Cleveland Cavaliers: Top 5 NBA Playoff moments from Big 3 era

4. (2017) Kyrie Irving explodes versus Boston

Fast forward to the 2017 Eastern Conference Finals and the Cleveland Cavaliers are firing on all cylinders. They eventually swept the Indiana Pacers and decimated the Toronto Raptors in four games by an average margin of victory of 15.3 points per game.

Now, the Cavaliers faced the No. 1 seed in the East. The Boston Celtics won 53 games this season and were led by Isaiah Thomas who was averaging a career-high 28.9 points this season.

In contrast to their series with Indiana, the Cavaliers came out swinging against Boston. They won Game 1 by 13 points then stunned the Celtics in a 44 point beat down on Boston’s home floor to take a 2-0 series lead.

Game 3 began in a similar fashion with the Cavaliers holding a 16-point halftime lead. However, a second-half collapse was sealed by Avery Bradley’s game-winning 3-pointer.

All of a sudden, the Celtics had life again. Even with Thomas sidelined in Game 4, the Celtics fought their way to a double-digit lead in the third quarter over Cleveland. What was once another easy sweep was now dangerously close to being a 2-2 series.

What followed next was one of the defining moments of Irving’s playoff career. As LeBron James and Kevin Love helped bring the Cavaliers within striking distance, Irving took hold of the game and never looked back.

In a two minute stretch, Irving scored nine straight points to vault the Cavaliers back in front. Then, things almost reached a critical point for Cleveland when Irving stumbled and twisted his ankle with one minute left in the quarter. Their best option offensively was suddenly at risk of being sidelined.

Rather than asking to be subbed out, Irving put his Mamba Mentality on full display by tightening up his shoestrings and rattling off 10 more points in the final minute to cap off a 6-for-6 shooting stretch. The degree of difficulty on some of these shots was absurd as Irving was relentlessly giving Bradley buckets every time down the floor.

As the Cavaliers steadily regained control of the game, Irving made sure to put the Celtics away in style with a crafty fake behind the back pass in the fourth quarter for a postseason career-high 42 points.