With Boston’s impressive win in Game 5 on Tuesday night, the series has once again swung the Celtics’ way, and they have a chance to close out the Cavs in Game 6 on Thursday.
Has there ever been more riding on a conference semifinal playoff game?
While there are those that believe LeBron James is more likely to leave Cleveland if the Cavs were to win the title, the general consensus is just opposite. If the Cavs suffer another pre-Finals flame out, most NBA fans believe that LeBron will sign elsewhere this summer.
But it’s not like LeBron had one of his monster near-triple-double games and his teammates let him down. The other Cavs shot 46% from the field, 45% from 3PT and hit 18-of-22 free throws. Shaquille O’Neal posted 21-4 (hitting 7-of-10 free throws) along with four blocks.
Meanwhile, LeBron shot 3-of-14 from the field (0-4 from 3PT) and scored just 15 points. For the first three quarters, he settled for long jumper after long jumper and missed most of them. Once again, his unwillingness to go in the post limited his options in a game when his jumper just wasn’t falling. Two of the game’s great wings — Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant — made/make a living on the block, especially when they were having trouble scoring elsewhere.
It’s not quite over yet, but the C’s are leading by 27 points with 3:01 to play, so I’m going to go ahead and call Game 5 as a Boston win.
What a performance by the Celtics! Ray Allen hit 6-of-9 three pointers (25 points), Kevin Garnett (18 points) abused Antawn Jamison on the block, Paul Pierce (21-11-7) had his best game of the series and Glen Davis added a crucial 15 points off the bench.
If the Celtics manage to close out the series in Boston, this may very well be LeBron James’ last game as a Cav, and if it is, it might be the worst of his career. He went 3-of-14 from the field, settling for jumper after jumper and didn’t start attacking the rim until the fourth quarter. Once again, his lack of a post up game (or unwillingness to play on the block) limited his options in a game where his shot was not falling.
The Cavs have their backs against the wall now. They’ve proven they can play well in Boston and they’re going to need a great performance in Game 6 to stay in this series.
Rajon Rondo posted 29-18-13 (the fourth triple-double of his career) and Tony Allen added 15 points (on 6-of-7 shooting) to lead the Celtics past the Cavs in Game 4, 97-87. Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen had 18 points apiece, but it was Rondo and Tony Allen who put Boston over the top. These playoffs have featured some great performances by reserves. Goran Dragic almost single-handedly beat the Spurs in Game 3, Kyle Korver shot the lights out in Game 3, and now Allen posts this crucial performance to keep the Celtics in the series.
While the Lakers, Suns and Magic look like they’re going to cruise to the conference finals, this Cavs/Celtics series is shaping up to be a dogfight. Boston outrebounded Cleveland 47-33 and held the Cavs to 40% shooting from the field.
This game isn’t even over yet, but the Cavs are up 98-74 early in the fourth quarter and the Celtics don’t show any signs of making a comeback.
LeBron James came out in the first quarter like a man on a mission, scoring 21 points to lead the Cavs to a 36-17 lead at the end of the first period. He currently has 35-7-8 and it doesn’t seem like the much-discussed elbow is bothering him much.
At this point, the Cavs are shooting an astounding 61% on a normally tough Celtics’ defense, and Cleveland owns a 36-20 rebounding advantage.
It’s looks like we’re heading to Game 4 with the Cavs leading, 2-1.
The Celtics led by four at halftime before a blistering 31-12 third quarter that left the Cavs and their fans completely stunned. Cleveland managed a 15-0 run in the fourth quarter to cut the lead to 10 with 4:33 to play, but the C’s woke up and rattled off their own 11-3 run to put the game away.
LeBron James posted 24-7-4, but didn’t look like himself for long stretches of the game. He turned the ball over five times and went just 10-for-15 from the free throw line. He seemed to be favoring that elbow, so speculation about his health will continue. Antawn Jamison went for 16-6, while Shaq played just 19 minutes and posted a measly 9-4. Mo Williams was the goat for the Cavs. He went just 1-of-9 from the field and scored just four points. (However, he did dish out seven assists.)
Rajon Rondo (13-19-4) thoroughly outplayed Williams and controlled the tempo of the game. Ray Allen (22-7) got hot, and Kevin Garnett chipped in with a solid 18-10.
