LeBron James, Kevin Love Need Cavs’ Role Players To Step Up After Game 5 Letdown

BOSTON — LeBron James and Kevin Love did what they could to give the Cleveland Cavaliers a chance to win Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals, but the same couldn’t be said of their teammates.

James and Love combined to score 40 points on 17-for-35 shooting, and a huge reason why the Cavs lost 96-83 to the Boston Celtics at TD Garden to go down 3-2 in the series was the rest of Cleveland’s roster scored just 43 points on 14-for-39 shooting.

James and Love were the only Cavs players in double figures. The other three Cavs starters (George Hill, J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson) combined for only 10 points.

“I think J.R. (Smith) is working extremely hard guarding Tatum, guarding (Jaylen) Brown. I think (George Hill) is doing a good job of trying to guard (Terry) Rozier, being physical,” Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said.

“But when we’re playing fast, playing with pace and taking care of the basketball, those guys benefit. We didn’t do that (Wednesday night). We really didn’t move bodies. It was stationary a little bit. We’ve just got to look at the tape. We’ve got to be better, which I know we will in Game 6, going back home. But we’ve just got to show some grit, some toughness, mentally and physically, being tougher. We’ll see what happens in Game 6.”

Cleveland’s role players played a critical part in the Cavs leading by 15 after the first quarter in Game 3 and by 16 after one quarter in Game 4.

In Game 5, the Cavs’ role players were nowhere to be found early on. Cleveland scored just 19 first-quarter points and trailed by 32-19 after 12 minutes. James (eight points) and Love (10) were the only Cavs players to make a shot in the opening quarter.

The Celtics, conversely, had seven different players score in the first quarter.

Lue deserves some share of the blame for Cleveland’s lackluster scoring outside of its two stars.

He played Kyle Korver just 19 minutes, which prevented the veteran 3-point sharpshooter from getting into a rhythm. He gave Jordan Clarkson 19 minutes, and the streaky shooter went 3-for-10 from the field and missed five of his seven 3-point shots.

Role players typically play better at home than on the road, and we’ve seen plenty of evidence to back up that theory in this series as the home team has won all five games.

The Cavs need this trend to continue or their quest for four straight NBA Finals berths could end Friday night in Game 6 at Quicken Loans Arena.