The Celtics are casually dominating the East

PLUS: OKC's consistent excellence has them undefeated in the playoffs.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

After Dinner at Ornans; Gustave Courbet; 1849

---

Scores

Cavaliers 95, Celtics 120 (BOS leads 1-0) — Boston’s casual dominance against the East is striking. Jaylen Brown was aggressive, the defense was great, Luke Kornet gave some great back-up five minutes without really scoring, Derrick White looked awesome. Not much more to ask of Boston, honestly.

Donovan Mitchell is a stellar player, maybe the best individual player in this series. I’m not sure I see Cleveland for sure winning a game here unless there’s a Miami-like three-point anomaly, which would be hard to believe from the Cavaliers unless Max Strus (1/5 from deep) and Darius Garland (2/8) join Mitchell in stardom. But then again, we’ve seen Boston have brief, bizarre lulls, and we’ve seen Cleveland have brief, bizarre explosions.