The Celtics have depth on the bench, as youngsters Terry Rozier and Jaylen Brown look more confident every game. Watching Brown last night was watching a player develop in real time – he took some shots that looked like they might give Brad Stevens a heart attack, especially a senseless end-of-third-quarter heave when the Celtics could’ve held out for the last shot. But he also guarded LeBron James in the fourth quarter of a game that felt like a playoff game, and drained a massive 3 when it counted. Stevens had him out there for a reason, and it paid off by the end of the game.

As they showed in the win, there’s an alchemy at work here. During a stretch of the fourth quarter last night, the Cavaliers decided they were going to deny Thomas space at the rim. Following two LeBron blocks (and a couple, to be fair, bailout calls from the refs), Thomas realized he wasn’t going to get to the bucket easily, and started distributing from the paint. What followed? Three pointers from Crowder, Jonas Jerebko, Crowder, Bradley and then Thomas with the deep ball over Derrick Williams.