I would say that it might be a blessing in disguise. Without Irving, Celtics team really works very hard entering the playoffs. And now when they face Lebron in the East finals, they poured everything at both ends of the court.
The key is how they rotate and not giving enough space for Lebron, although he made a lot of points in the second game, it's still not enough to get the W. I'm not surprised at Jayson Tatum, I already knew that he will be a good player in the future.
So we are back in the Cavaliers homecourt, I'm sure that the Cavs will win Game 3 and make it 2-1.
Yes. The absence of Irving, make way for more minutes on the court to Terry Rozier. He is actually a part of the bench squad but now become a started since Irving left. Same with the absence of Hayward. Brad Stevens successfully filled the missing link and those who are selected don't turned him down.
Anyways, the problem with Cavaliers is all of them. They are all about LeBron James. Just noticed that everytime LeBron is on the bench, both offense and defense are crashed by the Celtics. I think Korver is in good shape at early phase but it didn't maintained at the end. Overall, all Cavaliers squad aside from LeBron are not performing well. Can't see a ball hog issue to LeBron on the other side as he has 12 assist. His teammates are literally heavy.
Celtics is playing purely with a role players, same with the Cavaliers squad but we can see how Celtics managed to do it good. No surprised if Celtics will won this series and they really deserved it.