East Conf. Finals Game 5 - Cleveland Cavaliers 83-96 Boston Celtics: Celtics' Player Ratings
The Boston Celtics, who'd become underdogs in most analysts' eyes after their consecutive losses at Cleveland, came out with strength, passion and energy and chalked up a 96-83 win at the TD Garden in Game 5. This gives them a 3-2 lead and two shots at making the Finals by eliminating the veteran Cleveland Cavaliers.
While this was a rough shooting night for nearly every player on their squad, the Celtics dialled up the heat on the other side of the ball, holding the Cavs to 19 points in the first quarter, 23 in the second, 18 in the third and 23 in the fourth quarter. Everyone on their roster gave championship level effort, and they were particularly adept at forcing turnovers.
LeBron James, who had 8 turnovers in 4 games against the Toronto Raptors, coughed up the ball 6 times in this outing alone - he had more turnovers than assists for the second successive game this series! The fact that the Celtics were able to shut everyone else on the Cavs' roster down while limiting the damage he did is commendable.
Let's take a look at how each Celtics player fared during the game individually.
Terry Rozier - 6.5/10
Stat line: 8 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 steals, 3-of-15 from the field, 1-of-7 on threes
Until the start of this series, Rozier had been a true threat from downtown, making 3-pointers at well above league-average shooting. However, he's been unable to turn it on in this series. Much of this can be attributed to his poor shot selection, and he continued to brick some poorly thought-out shots that must definitely have caused some consternation to coach Brad Stevens on the sideline.
But the rest of his game enables him to log an average outing in Game 5. He moved the ball around intelligently. He tallied 6 assists while taking excellent care of the ball (he only had 1 turnover through the game). He hustled for rebounds and, for once, did not get killed while defending LeBron on switches.
Rozier also had 3 steals, and a positive +/- that dipped in garbage time indicates that he was, for the most part, a positive contributor to the Celtics' effort.