CLEVELAND _ It was time for LeBron James and Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue to step up their games.
The four-time league MVP and the coach with 1{ seasons and 33 playoff games under his belt didn't live up to their reputations for the second consecutive evening in the Eastern Conference finals.
At least for a span of four quarters over two games.
The Cavs were 10-0, up 2-0 on the Boston Celtics and seemingly cruising. The Celtics had lost star point guard Isaiah Thomas for the rest of the playoffs with a right hip injury at halftime of Game 2.
Then coach Brad Stevens and the Celtics gained the upper hand on James, Lue and the Cavs. The Celtics rallied from a 21-point third-quarter deficit and pulled out a 111-108 victory in Game 3, then took a 10-point halftime lead in Game 4 Tuesday night at Quicken Loans Arena.
The Cavs finally awakened, thanks to a playoff career-high 42 points by Kyrie Irving and escaped with a 112-99 victory. It was the kind of breakout performance many in the Cavs camp had been expecting from Irving, who had been the third wheel behind James and Kevin Love in the series and for most of the postseason. But he could be limited in Game 5 by a sprained left ankle, suffered with 1:47 left in the third quarter when he stepped on Terry Rozier's foot.
James also got himself going in the fourth quarter, scoring 15 points in the final 12 minutes to finish with 34 points, five rebounds and six assists.
But even as the Cavs took a 3-1 series lead into Game 5 Thursday night in Boston, the Celtics again exposed some of the Cavs' weaknesses. Even though the Cavs cleaned them up in the second half, they will be duly noted by the Golden State Warriors, awaiting the winner of this series in the NBA Finals that open June 1.
James was expected to light up Quicken Loans Arena after a disappointing Sunday, when he finished with 11 points, the fourth-lowest scoring playoff game of his career.
Tuesday was a nightmare of a different sort.
James picked up his second, third and fourth fouls in a span of 4:40 in the second quarter. When James was whistled for his third at the 8:55 mark, Lue gambled and left him in.
It backfired, with James called for an offensive foul just 2:09 later. James went to the bench with 6:46 remaining in the period and the Cavs down by 10.
It became a moot point when Irving took over with 21 points in the third quarter, including 19 points in the final 4:40. But that wasn't Lue's and the Cavs' only issue.
For a span of four quarters in Games 3-4, the Cavs defense was virtually non-existent. The Cavs' Sunday lethargy carried over into Tuesday.
Lue likes to focus on taking one or two players out of the game and live with letting the others try to beat them. It worked in the first two rounds with the Indiana Pacers' Paul George and the Toronto Raptors DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry.
But Thomas' injury changed all that.
Without their 5-foot-9 offensive powerhouse, also a huge defensive liability, the Celtics became a balanced team of players who had to fight their way into the league. Lue's plan was thwarted; there was no obvious choice _ or choices _ to focus on.
In a battle of 40-year-old NBA wunderkinds between Stevens and Lue, Stevens has proved thus far to be the superior strategist.
His ATOs (after timeout plays) have been varied and surprising, his timeouts coming at the perfect moments to stem the Cavs' momentum.
Stevens has also been the superior motivator, convincing the Celtics that all was not lost without Thomas.
In the case of the Cavs, James can motivate himself. But he was just as tuned out in the first quarter of Game 4 as he was in the fourth quarter of Game 3, when he went scoreless.
There has also been the decision to keep Channing Frye on the bench for the entire series, even when the Cavs are desperate for a scoring threat. Lue considers Frye a defensive liability and said his playing time in this series would go to Richard Jefferson.
I can't second-guess Lue on that one, even if there were times Sunday and Tuesday the Cavs could have used a few Frye 3-pointers. This series is being decided in the paint, first by James and then Tuesday by Irving.
The Cavs players trust Lue. They have the ultimate faith in their leader, James. Those troubling four quarters may have been just a brief crack in their invulnerability.
To their credit, they plugged it before their command of the series got away.