And then there’s Rasheed Wallace. I wrote earlier today about Doc Rivers’ comments about Wallace’s defense, wondering why he’d bother trying to motivate Sheed through the press, but the big man responded with 17 points on 7-of-8 shooting. To put that performance in perspective, Sheed scored 17+ points in just five games this season.
The Celtics have to feel great about heading back to Boston for Game 3 tied 1-1. They’ll have three days to rest their old bones and need to win both games in Boston to have a real chance to win this series.
One thing’s for sure — Cavs fans are a lot more worried now than they were a few hours ago.
“[Wallace] has to play better, bottom line,” said Rivers, who has given Wallace plenty of rope this season. “He has to play better defense — the offense will come — but he has to be a better defender. And we can’t wait for him. He has to be a better defender for us.”
Wallace, underwhelming for much of the 2009-10 season, continues to provide little in the way of production in the postseason despite all the playoff experience he brought with him to Boston. After logging a mere two points and two rebounds over 13 minutes in Saturday’s Game 1 loss, Wallace is now at minus-20 in the plus/minus for the postseason, the lowest number on a team that’s won four of the six games it has played.
Rivers on Sunday seemed unwilling to completely yank Wallace from the rotation, but noted that [Shelden] Williams won’t be overlooked.
Why can’t he yank Wallace from the rotation? From what I saw in Game 1, and from what Bill Simmons has been writing about all season, Sheed has been basically useless this year. His PER is 13.18 (a career low), he is -3.7 in production and -4.1 in net +/- (per 82games) and is shooting a miserable 41% from the field and 28% from long range. Is Rivers afraid to bench him outright because of the poisonous attitude he may bring to the locker room?
Rivers is a pretty good coach, but I don’t understand these comments. Why bother going out to the media at this point in the season? If Wallace can’t get motivated enough in Game Freaking 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals — against the Cavs, no less — then why would he think that making a few statements to the media make any difference?
The Cavaliers trailed by 11 at halftime, but a 36-24 third quarter run spearheaded by Mo Williams’ 14 points (including 10-straight) gave Cleveland a one-point lead heading into the fourth quarter. From there, the Cavs turned up the pressure defensively, and LeBron James (35-7-7) asserted himself offensively, allowing Cleveland to pull away to win, 101-93.
Williams finished with 20-5-6, but was actually outplayed by Rajon Rondo (27-6-12) for three quarters of the game. The Celtics turned the ball over 16 times and Paul Pierce missed 11 of his last 12 shots, finishing with just 13 points on 17 shots. That’s not going to get it done.
The good news for the Celtics is that Kevin Garnett (18-10) looked fresh, and if Pierce would have had a usual performance, the C’s would have won. Part of the problem for Pierce is that he has the best athlete in the world (LeBron) on him defensively.
LeBron posted 29 points (including 5 of 8 from long range — take that, Bill Simmons), seven assists and four rebounds as the Cavs rolled over the Celtics, 107-76. They’re one win away from matching the 1985-86 Celtics for the best regular season home record in league history.
Chris Sheridan comments on the state of the Celtics…
The defending champs will be there when it counts, once they have Kevin Garnett back at 100 percent, right?
Problem is, Boston coach Doc Rivers is keeping No. 5 under wraps until Wednesday night, meaning he’ll have seen Garnett play about 80 minutes of total floor time over the final 26 games to get himself prepared for the postseason.
Or: The Orlando Magic are going to be a heckuva matchup for someone, especially the Cavs, with their deadly inside-outside game anchored by Dwight Howard and all those shooters. The problem with that one (aside from Jameer Nelson’s absence) is that the school of thought that produced those kinds of pronouncements underwent a curriculum change when Hedo Turkoglu’s ankle crumpled Saturday in East Rutherford, N.J. on the same night that Brook Lopez was outplaying Howard. This came one night after David Lee of the Knicks outplayed Howard, and the Magic’s dreams of the No. 2 seed began to die a quick death.
Anyone want to buy into the premise that the Cavs might have their hands full if they meet up with the Chicago Bulls in the first round? That’s about the only pre-weekend thought that endures even a little.
“The teams at the bottom, that’s where you have to look who’s surging,” Boston coach Doc Rivers said. “Chicago is playing really well, and if that’s who you have to face, so be it.”
