{"id":701980,"date":"2026-04-06T20:23:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T20:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/701980\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T20:23:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T20:23:29","slug":"cleveland-radio-host-says-cavaliers-are-scared-of-facing-celtics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/701980\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleveland radio host says Cavaliers are ‘scared’ of facing Celtics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBoston Celtics\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t“They don’t want to play Boston in the second round because they’re scared.”<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\tFans hold up signs during the 2024 Celtics-Cavs series Danielle Parhizkaran\/Globe Staff\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTatum and Brown carry Celtics to 115-101 win over Raptors\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPainter claiming injury at Bill Belichick\u2019s house sues him over alleged unsafe work site\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

The Cavaliers<\/a> have not made it past the second round of the playoffs since the Warriors swept them in the 2018 NBA Finals. <\/p>\n

They\u2019ve endured a second-round exit each of the last two postseasons, with the earlier one coming at the hands of the Celtics in 2024.<\/a><\/p>\n

With the final week of the regular-season here, teams are competing for playoff seeding. The Cavs are currently fourth, and the Celtics <\/a>are in second.<\/p>\n

Cleveland is one game back of the Knicks for the No.3 seed. If they were to pass the Knicks and win their first-round series, it could set up a potential rematch with the Celtics in the second round this year.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the desired outcome for the Cavs, according to an ESPN Cleveland radio host<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want the four seed, not the No. 3 seed,\u201d ESPN Cleveland\u2019s Andrew Goldhammer said.<\/a> \u201cThey don\u2019t want to play Boston in the second round because they\u2019re scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Celtics have won 10 of their last 12 games. Jayson Tatum has begun to work through some of his shooting struggles, shooting 46 percent from the field over his last three games. <\/p>\n

Jaylen Brown continues to be a potent scoring threat, leading the team in points in nine of the last 11 games. The Celtics\u2019 core is battle-tested, and they\u2019ve also enjoyed an infusion of youthful energy from their bench contributors. <\/p>\n

The Celtics swept the three-game regular-season series with Cleveland. The Cavs have been playing well, winning eight of their last 10.<\/p>\n

But, as the regular-season draws to a close, Goldhammer seems convinced that the Cavs will do what they can to stay in that fourth seed and avoid a potential matchup with the Celtics as long as possible.<\/p>\n

Keeping the No. 4 seed would make a matchup with the top-seeded Pistons more likely for Cleveland. They wouldn\u2019t face the Celtics until the Conference Finals if both teams made it that far. <\/p>\n

Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen, Sam Merrill, and Dean Wade missed the Cavs\u2019 matchup with the Pacers on Sunday. <\/p>\n

Cleveland has four games left in the regular season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Cavs are banged up,\u201d Goldhammer said. \u201cThe Cavs don\u2019t know who their starting lineup should be, as admitted by their coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t know who should be in their rotation and who shouldn\u2019t be, but they\u2019re going to spike a bunch of games down the stretch because they\u2019re just afraid of Boston, and I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll just be ready to go in time for the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\"Profile\t<\/p>\n

\t\tKhari A. Thompson<\/a>Sports Reporter\t<\/p>\n

Khari Thompson covers professional sports for Boston.com. Before joining the team in 2022, Khari covered college football for The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet the latest Boston sports news<\/p>\n

Receive updates on your favorite Boston teams, straight from our newsroom to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boston Celtics “They don’t want to play Boston in the second round because they’re scared.” Fans hold up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,305,193,3846,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-701980","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","12":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116359635137149958","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}