The Cavs’ perfect season has come to an end. Inevitably, Cleveland will not go 82-0, nor will they break the Golden State Warriors record for best start to a season. The defending champion Boston Celtics held off the Cavs in a thrilling 120-117 NBA Cup game. After the game, Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson blamed himself for the result.
Cavs Coach Takes Blame for Celtics Loss
“Not great, and it’s not on the players,” Atkinson said. “I think that’s the game plan, too, I feel like it’s a little bit on me, maybe not prepared enough for what they were throwing at us. We adjusted in the second half, but, especially that big second quarter, that was too much to overcome.”
The Celtics outscored the Cavs 39-28 in the second quarter. Boston jumped out to a 21-point lead early in the third quarter before the Cavs mounted a spirited comeback effort.
“… For us, we have a lot to store in the bank,” Atkinson said. “We’re going to see these guys in two weeks. A lot of stuff we can improve on, a lot of stuff like I said before, I could have been more prepared on both ends of the ball. Credit to them, we’ll have another shot at them soon.”
As it stands, the Cavs and Celtics are the toast of the Eastern Conference. They are the only two teams in the East to be at least three games over .500. It’s likely, based on the start of the season, that these teams will meet again in the postseason. Last year, the Celtics dumped the Cavs out in five games in the second round en route to their championship.
Boston has been in big games in the last decade, while this Cavs team is just getting a feel for it. Atkinson noticed the difference in intensity early in the game.
“The first thing we learned was the force and physicality,” Atkinson said. “They had playoff force and physicality, and we had regular season force and physicality, and that’s why we were down whatever we were down at half. Second half, we turned it up, but it was kind of too late.”
With the second regular season matchup in just a few weeks, Atkinson knows adjustments will be necessary.
“Strategically, you learn things too,” Atkinson said. “They obviously do some different things to put you in tough positions. We’re just going to have to put it in the bank and try to make adjustments in game two.”
Despite the loss, the Cavs played the best team in the NBA extremely close while missing four rotation members. Cleveland has played with a 10-man rotation all season thus far but was limited to just an eight-man rotation on Wednesday. Dean Wade, Caris LeVert, and Isaac Okoro were all out on the night, while Max Strus is still yet to make his season debut.
In their place, however, Georges Niang provided valuable minutes and played down the stretch. Niang chipped in 11 points, four rebounds, and three assists.
“I thought Georges was playing great,” Atkinson said. ” Usually, when you’re down, you want to put another shooter out there. Maybe if the game was a little closer, we would have went with Jarrett [Allen]. It was just more of a gut feeling.”
The Last Word
The sky is certainly not falling in Cleveland. The Cavs are 15-1 and hold a 2.5-game lead over the Celtics. It took Darius Garland shooting 3-21 for the Cavs to lose a close game to the best team in the NBA. If anything, Cleveland should feel ecstatic with how the game went.
