MVN - Most Valuable Network

Break It Down Now: Cavs-Celtics Round Two Preview

One of my first memories of following pro basketball came in the spring of 1992, when I was but a wee little nine-year old lad living in Broadview Heights, Ohio.

The six o’clock news was about to start on Channel 5, and the first thing they showed as their introduction was footage of the Cavs highlights in Game 7 of the 1992 Eastern Conference Semifinals at Boston Garden. Two huge words, “Cavs Win,” were flashing on the bottom of the screen.

At that time, I was always under the impression that the Cavs were the only thing good with Cleveland sports while the Indians and Browns were put on earth to suck, so I didn’t appreciate the magnitude of that game.

It would be Larry Bird’s last game as a pro. Going into the Boston Garden and winning Game 7 by 18 points, 122-104, was a big deal. Of course, you could understand the perspective of a nine-year old at that time thinking that the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan were the only team that could beat the Cavs.

And they beat Cleveland like a bass drum.

Who would have thought that it would take 16 years for the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics to meet again in the second round of the playoffs? LeBron James was seven back then while Kevin Garnett was a freshman in high school. Ray Allen and Paul Pierce were also high school jocks. Doc Rivers was a 30-year old point guard for the Los Angeles Clippers. Mike Brown was a 22-year old who would just be starting his career in the NBA as a video coordinator for the Denver Nuggets.

They will all merge with their own subplots to come together 16 years later and tip-off what will be the headline series of the second round starting Tuesday night at TD Banknorth Garden at 8 pm Eastern on TNT.

You can call this series “one on three.” It’s Boston’s “Three Party” of Garnett, Pierce, and Allen against Cleveland’s one-man wrecking crew of LeBron James. LB absolutely demolished the Washington Witnesses in the first round, showing no mercy for DeShawn Stevenson, Caron Butler, Brenda Haywood, and the rest of the bunch from the team he has steamrolled pretty much on his own for three straight years. James put up 29.5 points, 9.5 boards, 7.7 assists, and 1.3 steals in blasting D.C. out of the opening round.

Boston, however, comes in as an elite defensive team. Their inconsistency was exposed in the Atlanta series (come on, when you’re 66-16, you shouldn’t need seven games to put away a 37-45 team, no matter how badly you won Game 7). But check out these numbers: the C’s were no. 1 in opponents’ field goal percentage (41.88), points allowed (90.2), opponents’ three-point percentage (31 percent), and 13th in rebounding (42.0) during the regular season.

Last year, the Celtics were the seventh-worst team leaguewide in terms of opponents’ field goal percentage (46.8), in the bottom half (18th) in opponents’ points allowed (99.2), 12th in opponents’ three-point percentage (35 percent) and 20th in rebounding (40.4).

It all starts with Garnett, this year’s Defensive Player of the Year. But as intense as his defense has been all year, you have to wonder how much of a winner KG is. The seven-game triumph over Atlanta marked only the second time he has escaped the first round in his career, and the fact that the Celtics-Hawks series, of all matchups, was the only one to go seven games has to concern you if you’re a Beantown fan.

The Cavs, on the other hand, were pissed that it took them six games to beat the Witnesses instead of five after blowing a five-point lead at the Q in Game 5 with less than two minutes to go. However, this excerpt from the Akron Beacon Journal’s Brian Windhorst on ESPN.com during Game 6 may show that the Cavs, unlike the Celtics, may be developing a hell of a killer instinct:

“With sweat pouring off of him — and his teammates seated, huffing, below him — LeBron James stalked up and down the bench, gesturing and screaming…It was an impromptu players-only meeting at an odd time, the moments after the third quarter of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 105-88 Game 6 victory on Friday over the Washington Wizards to send the Cavs into the second round. It was the fiercest James looked all night as he made his point: close it out…The Cavs missed a chance Wednesday in Game 5 back in Cleveland, letting a fourth-quarter lead slip away. Not this time. James wouldn’t allow it and his teammates, before and after his outpouring, were in step.”

