Jayson Tatum And Jaylen Brown Led The Celtics To A Game 3 Win In Cleveland

For the second straight series, the top-seeded Celtics entered Game 3 tied 1-1 after a rather stunning Game 2 loss. This time, though, it was against a Cavs team that has more firepower than the Heat and poses a bit more of a threat to make things really interesting in this second round series.

That meant it was important for the Celtics to squash any feeling of positive momentum in Cleveland with a Game 3 win. However, to do so, they’d have to figure out how to slow down Donovan Mitchell, who has been on an unbelievable heater over his last four games and continued that in the first half of Game 3, putting up 23 points in the first 24 minutes.

The Celtics had an answer on the offensive end in the form of Jayson Tatum’s best game of the series, as he was hot early, scoring 18 points in the first half.

The difference in the half was Tatum getting more support than Mitchell, led by Jaylen Brown and Jrue Holiday combining for 28 first half points as Boston took a 57-48 advantage into the break.

That lead went from 9 to 23 with haste, as it looked like Boston would run away and hide after they came out on a 14-0 run to open the third quarter.

The Cavs would stabilize some from there and keep it to a more manageable deficit, but every time they threatened a third quarter run, the Celtics would hit a shot to keep them at arm’s length.

Cleveland did get things back to single digits in the early fourth quarter, but the Celtics continued finding timely answers to every Cavs run.

Despite all the effort to hang around, the Cavs just did not have give Mitchell enough offensive support to make things close late, as Boston pulled away for a 106-93 win.

Mitchell finished with 33 points, cooling off some in the second half as the Celtics sent some extra attention his way to force others to beat them. Unfortunately for the Cavs, none of their others were really capable of stepping up in those moments. Evan Mobley had another nice game with 17 points (7-of-11 shooting) and eight rebounds, while Caris LeVert pitched in 15 off the bench, but that was about it in terms of positive support. Darius Garland’s cold shooting playoffs continued with a 6-of-15 night (1-of-6 from three), while Max Strus (2-of-8) and Isaac Okoro (1-of-7) were non-factors. As a team, the non-Mitchell Cavs were 5-of-24 from three on the night, and that’s simply not a formula for success.

For Boston, seeing Tatum get going with a 33-point, 13-rebound night was a welcome sight, as he’s gotten off to a bit of a sluggish start to this postseason as a scorer. Jaylen Brown was sensational alongside him, scoring 28 on 13-of-17 shooting to go along with nine boards. Jrue Holiday, whose postseason shooting struggles continued to start his Celtics tenure, also had a big night with 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting (most of which came in the first half) to provide a lift to their star duo. It wasn’t a dominant night from Boston aside from their run to open the third quarter, but that was enough to take care of business and restore some order in the series with a 2-1 lead.

Game 4 of the series will be Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. ET on TNT, with Cleveland hoping to figure out how to get more from their supporting cast to try and send things back to Boston knotted up at 2-2.