As good as the Cavs have played this season, it would have been nice to see LeBron and Co. seize the bragging rights in the Eastern Conference instead of having it handed to them on a platter. Sure, they still have to go out and win games, but what was shaping up as a really interesting Eastern Conference playoffs is looking more and more like the Cavs’ tuneup for the Lakers in the Finals. Kevin Garnett’s knee is bad, Jameer Nelson is out for the rest of the season with a shoulder injury and Hedo Turkoglu just sprained his ankle. Barring a semi-miraculous return for KG, I just don’t think there’s anyone in the East that can upend the Cavs right now.
In a game that was closer than the final score, the Cavaliers went on a 9-2 run in the middle of the fourth quarter to coast to an impressive 98-83 victory over the struggling Celtics. Cleveland benefited from a couple of favorable calls to start that run. First, there was a phantom offensive foul on Leon Powe, and then there was the officials’ decision not to reset the shot clock after LeBron stole the ball and lost it out of bounds (which ultimately resulted in a shot clock violation for the Celtics). Even though the Cavs outplayed the Celtics for much of the game, Boston was hanging around and it was those two defensive stops that ignited the run that ultimately put the game out of reach.
LeBron was outstanding — 38 points, seven rebounds, six assists, four steals and three blocks. Truly, it was an MVP performance for all of the doubters out there. In the past, I’ve been critical of his defense, but it looks as if his stint with Team USA has done wonders for his intensity on that end of the court. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he’s extremely motivated when he faces Paul Pierce. Pierce struggled for much of the night and that had everything to do with LeBron’s defense.
A few random thoughts about the game…
- Where was the crowd? Given a game of this magnitude, I was expecting to tune in to see a playoff atmosphere, but the Cleveland fans sat on their hands for much of the game. They didn’t really get loud until that aforementioned run in the middle of the fourth quarter. It looked like a typical NBA crowd and that’s pretty sad given the relative importance of this game.
- I don’t like the call to wear the throwback uniforms in a game like this — it’s just too important of a game to throw crazy unis on your players. Basketball players are creatures of habit and it messes with their psyche to be wearing road throwbacks in a game of this magnitude. Ultimately, it didn’t matter, but it might have.
- Did anyone else see KG intentionally run into LeBron after the refs refused to reset the shot clock? He walked right past LeBron and hit him with a shoulder. He looked like a high school bully trying to pick a fight. LeBron reacted by turning and glancing at Garnett, but kept his cool.
- The Celtics have to do something about their bench. They lost James Posey and P.J. Brown and the guys they currently have aren’t ready to step in and play crunch time minutes like those guys did in the playoffs last season. This will be one of the more interesting storylines between now and the trade deadline and then throughout the playoffs. If the Celtics don’t repeat or at least make the Finals, then Danny Ainge is going to be second-guessed for electing not to re-sign Posey. He is likely to make a move or two to bolster the bench, but as I wrote earlier this week, they don’t have any expendable pieces to offer in trade.
- I brought this up last season, but I don’t like the way Doc Rivers uses Pierce, Garnett and Ray Allen. When you have three players of that caliber, there’s no reason to have more than one of them out of the game at any given time. Rivers elects to bench Pierce and KG at the same time and have Ray Ray out there with the reserves, but he’s not capable of carrying that unit night in and night out, especially now that they’re without Posey and Brown. I would have two of the Big Three on the court at all times. But that’s me.
- Mo Williams looks like a great fit in Cleveland. He had 13 points on 5-9 shooting, and was the Cavs’ main playmaker when LeBron went to the bench. I was sad to see the Bucks trade him away, but apparently he didn’t get along with Michael Redd — who knows, maybe Milwaukee should have jettisoned Redd instead. Williams has always struggled with his defense, but now that LeBron is doing most of the playmaking on offense, Mo can focus more on defending his guy and getting after loose balls. He had a couple of nice hustle plays tonight.
- Wally Szczerbiak is washed up. I don’t know if Mike Brown was trying to showcase him tonight for a trade, but it’s mind-boggling to me that this guy is getting minutes over Daniel Gibson and Sasha Pavlovic. He can’t really defend and if his shot isn’t falling (and it wasn’t tonight), he’s basically useless. It will be interesting to see if the Cavs decide to trade him for some more help or if they let his contract expire at the end of the season and take the salary cap relief.
- J.J. Hickson looks like a player. He’s raw, but he’s athletic and has some moves down low.
