The Cleveland Cavaliers will play two more games this season against the Boston Celtics, and you shouldn’t watch them. Boycott the Cavaliers. Americans have boycotted much less interesting things for much dumber reasons. At this point, this Cleveland team has done nothing in this Eastern Conference Finals series to deserve fans in seats, at bars, or even with remotes on their recliner, no matter how much it’s just background noise.
LeBron James doesn’t deserve this. We’re boycotting his awful team for his sake as much as anyone. When James leaves Cleveland this summer, as it seems increasingly certain that he will, it’s hard to feel bad. His 42-point, 12-assist, 10-rebound performance wasn’t even enough to make it a close game late. Cleveland lost 107-94 in Game 2, the first time that a James-led team trailed 2-0 in a series since 2008.
James isn’t innocent from the several minute stretches where Cleveland looked like an older YMCA run that had gone 30 minutes too long. Boston sprinted in for transition scores, and two-on-ones would turn into four-on-twos because the Cavaliers just didn’t sprint back. James, at least, is exerting absolute effort in other areas. What excuse do his teammates have?
Maybe their head coach, Tyronn Lue, who too often did nothing. With the game starting to get out of hand early in the fourth quarter, Lue took a timeout to calm his team down ... and then stuck with a lineup missing both James and Kevin Love. Who the hell is supposed to create offense in that scenario? Kyle Korver? Jeff Green? Kyrie Irving ain’t walking through that door.
It was embarrassing when J.R. Smith committed a senseless flagrant foul against Al Horford with a few minutes left in the fourth quarter. He shoved him from behind, and his flagrant-one really should have been considered to be upgraded. He might be suspended for Game 3, in fact. After his horrid play, Boston fans might lobby for his suspension to be series next season, instead.
Boston tried, hustled, and ran down loose balls. Marcus Smart snuck up behind unaware dribblers and poked the ball out, because those dribblers definitely weren’t getting help from their teammates. Look, I can’t stress enough how disengaged Cleveland looked. They might be ready to go home, and if so, good riddance.