The Celtics’ Isaiah Thomas Went All Hot Sizzle On The Cavs’ B-Team Sunday

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but the Cleveland Cavaliers are borderline un-watchable without their big three on the court. LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love (okay, and J.R. Smith) all sat out Sunday’s game against the Boston Celtics at TD Garden.

The result was not pretty. The Celtics proceeded to slaughter the Cavs by almost 40 points. Isaiah Thomas led the way off the bench with 17 points and this crazy sequence above where he shook the entire Cavs squad before dishing it off to Jonas Jerebko for the three.

After outscoring the Cavs 34-9 in the second quarter, the Celtics never looked back. They also almost tied a franchise record with 20 steals (!). It was the Celtics’ fourth straight win and their second win over the Cavs in the last three days, following a Friday night victory that put a halt to Cleveland’s 18-game home winning streak.

Not that the Cavs care. They’re more interested in resting their stars in anticipation of the playoffs, which start next weekend. This was essentially a meaningless game for them since they’ve sewn up the second seed in the Eastern Conference.

It did, however, have real implications for the Celtics. The win now puts them in the seventh spot in the East (with a little help from the eighth-place Brooklyn Nets, who lost to the Milwaukee Bucks earlier today). That’s right. That means that if the playoffs were to start today, the Celtics would have to face – you guessed it – the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs.

That the Celtics are even in the playoff hunt at all boggles the mind. What looked to be a rebuilding year after a 16-20 start has turned into one of the more pleasant – if not curious – surprises of the NBA season after trading away their two best players in Rajon Rondo and Jeff Green. It serves as an important reminder that players don’t tank, even when their franchise sets them up to do so.

Still, it makes you wonder what purpose a nominal playoff berth and an almost certain first-round exit serves a team that is ostensibly trying to build for the future.

Assuming that they do face them in the first round, do you think the Cavs are gonna remember how the Celtics ran up the score on their b-team when the playoffs start next weekend, or nah?

(vine via Vinnyviner. H/T to B/R)

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