East Conf. Finals Game 1 - Cleveland Cavaliers 83-108 Boston Celtics

The Boston Celtics continued their dominant homecourt showings with their most impressive postseason victory of the season, blowing the Cleveland Cavaliers out by a score of 108-83 in a game that was functionally over with over 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter.

Headlining the Celtics' victory were performances from Al Horford (who sat out for the entirety of the 4th quarter), Jaylen Brown and Marcus Morris. Morris outscored LeBron James by 21 to 15, despite playing lower minutes than The King - basically backing up the talk he made this weekend by claiming he's the second best defender to put on LeBron James in this league after Kawhi Leonard.

The Celtics never trailed barring a brief period early in the 1st quarter, when they were down 7-4. Their maximum lead on the night was 29 - a figure they achieved in the 4th quarter after Tyronn Lue took out all of his starters from the game.

Let's take a look at the talking points from what could be a landmark game and series for the Eastern Conference playoffs:

#5 LeBron James got outscored by a teammate for the first time this postseason

Averaging over 34 points per game in the playoffs so far, James' scoring average took a notable hit as he had undisputedly his worst game of the playoffs so far, although the Cavaliers overall have seen worse days. James' +/- of -32 was by far the worst mark for any player in the game.

The King shot 5-of-16 from the field for a lowly 31.25% field goal percentage. For most of the night, he was primarily defended by Marcus Morris, but on switches he also found the time to go one-on-one with Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Al Horford and on the rare occasion, Terry Rozier.

He bricked all 5 of his 3-pointers as well, while committing an alarmingly high 7 turnovers during the game - the Cavaliers as a team had a total of just 9. James finished with 15 points, 7 rebounds and 9 assists on the night, and All-Star teammate Kevin Love finished with 17 points, 8 rebounds and 3 assists on a night when almost nothing seemed to be going LeBron's way.

#4 The Cavaliers shot poorly from downtown

JR Smith gets a tough shot to fall in

The Cavaliers' mantra for victory during most games is to generate a ton of 3-point shots via drive-and-kicks by LeBron James. Given how most 3-pointers are taken from 24 feet or further away (except corner 3s), the very nature of this shot is such that it could be on or off on a given night.

Tonight, it was very much on the off side, as the Cavaliers went for the entire first half without connecting on any of their 3-pointers - that was, indeed, the first time it has happened this season. JR Smith was 0-of-3 from downtown, LeBron was 0-of-5, Rodney Hood was 0-of-2 and Jeff Green was 0-of-1.

Only Kyle Korver (1-of-5), Kevin Love (1-of-4), George Hill (1-of-2) and Jordan Clarkson (1-of-2) connected from downtown as the Cavs went a combined 4-of-26 from long range. Not only were they shooting an abysmal percentage (16%), they also generated fewer of those shots than their regular season average of 32.1.

The Cavaliers need to win 4 out of their next 6 games, and they might not want to be overreliant on a gimmick like this for much longer.

#3 News flash - 'Average Al' is not average

Horford scores past LeBron James

The mainstream sports media likes to drive narratives in favour of marketable stars, and sometimes they make it annoyingly against stars whose stats don't stand out. One prime example of that is their treatment of Al Horford - a 5-time All-Star, no less - who has been labelled as 'Average Al' because his stats aren't exactly similar to your typical All-Star - he doesn't average 20 points, or 10 rebounds, or drop dimes by the dozen.

But what he does do at a world-class level, is literally everything! In game 1 on homecourt at the TD Garden, Horford scored 20 points in 27 minutes of playing time. He literally didn't miss a single shot attempt from inside the arc, going 6-for-6 within 24 feet. He had his way against Kevin Love in the low post region, and he had a couple of sneakily good cuts that gave him buckets.

Horford's overall statline of 20 points, 6 assists, 4 rebounds and 2 blocks are indicative of how well he's played this postseason. He's been the rock around which the Celtics' roster is now sticking together and outplaying all of their opponents, and he always does exactly what is required of him during the game. Brad Stevens would surely be thanking his lucky stars for the day Horford decided to join the Celtics in free agency 2 summers ago.

#2 The Jays were knocking down their Js

Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are two of the best young players in the NBA right now, and they've proved that over and over again through the course of this postseason. They happened to bring out just another exhibit of this in the biggest game of their lives so far, combining to score 39 points on just 27 shots.

Rookie of the Year contender Jayson Tatum did not take many shots in the first quarter, but he finished it off with a floater from the baseline, cool as you like. He played 37 minutes on the night - the most for any Celtics starter - and he had their largest +/- of +27 while scoring 16 points on 6-of-11 shooting, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 block and 2 steals. On both ends of the floor, the rookie-who-plays-like-a-veteran never lost his head for once, always making the right basketball play and driving his team to a blockbuster victory.

Sophomore guard Jaylen Brown was even more impressive than his teammate. Brown was aggressive on both ends of the floor, and he picked up right where he left off against the Sixers in Game 5 as he scored 23 points on 9-of-16 shooting from the field. Brown also shot 3-of-5 from 3-point range while doing so, and he stuffed the stat sheet pretty much like Tatum in compiling 8 rebounds, an assist, a block and a steal with a +/- of +14 during 28 minutes of playing time.

When these young studs perform as well as they did, the Celtics tend to win a lot of games.

#1 Marcus Morris exemplified all that was fine and good for the Celtics

Marcus Morris guarding LeBron in Game 1

Marcus Morris caused a stir before the game when he claimed that he was the second best defender of LeBron James behind Kawhi Leonard. The statistics hinged toward it even then, and Morris added 8 more possessions to it on this night - on the 8 possessions that LeBron was guarded by Mook, he scored 5 points on 2-of-6 shooting from the field, and he didn't have it easy.

Morris ended the night as the Celtics' second-highest scorer with 21 points on 7-of-12 shooting, in addition to going a remarkable 3-of-4 from 3-point land.

Morris' case wasn't an isolated one at all. The Celtics defended amazingly well throughout the game. Brad Stevens sent them in with a gameplan and they executed it perfectly on the court, doubling James whenever he went to the low post while running the Cavs' shooters off the 3-point line, and contesting as many shots as were humanly possible.

They soundly beat the Cavaliers with teamwork, hustle and intelligent play, and Morris' play was a microcosm of that.