April 21, 2015
CLEVELAND - Isaiah Thomas is eating this up.
The smallest man on the Celtics is also their most important, and while that also means the Cavaliers are throwing everything they can at him to diminish his impact, well, Thomas digs that attention, too.
In the 113-100 series-opening loss to Cleveland on Sunday, he went for 22 points, five rebounds and 10 assists to become just the third player in NBA history with 20-plus, five-plus and 10-plus in his playoff debut.
Oscar Robertson was one of those guys. Unfortunately for the C's, the other was LeBron James.
And LeBron has more help than Thomas, who finished second to Toronto's Lou Williams in balloting for the NBA Sixth Man Award announced yesterday. That means it is even more incumbent on the diminutive dribbler that he creates big numbers - for himself and others. That means Thomas has to hit shots under duress. That means Thomas has to break through double-teams and burn the Cavaliers with slick passes. That means he will get bumped at nearly every stride.
And all that means Isaiah Thomas is happy.
"I mean, I love it," he said before practice in preparation for tonight's Game 2. "I want to be the guy. I want to be in that position. "I feel like I've worked hard enough to be in that position, and my teammates look at me to lead these guys and take control of things while I'm out there. And, like I keep saying, I've just got to try to make the best play possible. As a point guard, that's your job. You take what the defense gives you, and if you can score every time, go out there and score every time.
"That's what my old coach (Lorenzo Romar at the University of Washington) said, but if you can make the right play or the right pass every time, keep doing it."
Thomas did it rather well in the series opener. In a game the Celtics trailed by as many as 20, his team was a plus-5 in his 31:34 on the floor. Jonas Jerebko was the only other Bostonian in positive territory at plus-1 in 18:33. (Jared Sullinger was even in 13:38.) But Thomas would like to improve on his 6-of-14 shooting, and, before the matter was even raised by the media, he chastised himself for his five turnovers.
The giveaways came at particularly inopportune times, with one pass becoming a James dunk that made a seven-point game out of a chance to cut into Cleveland's second-quarter lead. A turnover in the last minute of the third quarter led to two Kyrie Irving free throws and a 10-point deficit. Then in that period's waning moments, with the Celts down 12 and going for the last shot, a bad Thomas pass allowed James Jones to beat the buzzer with a 3-pointer.
"But I can fix those, so hopefully it'll be a different story," Thomas said.
On the other hand, the Celts need him to continue to help on the glass. The Shamrocks surrendered 18 second-chance points on 15 Cleveland offensive rebounds, and, while it's nice to see a guard be a positive influence there, it had to scare coach Brad Stevens greatly to see the 5-foot-9 Thomas tied for second on the C's in rebounds with five (Evan Turner led with seven).
"We've got to help," Thomas said of the Boston backcourt getting on the defensive boards. "No matter what, we've got to give our bigs help because, with how we're playing, we're in rotations all the time to where there's going to be mismatches on the offensive rebounds. So, as guards, we've got to be in there to help our bigs, just like they help us when we've got to contain guards."
And all this has to happen while the Cavaliers are trying to do a better job of containing Thomas at the other end of the floor. But in that case, he actually smiles slightly when it was noted that Cleveland will likely get even tougher with him.
"No doubt," Thomas said. "I know that it's never really going to be one-on-one for me. They're always going to show guys, try to put bigger guys on me to slow me down. And like I said, I've just got to try to make the right play. That's reading and taking what the defense gives me and finding my open teammates.
"Honestly, I just try to go out there and make the right play each and every time down, take what the defense gives me. They're crowding me a lot, especially last game, putting two guys on me, and I've just got to find the open guy and try to make the right play as much as possible." That being said, Thomas doesn't want the Celtics to give up another 113 points and have to score at an ungodly rate just to keep up.
"We've just got to do what we've got to do, and that's get stops, make it tough for them and go out there and play the way we know how to play on the offensive end," he said. Thomas then added, "We can't compare whatever we do to what they're doing. We're two totally different teams." The truth is the Celtics don't compare to the vaunted Cavs in most ways.
But Isaiah Thomas will take those odds.
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