East Conf. Finals - Game 3: Boston Celtics 86-116 Cleveland Cavaliers - Celtics' Player Ratings
Jayson Tatum
The Boston Celtics' road woes continue in the 2018 Playoffs. They are 9-0 at home in Boston but away from the TD Garden, including this Game 3 loss, they are now 1-5 in this postseason. For some reason, they have just struggled to get things going away from home and even their one win was a 3-point OT win in Philadelphia.
Irrespective of whether their road record was on their mind or no, the Celtics just suffered one of their worst losses of this season in Game 3 - 30 points. They still hold a series lead (2-1) but it will be another high-stakes contest in Game 4 because if they lose that too, it essentially becomes a best of 3 where LeBron James and the Cavs will fancy themselves with it being a shorter series.
There were hardly any silver linings for the Celtics, to be honest. Maybe Brad Stevens could mention a few but from purely an analysis standpoint, Boston didn't do a lot of things right. They didn't play their game (defense or offense) and got outplayed by Cleveland energy and intensity wise.
We rate every Celtics' player that took the floor today:
Al Horford - 6/10
Stat line: 7 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists on 2-4 FG's and -23
Well, Al Horford didn't do anything tragically wrong, he just didn't do enough. He was never known to dominate a game and steer it in any direction single-handedly but even by his standards, four field goal attempts is far too less to impact the game.
He's the veteran that everybody on the team looks up to. Individually, he did not have a bad game - just 1 turnover and 50% shooting - but Horford has got to be more assertive.
Having Tristan Thompson in the starting line-up was to negate the Celtics' small starting line-up but unlike Game 2, Boston couldn't recover after the Cavaliers' early punch. The Thompson-Love is a huge mismatch for Horford especially with the Canadian's activity on the glass.