The Boston Celtics beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 113-98 on Wednesday night to advance to the Eastern Conference finals for the third straight season.
Jayson Tatum had 25 points and 10 rebounds. Horford added 22 points, 15 rebounds, five assists and six of Boston’s 19 3-pointers to help the Celtics post their third consecutive win and wrap up the series in five games. They got the job done.
“We had a great opportunity at home to handle this, and I knew it was going to take a lot more than handling it normally.” said Horford, who joined LeBron James and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only players 37 years or older to record a 20-point, 15-rebound, five-assist playoff game in NBA history.
“It’s special. It’s something that’s hard to do. … This is another positive step of where we want to get to.”
This will be Jaylen Brown’s sixth conference finals appearance and the fifth for Tatum.
“It just shows the character of the team, the organization. People might think it’s a given we’re supposed to be here,” Tatum said. “We’re all in this together. … We’re doing something right.”
Evan Mobley scored a playoff career-high 33 points and had seven rebounds. Marcus Morris Sr. had five 3-pointers and finished with 25 points.
“I was proud of their effort,” Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “This has been a difficult year for us, for a bunch of different reasons. They never found the time to fold on each other. All they did was find ways to compete.”