Let’s make one thing clear: even though the Cavs finished with a record of 45-37 during the regular season (21 games behind Boston’s mark of 66-16), you would have to be a fool - a downright fool - to think that this series is going to heavily favor Boston. And there are apparently a lot of fools reading ESPN.com, as a survey on Sunday night asking “Which team will NOT advance to the conference finals?” saw the Cavs get 50 percent of the votes.

Last time we checked, the Cavs are the defending Eastern Conference champions. They’ll still have the best player on the floor when the series starts on Tuesday. And Cleveland has shown that they have a bizarre knack for just mailing it in during the regular season only to play on another level in the playoffs, where LeBron James as well as guys like Daniel Gibson make a mark on their legacy.

Rivers is a lousy coach who caught lightning in a bottle by coaching three superstars, but even he’s wise enough to know this much:

“One of the things I told our team all year, every time we played [Cleveland] and again tonight, is that we’re trying to catch them, not them trying to catch us. [Our] record means nothing. That team went to the Finals last year, so in my mind we’re trying to catch them.”

Both teams split the regular season series with each club winning on its home floor. This could be pivotal considering how the Celtics seem to play like world-beaters at home compared to garbage on the road, and in this case, they have homecourt advantage in the best-of-seven. If record does matter, it’s in the case of homecourt advantage alone.

But let’s not forget that #23 is wearing a Cavs jersey in this one. We saw the epic 48-point special at the Palace last year. In fact, the last two Game 5’s against the Pistons were from another world, as LeBron led the Cavs past Detroit in both those games despite being up against ridiculous odds.

The Celtics? Yeah, the aura of the parquet floor is legendary, and the ghosts of legends past want to see that 17th banner hang from the rafters above that floor. But this is a team that just went to seven games with Atlanta, forcing ABC to put the Hawks on network TV for what had to be for the first time in this millenium. Detroit toyed around with the Sixers a little bit and even trailed, 2-1. But the Pistons never went to seven games.

Nobody went to seven games to win their series. Except the Celtics, of course.

You may think that this may be the birth of a new rivalry, but the seeds of this animosity were sown years ago. I was at that preseason game in Columbus in the fall of 2004 when Pierce spit at the Cavaliers bench, followed by an altercation between the two teams in the hallway going to the locker room. PP always seems to have his best games against the Cavs and has become somewhat of a Cavs killer, but LeBron has always been there to cool him down and out-do him again and again.

The Celtics used to have the Cavs’ number before LeBron arrived. Heck, they were 3-1 against the Cavs in LB’s rookie year. But since then, James has almost made the Celtic green as much a part of his personal highlight film as the Wizard blue (ok ok, not that much, but you get my point). The Cavs were 2-1 against the C’s in ‘04-05, a perfect 4-0 in ‘05-06, and 2-1 in ‘06-07 before this season’s dismal .500 mark. That’s a combined 10-4 against the Celtics over the past four seasons combined.

Actually, to be fair, James wasn’t even in the lineup during one of Cleveland’s losses to Boston this year, so make that 10-3. And on top of all that, LeBron has posterized Boston in the three games he’s played against them this season to the tune of 32.3 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 9.7 assists.

So much for the Celtics mystique. And so much for the Cavs having an easy road to the Finals. Hopefully dropping a 66-win giant will shut the naysayers up for a while.

And hopefully these Cavaliers will be able to create some memories of their own for some nine-year old kid watching from his home in suburban Cleveland.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2008 at 11:50 pm and is filed under Doc Rivers, Paul Pierce, Daniel Gibson, Caron Butler, Ray Allen, Brian Windhorst, DeShawn Stevenson, Brendan Haywood, Mike Brown, Kevin Garnett, Detroit Pistons, Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics, Washington Wizards, Denver Nuggets, LeBron James, Los Angeles Clippers, Atlanta Hawks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.