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CLEVELAND – The Celtics have four regular season games remaining before the playoffs start. Their next two games against the Cavaliers, however, may serve as a playoff preview in multiple respects.
Playing the same team twice in three days isn’t quite typical during the regular season, but the C’s will face the Cavaliers tonight at Quicken Loans Arena and then head back to Boston to host them at TD Garden on Sunday. The home-and-home set could have a playoff feel to it, as the Celtics are still very much playing for a chance to qualify for the postseason.
The two-game set could in fact be an actual playoff preview if the current seeding holds. With the Celtics currently sitting in seventh place in the Eastern Conference, their current playoff matchup would be a familiar opponent: the second-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers.
“It’s kind of like a playoff series. We’ll take it as it is and try to get better each and every game,” forward Jae Crowder told reporters before Friday’s morning shootaround. “Other than (playing the same team twice), I don’t think you can compare it too much to playoff basketball.”
Either way, the Celtics are preparing mentally to close out the season strong as they look to complete their playoff push.
“We know what’s ahead of us and what we’re trying to do to finish out the regular season,” Marcus Smart said. “We’re focused right now.”
Reporters were focused too on Friday morning, asking the team about preparing for a LeBron-less Cavaliers, as speculation in recent days suggested that he would sit the next few games out to rest ahead of the postseason.
“We prepare like everyone’s going to play, and prepare for everyone on the roster. The scouting report is the whole roster,” Crowder said.
Moments later, news broke that James would in fact play in front of his home crowd on Friday. The story then shifted to a more predictable theme: how do the Celtics prevent another blowout loss in Cleveland? The last time the Celtics played here on March 3, it wasn’t pretty. The Cavaliers cruised to a 110-79 victory.
“We’ve had to watch it for the last two days. It’s not a good feeling,” Crowder said. “We knew we could put up a better fight than that. You’ll see a better one tonight.”
The man who made them re-watch the lowlights expects a better effort from his squad tonight.
“It was a poor performance by us, and a great performance by them,” Stevens said. “A great performance by them, full-go, is going to be hard for us to beat.”