CLEVELAND — Guarding LeBron James isn’t for the faint of heart, which is why Boston continues to look for that happy medium in the Eastern Conference finals.


 


The 15-year veteran came into Game 4 on Monday night averaging 32.9 points, 9.4 assists and 8.4 rebounds.


 


In Game 1, he was held to 15 points, 9 assists and 7 rebounds, while Game 2 (42/12/10) and Game 3 (27/12/5) saw a much different output from James. [...]

BRAD BOURNIVAL Special to The Journal

CLEVELAND — Guarding LeBron James isn’t for the faint of heart, which is why Boston continues to look for that happy medium in the Eastern Conference finals.

 

The 15-year veteran came into Game 4 on Monday night averaging 32.9 points, 9.4 assists and 8.4 rebounds.

 

In Game 1, he was held to 15 points, 9 assists and 7 rebounds, while Game 2 (42/12/10) and Game 3 (27/12/5) saw a much different output from James.

 

“You just have to be on him and make him earn as much as possible,” Boston coach Brad Stevens said. “Easier said than done. Even then, he’s still going to score some. That’s the part of it that sometimes you have to tip your hat to great players and go to the other end and play better offense than we did the other day.”

 

The interesting part of the loss in Game 3 was that James’ usage percentage (23.2) in the Celtics’ 116-86 loss was the lowest of the series. (The usage percentage is an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor. In layman's terms, it is the number of plays used by a specific player.)

 

“Personally, I think I did a (poor) job defensively with LeBron,” Boston forward Marcus Morris said. “He was too comfortable when I was guarding him. I made myself very vulnerable on screens and wasn’t disciplined. We can’t have that in a game of this magnitude, and it showed.”

 

James’ usage percentage before that was 34.1 and 46.7 percent.

 

Where’s the middle ground?

 

“Which [games] did we win?” Morris said. “I guess that answers the question.”

 

Playing with purpose

 

The game of basketball is easy.

 

You pass the ball. You catch the ball. You shoot the ball.

 

When Boston is moving it around, the Celtics have proved to be unstoppable both in the regular season and the playoffs.

 

It’s something Boston center Al Horford knows his teammates need to remember.

 

“We play with pace and just move the ball,” he said. “We’re a young group. We’re learning. We tend to forget some of things that make us successful as a group. … We need to be better offensively. We need to move the ball in order to have any sort of chance.”

 

That doesn’t necessarily mean the veteran needs to touch it every time down the court.

 

“If we play the right way, the ball will find me,” Horford said. “I just want guys to go out there and just play and understand for most of the year, we’ve been playing good basketball. When we’re moving the ball and we’re making those passes, it makes the game easier for everyone, for me, for the rest of the guys. We just have to play with that type of purpose.”

 

Nothing special

 

While Celtics guard Terry Rozier was happy to be less than seven miles away from where he graduated high school, the 2012 Shaker Heights alumnus didn’t think playing in Quicken Loans Arena was different than any other visiting venue.

 

He was happy to get back to his old stomping ground and see his family, but viewed The Q like any other arena, despite being there [as a spectator] many times before his NBA playing days.

 

“I grew up in Youngstown/Shaker, but I never played here before I got here,” Rozier said. “I don’t look at it as being more easy than other places we play on the road. It’s just another game, but obviously I’m back at home, playing in front of a lot of family, so that’s always special.”

 

Road woes

 

A lot had been made of Boston’s road woes coming into Game 4. A team that was 28-13 away from TD Garden during the regular season was 1-5 in the playoffs prior to Monday night.

 

With 32 postseason games under his belt, second-year pro Jaylen Brown knows being away from home is an entirely different animal in the playoffs.

 

“It’s a lot different,” Brown said. “Just the atmosphere and the environment, teams play better at home than they do on the road, and we understand that.

 

“We’ve just got to come out and just have a mentality that’s just undeniable. We’ve just got to do what we’ve got to do. Stay connected. It’s hard to be connected when everything is so loud and you can’t hear your teammates and what’s going on.”