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Despite holding home-court advantage in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Boston Celtics fell short on Sunday night to the Cleveland Cavaliers in a disappointing 87-79 loss.
It was a rough end to the series that the Celtics had control of for much of the time but failed to capitalize on the situation. According to Jay King of The Athletic, guard Terry Rozier voiced on Monday that he felt that Boston should have won Sunday's tilt.
Terry Rozier said he barely slept last night. “This is a game we felt like we could have won, we should have won.”
— Jay King (@ByJayKing) May 28, 2018
The Celtics had shown some reason for optimism to start the game holding a double-digit lead early in the first half, but that dissipated prior to halftime that allowed for the Cavaliers to stay within striking distance. This opened the door for Cleveland to take control of the second half to which Boston was playing from behind for a sizable chunk of that time.
It also didn't help that the Celtics had struggled tremendously offensively throughout the night shooting just 34.1 percent from the field and 17.9 percent from 3-point range. There wasn't much stability beyond the performances of rookie forward Jayson Tatum's team-high 24 points and Al Horford's 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the field. Much of these struggles came from their backcourt trio of Rozier, Jaylen Brown, and Marcus Smart combining for 8-of-42 shooting from the field and an atrocious 3-of-26 shooting from beyond the arc.
On top of that, there was simply no answer for LeBron James in the contest that saw him record a near triple-double with 35 points, 15 rebounds, and nine assists. The Celtics had no answer to slow him down on Sunday or truly any of the other games in the series that put them in a hole once the Cavaliers got rolling offensively. Boston was favored to win Game 7 by 2.5 points and blew a prime opportunity in front of their fans to secure a trip to the NBA Finals.
