WASHINGTON: LeBron James is on the verge of reaching the NBA Finals for an eighth consecutive season, but his Cleveland Cavaliers face a familiar and formidable obstacle in the Boston Celtics.
The Cavaliers visit Boston on Sunday for the opening game in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference Finals, with the winner to face either regular-season pace-setter Houston or defending champion Golden State in the NBA Finals.
Four-time NBA Most Valuable Player James has carried the Cavs on his back at times, averaging 34.3 points, 9.4 rebounds and 9.0 assists in 11 playoff games for the Cavaliers, who edged Indiana in a seven-game first round before sweeping Eastern conference top seed Toronto in the second round.
“LeBron is on just a ridiculous run,” said Celtics coach Brad Stevens. “We know it will be quite a challenge.”
James has averaged 24.0 points, 10.3 rebounds and 8.3 assists against the Celtics this season as Cleveland won two of three meetings.
“At the end of the day, you have to do whatever it takes to win,” James said. “It doesn’t matter how it happens.”
“King James” would share fourth on the all-time list by reaching his eighth consecutive NBA Finals, two shy of Bill Russell’s record run from the 1960s Celtics dynasty team and trailing nine in a row by Russell teammates Sam Jones and Tommy Heinsohn.
James went 2-2 in the finals with Miami from 2011-2014 and 1-2 with Cleveland the past three years, all against Golden State. He’s 3-5 in the finals overall, having also lost with the Cavs in 2007.
“Every time we come to the playoffs he has that edge,” Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said of James. “He’s a special player, and we all know that. What he does for us is big.”
The 33-year-old playmaker, whose dream came true in 2016 as he sparked the Cavaliers to ending Cleveland’s 52-year pro sports title drought, is the maestro of a deep corps of role players led by forward Kevin Love, whose aggressive play has been ignited by a scoring spark.
“More than anything just seeing the ball go through the hoop has been big for me,” Love said. “Just staying in attack mode, miss or make on the offensive end, making the right decision playing hard and then on both ends on the glass just trying to clean up as best I can.”
Add J.R. Smith and Kyle Korver’s 3-point shooting, Tristan Thompson’s rebounding and the Celtics, who boasted the NBA’s best defensive numbers, will be challenged to shut down James and silence his supporting crew.
“We know where the head of the snake is,” said Celtics center Aron Baynes of Australia. “We know what we have to focus on. But he has got a lot of great role players around him and some other guys who can really create as well.”
The Celtics assembled a superteam in the off-season to threaten Cleveland’s reign in the East, in part thanks to a major trade with the Cavaliers that hasn’t brought a lasting impact.
The Celtics lost Gordon Hayward to a broken leg against the Cavaliers in the season opener. And Kyrie Irving, obtained from the Cavs, is sidelined after left knee surgery.
Isaiah Thomas, obtained from Boston in the Irving deal, was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in February as the Cavaliers went dealing, landing guard George Hill from Sacramento, Larry Nance Jr. from the Lakers and Rodney Hood from Utah in a bid to find the right combination for another deep playoff run.
Boston’s Al Horford and Love will battle inside while Hill and the Celtics’ Terry Rozier figure on another tussle in the backcourt.
But in the end it will likely come down to James, who torched the Celtics in last year’s East finals for 29.6 points, 6.4 rebounds and 6.8 assists a game.
“He has been doing this a long time,” Boston guard Marcus Smart said. “He’s, if not the greatest, one of the greatest to do it.”
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LeBron seeks 8th NBA Finals in a row as Cavs face Celtics
LeBron seeks 8th NBA Finals in a row as Cavs face Celtics
- James has averaged 24.0 points, 10.3 rebounds and 8.3 assists against the Celtics this season as Cleveland won two of three meetings.
- The Cavaliers visit Boston on Sunday for the opening game in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference Finals.
Formula 1 champion Norris hungry for more glory
- The McLaren driver said that claiming the drivers’ crown had not changed his work ethic or his desire to be regarded a “hunter” rather than “the hunted“
MELBOURNE: Lando Norris said on Thursday that winning his first Formula One championship had only made him hungry for more as he gears up to launch his title defense at the Australian Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver said that claiming the drivers’ crown had not changed his work ethic or his desire to be regarded a “hunter” rather than “the hunted.”
“I’ve probably done the most training and things during the course of the off-season than I’ve ever done,” the Briton told reporters at Albert Park.
“So it’s certainly not the case that I was relaxing more or partying more or whatever it might have been. It was quite the opposite, in fact.
“No, I’m still just as hungry. I think it made me want it more, in a way, because you get that feeling.
“The same as when you have one win, you want another one in a race.
“For me, it was the same feeling as a championship; that one is amazing, but then you definitely want to achieve two.”
Norris won last year’s race from pole after arriving in Melbourne raving about the car’s performance during winter testing.
The constructors champions are less bullish about the MCL40 car’s off-season performance this year, with team boss Andrea Stella saying they were a step behind Ferrari and Mercedes.
Norris’s teammate Oscar Piastri, who led last year’s championship before finishing third, was similarly reserved about their early-season prospects, saying on Wednesday they should not be considered favorites to win in Melbourne.
Norris was more upbeat.
“Even if you’re second, third, or fourth quickest, I don’t think that’s on the back foot,” he said.
“I think that’s still a very good position to start in. And I think in previous years where it’s been harder to improve over the course of a season, we’ve certainly proved that you could.”
This year’s championship has plenty of unknowns due to F1’s major overhaul to chassis and engine regulations.
Ferrari’s seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton said drivers faced their most challenging season ever as they grappled with the power management demands of the more electrified engines.
Norris said he was still adapting to the changes and would probably continue to well into the season.
“(It will) probably (be) at least a third of the way through this year until we drive different tracks, different tires, different tarmacs, different weather conditions until I can get close to that level of accuracy that I was requiring last year,” he said.
The McLaren driver said that claiming the drivers’ crown had not changed his work ethic or his desire to be regarded a “hunter” rather than “the hunted.”
“I’ve probably done the most training and things during the course of the off-season than I’ve ever done,” the Briton told reporters at Albert Park.
“So it’s certainly not the case that I was relaxing more or partying more or whatever it might have been. It was quite the opposite, in fact.
“No, I’m still just as hungry. I think it made me want it more, in a way, because you get that feeling.
“The same as when you have one win, you want another one in a race.
“For me, it was the same feeling as a championship; that one is amazing, but then you definitely want to achieve two.”
Norris won last year’s race from pole after arriving in Melbourne raving about the car’s performance during winter testing.
The constructors champions are less bullish about the MCL40 car’s off-season performance this year, with team boss Andrea Stella saying they were a step behind Ferrari and Mercedes.
Norris’s teammate Oscar Piastri, who led last year’s championship before finishing third, was similarly reserved about their early-season prospects, saying on Wednesday they should not be considered favorites to win in Melbourne.
Norris was more upbeat.
“Even if you’re second, third, or fourth quickest, I don’t think that’s on the back foot,” he said.
“I think that’s still a very good position to start in. And I think in previous years where it’s been harder to improve over the course of a season, we’ve certainly proved that you could.”
This year’s championship has plenty of unknowns due to F1’s major overhaul to chassis and engine regulations.
Ferrari’s seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton said drivers faced their most challenging season ever as they grappled with the power management demands of the more electrified engines.
Norris said he was still adapting to the changes and would probably continue to well into the season.
“(It will) probably (be) at least a third of the way through this year until we drive different tracks, different tires, different tarmacs, different weather conditions until I can get close to that level of accuracy that I was requiring last year,” he said.
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