BOSTON -- While trying to savor a rewarding season in which they won 53 games, earned the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference and advanced to the Eastern Conference finals, members of the Boston Celtics acknowledged the gap that still exists with the Cleveland Cavaliers in their quest to elevate to a true title contender.
LeBron James and Kyrie Irving paired up for 59 points as the Cavaliers flattened Isaiah Thomas-less Boston 135-102 during Game 5 of the East finals on Thursday night at TD Garden. The 33-point rout was the worst loss when facing elimination in Celtics history.
The Cavaliers won the best-of-seven series 4-1 and advanced to meet the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.
"We see that the team to get past is Cleveland, and right now we're not there," said Celtics big man Al Horford, who is now 1-15 against James in his postseason career and has been eliminated by James' teams in each of the past three seasons.
"I'm proud of our group. It felt like we grew as the year went on. Not the way we wanted to finish, but we came a long ways from the beginning of the year, came together. We still have to keep growing as a group and getting better."
The Celtics enter the offseason optimistic; they own the No. 1 pick in the 2017 draft, and there's potential to add another impact player on the free-agent market. But Boston players acknowledged there is still work to be done to catch the Cavaliers.
The Celtics are hoping the experience of being in the East finals this year will help them moving forward.
"[The Cavaliers have] been here before," Marcus Smart said. "We're a young team; this is our first time. We've made a lot of mistakes that you can't make at this stage. They capitalize, they did everything to the T, like they were supposed to. You gotta give credit to where credit is due."
Maybe the most discouraging thing for Boston -- beyond not having a healthy Thomas for this series -- was the way Cleveland dominated. Even in the game Boston won, the Celtics had to rally from a 21-point deficit to steal Game 3 on an Avery Bradley last-second 3-pointer.
The Celtics became the only team in the past 20 seasons to never lead in three home playoff games in the same series, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. They had a minus-30 points-per-game differential at home in this series, the worst-ever point differential at home in a best-of-seven series.
Celtics coach Brad Stevens wants his team to find motivation in how the series played out after a fulfilling season.
"It's a good step forward, as a season as a whole, but you leave with a little bit of a taste in your mouth -- like not playing as well [in Boston], and, man, you want to play well here because there is really no place like TD Garden in Boston," he said.
"When the fans at the end of the game were [chanting 'Let's go Celtics'] -- man, it's just amazing. And so, as I told our guys, we made a lot of great strides, but this pain is part of the path to what we ultimately want to be."
Celtics forward Jae Crowder agreed that Boston must embrace a desire to get better.
"Ultimately, we feel like this is a bad taste," Crowder said. "It sparked a little bit of motivation for each and everybody in our locker room to get better. I think that goes with coaching staff, players, and everybody just has to get better to get back to this situation."
James was asked whether he could envision a rematch with the Celtics in next year's East finals.
"That's a question that none of us can answer in here," James said. "They have a great team right now. [Thomas] is going to come back healthy. They have the No. 1 pick; we'll see what they do with that. But I can't answer that question and know if we're going to play them in the Eastern Conference finals next year. I have no idea."