The NBA’s East runs through the Celtics after Jayson Tatum’s return

CLEVELAND – Neither Cleveland nor Boston fans want to hear that their seasons just started, that 2025-26 only recently began, that the games didn’t really count until March. That nothing in the first four months of the campaign mattered, that basketball only begins when Jayson Tatum is healthy, or when Donovan Mitchell and James Harden are on the court at the same time.

Fans battled through too much winter – and 2025-26 was an award-winning winter – to buy that. Celtic corps committed to Anfernee Simons and his slashing slice of impermanence. Cavalier faithful recognized and acknowledged Darius Garland’s on/off splits before moving on, maybe keeping the jersey, there were plenty of Darius’ No. 10 floating around the Cavs’ arena on Sunday.

Advertisement

Even more freshly-spun James Harden jerseys, but not nearly enough of James in the box score: 6-16 shooting, 19 points in Cleveland’s 109-98 home defeat. Ten assists for Harden in his first game with Mitchell in a dozen days. Also, far too many murmurs online over what the postseason Cavaliers will look like in matinee performances, James rolling right out of the hotel he moved into last month.

Cavs fans don’t want to read about Cleveland coalescing down the stretch, that was what 2025-26 was supposed to be for, with Garland and Mitchell, Max Strus and DeAndre Hunter and Lonzo Ball. Instead, Cleveland boasts a completely different bench, with trade deadline acquisitions Keon Ellis and Dennis Schroeder buttressing potent holdovers Craig Porter Jr. and Most Improved Player candidate Jaylon Tyson. Center Thomas Bryant is out there to remind fans from his five other NBA teams why Thomas Bryant is out there with the Cavaliers, and not out there with any of those five previous teams.

It goes. It lost on Sunday, but the Cavs (fourth in the East, seventh in point differential, 8-2 fielding Harden) rested Mitchell for a dog day February/March fortnight, girding his groin for spring. When every other NBA superstar was out playing the Nets for the third time this season, Mitchell sat in street clothes and spectacles and watched his Cavaliers. His Cavaliers…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/nba-east-runs-celtics-jayson-143346661.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-03-09 14:33:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.