Irving’s 42 carry Cavs to win, 3-1 lead over Celtics

It was worth one. We’ve got a lot of guys with a lot of playoff minutes who’ve been in situations like that before.

Boston’s comeback was fueled by Thomas’ replacement, Marcus Smart, who made 7 of 10 3-pointers and scored 27 points. “Our love and support goes out to Isaiah”. “We understand it. But we work just as hard as these guys”. “For us it’s just to focus … and play the Celtic way”.

Kevin Love added 17 points and a career playoff-high 17 rebounds for Cleveland.

And while they won Game 3 and had the Cavaliers on the ropes in Game 4 before losing, they know their chance to play NBA Finals spoiler is just about up.

His teammates and coach are confident he will be when the best-of-seven series against the Boston Celtics, led 2-1 by Cleveland, resumes tonight at 8:30 at Quicken Loans Arena.

LeBron James is probably going for points in the high 30s at least, maybe 40 plus.

“He’s human, so he’s going to have a night like this”, Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said. “You let a team like that grab momentum you nearly knew a shot like that was going in”.

He scored 19 points over the final 4:48 of the quarter that included 4 driving layups, a runner, an alley-oop, a pair of 3s and a free throw.

“You can’t”, Lue said in response to a reporter’s question on whether he’s thinking about another possible Finals clash with Golden State.

With a fantastic downtown dagger by Bradley, Celtics cut down the deficit against the Cleveland Cavaliers, and now, they are losing 1-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals.

What may have happened with Thomas out for the series, is the Celtics made a decision to rely on several players instead of one. They were stomping and screaming: LET’S GO CAVS.

LeBron James hit 34 points to help the Cavaliers to a comeback win to move within one win of an nearly inevitable third date in the Finals with Golden State. J.R. Smith also didn’t play, and with it being so early in the year Kyle Korver and Deron Williams played for the Hawks and Mavericks, respectively.

“I think it is making us better”.

“I feel some adversity is all part of the postseason”, James said. “We lost; it happens”. “We can’t go back to Boston tied 2-2”. So I thought he was pretty darned good. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did it nine straight times in 1970.

James’ absence wasn’t a killer for Cleveland, but it obviously didn’t help.

Then LeBron picked up three fouls in the second quarter, giving him a total of four by the 6:46 mark. “I don’t like people flopping”.

“I’m just happy to be able to sit back, with four fouls, and see him do what he’s always been built to do”. He kind of laughed.

Stevens has a reputation for drawing up great plays during a timeout.

“I don’t want to act like we’ve figured anything out”, Stevens said.

Meanwhile, the Cleveland Cavaliers will still be scratching their heads as they looked to have the game in the bag against the shorthanded Celtics. Does that mean college too?

But James’s miserable outing allowed the Celtics to snatch a 111-108 victory which puts them back in the series at 2-1.

Cavaliers: James needs 62 points to pass Michael Jordan as the top scorer in postseason history. “That was a tight group”, he said.