NBA Eastern Conference Finals 2016/17, Cleveland Cavaliers vs Boston Celtics: 5 takeaways from Game 1

#3 The Really Big, Huge 3

Thompson and Love dominated the boards

If Kyrie, LeBron and Love are called the Big 3, I’m going to call today's star trio the “Huge 3”. Because, both literally and figuratively, they’re massive. In my previous article, I spoke about how the Celtics’ primary weakness was their inability to rebound, caused because of a lack of size in the post, courtesy Al Horford and how, even though he’s more versatile than his matchup Tristan Thompson, he’d still play a worse series because of sheer size disadvantage.

That turkey came home to roost in spectacular fashion, as Thompson had a 20 point, 9 rebound, 2 assist and 2 steal game going a perfect 7 of 7 from the field. In fact, the “Huge 3” of Thompson, LeBron James and Kevin Love combined for a collective 90 (of 117) points, 30 rebounds (of 44), 9 assists and 5 (of 9) steals while shooting a trouser-troubling 64% (the rest of the Cavs were 26%) from the field.

They beat the Celtics on the board so hard that by the end of the first quarter, the Cavaliers had more offensive rebounds (5) than Boston had in total (4). The Huge 3 aren’t even that tall, both Tristan and Kevin check in at 6’10, same as Al Horford, while LeBron is a comparatively measly 6’8.

All three of them though, are over 240 lbs, making them huge and giving them adequate strength to box out, challenge, rebound and score against any member of the Celtics roster.