with a storyline that was similar to Game 4.
Yet, one old foe kept on re-emerging every time the C’s were on the verge of making things interesting against James and his supporting cast.
For the first time this series, the Celtics fell apart on the defensive glass and it ended up costing them a realistic chance at completing a late comeback against the Cavs in a 109-99 defeat.
The hosts grabbed 15 offensive rebounds on just 87 shot attempts, which opened the door for 18 second-chance points over the course of Game 6. The majority of the damage came in the fourth quarter when the Cavs grabbed seven offensive rebounds on their 11 missed field goal attempts. The Cavs piled on eight second-chance points on those extra opportunities, essentially preventing the Celtics from stringing together more than one stop at a time.
“I thought as we were coming back, the biggest issue was the glass,” Brad Stevens said afterward. “Other than obviously LeBron. I think we were all obviously consumed with our help, and we didn't either rotate and drop and block out, or we just missed block-outs individually, and they got easy tip-ins.”
Defensive rebounding has been the Achilles heel for this group for the past couple postseasons, but it’s been a manageable flaw this postseason, up until Friday night.
The Bucks didn’t have many guys who hit the offensive glass in the first round, while the Sixers bigs were never able to take over a game with their work on the boards. During Game 6, things changed on that front. The Cavs were able to remain in control throughout the C’s second-half push thanks to their extra chances.
There was plenty of blame to go around for this development.
Some of it has to start with a second-guessing of Brad Stevens and his lineup choices. C’s small ball lineups have been weak on the defensive glass all year long and the C’s played plenty of them in Game 6 with starting center Aron Baynes only playing 18 minutes overall. With Boston playing catch up for the entire second half, it’s an understandable decision to bench Baynes to try to maximize spacing on the offensive end, but it’s clearly one that backfired to a degree, particularly in that fourth quarter when Baynes didn’t play a minute.
In a somewhat surprising move, Stevens went with Greg Monroe for a five-minute stint instead in the second half and that did not pay off on either end of the floor. Monroe had a pair of turnovers in that short span and was outbattled for a rebound in a couple of spots. The C’s offense was really rolling around him during that stretch but don’t let his plus-8 fool you: Monroe was not effective during those minutes.
There was blame to go around in the rest of the Celtics frontcourt as well. Al Horford had a rough all-around night but his work on the defensive glass was troublesome. Larry Nance Jr. saw increased minutes once Kevin Love was sidelined with a concussion and he grabbed a game-high four offensive rebounds, the majority of which came with Horford marking him.
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