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.

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 out there with Thomas Bryant.

Mitchell owns a championship core if he could ever get it on the court at the same time: Jarrett Allen missed his second straight game on Sunday with knee soreness, his 13th sit of the season after working all 82 in 2024-25. Cleveland won’t budge from the No. 4 seed before the season ends, all that means is Spider requires stealing a second round Game 2 in Detroit. And no better time to beat Boston for the first time this season than Game 1 of the Eastern finals.

Boston fans will laugh at this, and that’s fine, I’ll pretend they’re laughing at an old ‘Cheers’ joke and not my arguments for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Like the time Carla talked Sam out of trying out for the Red Sox not because she was his friend but mostly so she could snare a couple of Sox hunks inside Sam’s spring training dorm. Or when the whole bar ate sorghum, happily. Or when Woody made that amazing drink but couldn’t remember what went in it.

Boston fans don’t want to recognize that they wasted winter watching an incomplete team because Boston wasn’t, not when the Celtics are second in the East, second-best point differential in the NBA even without Jayson Tatum. The Celtics weren’t even supposed to clock in this season, may clock out with a champagne shower, goggles materializing from storage.

Sunday was whiplash, dragging an early seven-point Cleveland advantage to a 26-point Boston lead. Jayson Tatum working the closest an NBA team can get to a back-to-back (Boston worked in Cleveland 42 hours after tipping victoriously over Dallas, in Boston) and looking every bit the unruffled top NBA pitchman, 20 points in 27 minutes against Cleveland, 15-12-7 assists in 27 minutes versus the Mavs.

The Cavaliers enjoyed the opposite itinerary, the longest stretch of days off allowed, last working March 3 and in Ohio. Plenty of time for practice, plenty of space for growth. Couldn’t blame the layoff for Sunday’s snore, either, it wasn’t the emergence of March bloomery or the urge to spring forward that got in the way of Cleveland playing defense on Sunday.

While the Cavs obsessed over what went wrong on the other end, the Boston offense hummed with all the 2025-26 hallmarks: Jaylen Brown probing, Payton Pritchard crossing goofballs over, Baylor Scheierman tossing Cliff Hagen-styled lefty looks into the goal, Sam Hauser leaking, always leaking, splashing 5-10 three-pointers in a contest where Cleveland missed 20 of its first 22 from deep. Where Cleveland feints, then considers, Boston rolls and counters.

It scans: Cleveland is all new faces. Even Celtic breakouts Neemias Queta and Scheierman worked in Boston’s system as deep reserves in previous seasons. It makes sense when Jayson Tatum blends with the teammates he hasn’t worked with since May, he’s blended so successfully with each of them before. Save for rookie Hugh Gonzalez (several Larry Bird jerseys in Sunday’s Cleveland but even more Hugh Gonzalez jerseys, which makes sense, Larry’s last game was in “Cleveland“) and (capable Nikola Vucevic replacement) Luka Garza.

Cleveland, like Richfield, isn’t Cleveland yet. Not without Jarrett Allen, James Harden’s new video game, the piece to make the paint mightier. Allen was a crucial worry in previous postseasons but not with this crew, not with Harden. The Cavaliers boast the postseason luxury of keeping either Mitchell or Harden on the floor at all times, a stagger to sock the opposition’s jaw. All of this, admittedly, relies on James Harden showing up in the playoffs.

Boston’s potential championship return is no gimmick or novelty. The NBA’s second-best point differential boasts an MVP candidate, Jaylen Brown turning over from Pippen into Jordan in a single possession, then it added whatever Jayson Tatum makes of this comeback crusade.

Detroit is injured, New York unwritten, Boston was in business even if Tatum remained sidelined through October. The only thing to trip the Celtics might be Jayson Tatum confusing NBA games with intense one-on-one workouts while refamiliarizing himself with NBA protocol. Not turning the ball over by stepping in-bounds while in-bounding it, calling for the ball back after a miss, walking off the court to find a water fountain after making a three, little things like that.

The NBA had all this time to take our licks at the Celtics, this is the best we could come up with. Couldn’t even keep them in third place during a season where the Patriots made the Super Bowl. Boston avoids luxury taxes, and everyone got an extra biscuit when Tatum’s 20 field goal attempts per game took 62 games off. Luka Garza took two biscuits but that’s OK, he’s hungry, his shot diet is buttery.

Boston remains a problem. The only Eastern team that can stop them would be a surprise. Cleveland is capable, could be that surprise, but the Celtics demand so much. To surprise Boston four playoff times in seven playoff tries is to shock.

Kelly Dwyer writes about the NBA at kdonhoops.com