Celtics' Crowder on Cavaliers: 'Nobody on their team is intimidating'

There's no trash talk quite like playoff trash talk. 

Whether a team is up or down, on a roll or on the ropes, it seems inevitable that at some point or other, one of its players will say something inflammatory to stir the pot. 

The Boston Celtics' resident pot-stirrer is forward Jae Crowder, who is talking tall despite his team being in an 0-2 hole in their first-round series with the heavily favored Cleveland Cavaliers.  

"(LeBron James and Kyrie Irving) can score all the points in the fourth," Crowder told MassLive.com's Jay King, after the Cavs' dynamic duo did just that in their 99-91 Game 2 win. "If we take away offensive rebounding and we take away some of the little turnovers that we had, we win the game with them scoring every point in the fourth quarter."

Crowder, who's spent the bulk of his minutes in the series matching up with James, had this to add: 

Fearlessness is a good thing, especially for a team as green (no pun intended) as the Celtics, but one might question the wisdom of goading a team with as powerful an on/off switch as the Cavs. 

Crowder has been coming off the bench behind Evan Turner, but that may change, with head coach Brad Stevens considering tinkering with his starting lineup ahead of Game 3 in Boston. Turner is a more versatile offensive player, but Crowder is plainly the Celtics' best defensive option on James. 

Regardless of what Stevens decides, it's clear that Crowder will continue to welcome the challenge.

- With h/t to Eye on Basketball