Celtics celebrated Game 3 win by Facetiming with Isaiah Thomas

James had his worst performance of the 2017 playoffs in the Cavs’ dramatic 111-108 loss to the Celtics on Sunday – Cleveland’s first defeat of the postseason.

Boston spent all of the fourth quarter playing from behind, failing to get that necessary made shot or defensive turnover or stop that they needed to slow down Cleveland’s growing momentum.

Marcus Smart scored 27 points, and Bradley had 20 for the Celtics.

If you said the Celtics were going to beat the Cavs in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals, it would have been hard to believe.

James averaged 26.9 points, 8.4 rebounds and 5.7 assists while shooting 50.3 percent in the 87 postseason games he played with the Heat from 2011 to 2014. Stevens started Kelly Olynyk, who had 15 points.

Boston coach Brad Stevens pointed to the performances by Irving and James as the difference in a fiercely contested, physical game.

Kyrie Irving paced the Cleveland offense with 29 points and Kevin Love added 28 points and 10 rebounds.

The Cavs were behind, 57-47, at the half.

Irving’s big third quarter was of course the main storyline of the game, with the star guard going nuts on Celtics defenders with a bevy of crossovers, twisting layups, and pull up 3-pointers. “So when it bounced around, I was actually hoping it went in, obviously, but not completely disappointed that it was bouncing up there”.

Irving made two straight driving layups in the lane to put the Cavaliers up by five points, 77-72, but on the second shot, he fell to the floor and reached for his lower left leg, which caused concern throughout the arena. They were 16-point underdogs in Game 3, which they won by three points.

“(The Celtics are), like I told you guys before, it’s like we’re preparing for a whole new team”, Lue told Cleveland.com’s Joe Vardon. And all the way back in 2010, LeBron spent most of the second half of a Game 5 loss to the Boston Celtics standing in the corner watching his season slip away.

No team had ever entered the NBA Finals with a 12-0 playoff record before Golden State finished off San Antonio.

If you think this one’s going seven games, then we’d like to know what you’re smoking.

The third quarter did more than give the Cavs an 87-80 lead.

“He basically was just waiting for an opportunity to be able to blossom”, James said. Cavs G J.R. Smith and his wife brought home from the hospital their baby daughter Dakota, who had been in a Cleveland-area NICU since her birth in January.

“It wasn’t tough to watch”, he said as the Cavaliers prepared for Tuesday night’s Game 4. It’s our job to go out there and make sure that we make the next right play. They scrapped. They have a scrappy team. Before the playoffs began, the Celtics were 22-5 at home since January 1. Let’s regroup. Let’s get back to playing desperate basketball, which (Boston) did (May 21).