On the road: Celtics' young core looks to exorcise demons in Cleveland

CLEVELAND - On Saturday, before Boston's Game 3 loss to the Cavaliers, Brad Stevens was asked about what advice Jayson Tatum took from Kobe Bryant, who recently analyzed game film focusing on the Celtics forward in an episode of "Detail."

“Well,” Stevens joked, “I think you’ve got to be careful taking it from a Laker, first of all.”

There’s an interesting parallel to be drawn between the rookie seasons of an 18-year-old Bryant, who memorably shot two air balls in a Game 4 second-round loss to the Utah Jazz, in which the Lakers were swept, and the 20-year-old Tatum, who has been a crucial part of Boston’s surprising playoff run, averaging 18.1 points while playing 34.9 minutes per game.

But, it has not just been Tatum in the postseason. Terry Rozier, who is 24, has been sensational as the team’s starting point guard. Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who turned 21 last October, are the first 21-and-under duo in NBA history to both score 200 points in a postseason.

The Celtics are still playing for many reasons: Stevens’ coaching, Al Horford acting as the two-way centerpiece, Marcus Morris’ understated contributions, among a few, but they’re mostly two wins away from the NBA Finals because of their young core.

In Game 3, the Celtics looked like a young, inexperienced team, not ready for the moment and squandered an opportunity to seize control of the Eastern Conference finals. Rozier was a minus-20 in 28 minutes. Brown had five fouls in 21 minutes and shot 3-for-3 from the field. Tatum scored 18 points in 31 minutes but didn’t make an impact beyond the scoresheet. “We needed this,” Rozier said of the 30-point loss. “We needed our butts whipped.”

On Sunday at practice, the Celtics were ready to turn the page. “I use it as fuel,” Brown said of his Game 3 performance. “It was embarrassing, the way I played, the way I performed.”

Throughout the playoffs, Stevens has talked about how valuable this postseason experience has been for the young core. The hardest test to pass for a contending team is to win on the road in the playoffs, though. In that regard, the Celtics still have some growing to do. Saturday’s loss dropped their record away from home to 1-5 in these playoffs.

But Stevens wasn’t in the mood to look at the big picture implications of this surprising playoff run after Game 3. “To be honest with you, in my 11 years as a head coach, I probably haven't talked about road and home five times with our team. It's about how you play between the lines. Because, I think, if you start talking about that, then you find excuses in both places. We can't play like we played tonight no matter where we played. If we would have played in Boston like that, we would have gotten beat. The valuable lesson is that Cleveland outplayed us.”

Tatum offered a different perspective Sunday, adding: “It’s just, though, playing on the road, teams are more comfortable. They’ve got their crowd behind them. They’re used to playing in this gym. It’s just tough going on the road and winning games."

The Celtics know a road win in Game 4 on Monday will give them a commanding lead in this series. All season, Boston has played like a team dressing up for the job they want, instead of the one they have. They lost Gordon Hayward on opening night, and rebounded to go on a 16-game winning streak early in the regular season. They lost Kyrie Irving for the year after he underwent knee surgery in early April, and still eliminated the Bucks and Sixers in the first two rounds when no one expected them to make any semblance of a postseason run.

Now, they have one more hurdle to clear. They need to show they can rebound from Saturday’s blowout loss and show they are indeed ready to dethrone the Cavaliers as Eastern Conference champions. Boston must be capable of winning a game on the road with the kind of implications Monday’s game will have.

Horford is playing in the 10th postseason of his career, and knows what the young guys are going through. “At home, you have your home crowd behind you and have a comfort level about you,” he said at practice on Sunday. “On the road, literally it’s just you against everybody else. That was something that was different, and it takes a while for you to get used to and understand how well you have to play on the road.”

The Celtics are learning, though. They didn’t win a road game in the first round, then won a Game 3 in Philadelphia to take a commanding 3-0 lead in the second round. But, this is a different challenge. The Celtics are facing LeBron James, and a desperate team with the best player in the world is hard to beat in any arena, especially in his.

Counting against the Celtics rebounding on Monday with a strong performance, though, would be discounting everything they’ve done this season, even if it would be reasonable to expect the young core to eventually run out of magic.

Morris has played with these guys all season, and isn’t betting on that changing on Monday.

“(I’m) very confident,” he said at practice. “That team we saw yesterday, I’m 100 percent sure it won’t be the same team on Monday.”

We’ll find out in Game 4 whether the Celtics are ready to take the next step, in a season where they’ve been able to bounce back after every setback.