BOSTON -- If it was going to happen, it wasn't going to be pretty. Nothing the Cleveland Cavaliers have done in the 2017-18 season has been. They entered Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals without their second-best player, Kevin Love, and they needed to do something no team had done in the entire playoffs: Beat the Boston Celtics at TD Garden. 

Even for LeBron James, who in previous years made getting out of the East look easy, this proved to be challenging. James needed to play all 48 minutes in his 100th game of the season on Sunday, and the Cavaliers had to come back from a slow start that found them trailing 35-23 midway through the second quarter. Cleveland played an imperfect game -- it shot 9 for 35 from 3-point range and had five total bench points -- but wound up with an 87-79 victory, advancing to the NBA Finals yet again. This will be James' eighth-straight trip there.

The only thing neat and tidy about this performance was how well it holds up as a microcosm of the Cavs' season. James was preposterously good, finishing with 35 points on 12 for 24 shooting, with 15 rebounds, nine assists and two blocks. He also had eight turnovers, though, and didn't even come out for halftime warmups because he wanted to use his time "to recalibrate and catch my wind again," he said. Cleveland's spacing was cramped with Jeff Green in Love's place, and its minutes with reserves Larry Nance Jr. and Jordan Clarkson on the court were disastrous. 

The Cavs needed some luck in the form of Boston missing more than its fair share of wide-open 3-pointers. Still, when things were going poorly, they could have folded, given into exhaustion or strayed from the game plan. They did not. 

"Both sides tonight didn't shoot the ball well," Cavs swingman Kyle. Korver said. "But we got 23 on our side. He just kept on attacking all night long. Our defense was really solid. We did just enough to win."

LeBron James Game 7
LeBron James does it again. USATSI

Korver, who just four days earlier was exasperated with his team's effort in the same building, sounded stunned that Cleveland actually did it. This is a team that made a franchise-changing trade last summer, remade the roster at the trade deadline, finished 29th in defensive rating in the regular season and almost lost a seven-game series against the Indiana Pacers in the first round. In March, Tyronn Lue took a nine-game leave of absence to address health issues and guard J.R. Smith was suspended for throwing a bowl of chicken tortilla soup at assistant coach Damon Jones. 

"It has been an amazing, crazy, hard year," Korver said. "Emotionally draining. All the stuff that's gone on, all the storylines -- and that was just in the regular season. Then you get to the playoffs and, you know, it's just been tough. And so yeah, I think last year, you kind of just expected it to happen at a certain point. And this year, you didn't at all. You had to go out and get it."

James said this has felt like six seasons in one. "It's been good, it's been bad, it's been roses, there have been thorns in the roses," he said. In the regular season, the Cavs had the point differential of a 44-win team, but managed to get to 50 because James is phenomenal in crunch time. In the postseason, they have not exactly transformed into a typical title contender, but they have papered over their flaws and persevered. 

"I really can't believe it, to be honest with you," Korver said. 

Smith said it has been an "extremely difficult" year, adding that he doesn't take it for granted that he gets to play with James, who always seems to find ways to make the best of bad situations. It took a 46-point, 11-rebound, nine-assist masterpiece from James in Cleveland on Friday just for the team to have a chance to advance. 

"Fortunately for us, we've got easily the best player in the world on our team," Smith said. 

Lue said James' performance was the best he has seen in their time together, "right there" with his unforgettable Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals. Statistically, this wasn't even James' best game of the series, but he did it in a hostile environment, in a do-or-die game, without taking any breaks, against a team that was trying to "make him exert as much energy as humanly possible," in the words of Celtics coach Brad Stevens.

Stevens, by the way, was pleased with how Boston defended James and limited open looks for his supporting cast. He called James' Finals streak "ridiculous," especially considering the pressure and scrutiny James is under. 

"I thought it was an outstanding defensive game, and again, he still got 35-15-9," Stevens said. "It's a joke."

Replace James with another superstar and it is very possible, perhaps even likely that Boston would have won this battle. The Celtics have more playmakers and two-way players than the Cavaliers. They are more versatile and much more athletic. But they do not have James, who -- to borrow a term from former Cleveland general manager David Griffin -- has the ability to dictate outcomes like no one else. 

"I mean, I don't even know what to say about him anymore," Korver said. "My respect for him and how he plays the game and how he approaches the game and how he works on his game … being around him after a year and a half, it just keeps rising. I thought I had as much respect as I could have for him, but it just keeps on going up. It's unbelievable. His abilities give the rest of us confidence. What else are you going to say about him? He's the best."

At the podium, James said he hadn't processed the fact he is going back to the Finals. He declined to compare the energy he has used this season to prior ones, but it is obvious that putting this particular team on his back has been draining. "I'm the leader of this team, and I'm going to give what I've got," he said. It turns out that, when he is giving everything he has, the Cavs can overcome all sorts of ugliness.