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What to watch for: Cavs look to even series with Celtics

That’s how Game 3’s usually work.

Not all of them result in the home team whipping the visitors by over 20 points, but it’s definitely something I like to call the “pep rally effect.” The underdogs return home after two tough games at the favorites’ venue, get to play in front of their home crowd, and feed off of the energy and support to get back into the series.

When Game 3 is a whitewashing, Game 4 turns out to be a lot closer - even providing the series favorites with more than enough motivation to get their act together and restore order by taking a commanding 3-1 series lead. And when this happens, what was once a glimmer of hope following Game 3 is remembered for being nothing more than a small hiccup for the team that was supposed to move on, anyways.

But it isn’t like the Cleveland Cavaliers are strangers to being the “underdogs” in that situation. In fact, if anyone knows how to keep the momentum going, it’s the Cavs.

Whenever they’re the underdogs, the Cavs have done a good job at making Game 4 a repeat of Game 3. And you don’t have to ask anyone besides the Detroit Pistons of each of the last two seasons to find that out.

In ‘06, the Cavs looked completely downtrodden and defeated after dropping the first two games of their second-round series with the Pistons. They came back and won Game 3, another “pep rally effect” game, and many thought it was just the customary one game they would win to avoid an embarrassing sweep. Detroit would now move on in five games, not four.

But then the Cavs won Game 4. Before we knew it, the series was tied at two.

Then the Cavs won Game 5 in Detroit. And the mighty 64-win Pistons were on the brink of elimination against a 50-win squad that hadn’t been to the playoffs together before. Or in LeBron James’ case, at all.

You see, that Cavs team wasn’t experienced enough to close out the deal. The team the following season was, as they finally slayed Detroit to get to the Finals.

The story is similar today. But instead of the Pistons, it’s the Boston Celtics, and that’s a huge, huge difference when trying to predict how this series will turn out.

Those Pistons were complacent. They had won a title in 2004. They had lost a tough seven-game series to the Spurs in 2005. There really wasn’t much at stake for them, even if they lost to the Cavs in ‘06. There was far more in it for Cleveland than for Detroit. But these Celtics have a lot on the line for them: a chance to restore the franchise’s glory and tradition, a chance to raise a 17th championship banner above the parquet floor of the Garden, and a chance for their three superstars to cash in on a championship ring in the twilight of their careers.

To think that these Celtics - a team with a leader as fiery and hungry as Kevin Garnett - will roll over in Game 4 and beyond is not just wishful thinking: it’s flat out ignorant. So the Cavs are going to have to come out in every game for the rest of this series the same way they did in Saturday night’s Game 3.

Those three-pointers were finally going down on Saturday night. Gee, see what an enormous difference perimeter shooting makes? The Cavaliers were 10-for-19 (52.6 percent) from beyond the arc in Game 3, including four-for-six from breakout star Delonte West, two-for-six from Wally Szczerbiak, three-for-five from LB himself, and one-for-two from Daniel Gibson.

The Celtics, meanwhile, continued to struggle from downtown. Sure, Boston had their way in the first two games at the Garden, but the C’s were three-for-14 from three-point range in Game 1 and four-for-14 in Game 2. Saturday? Try five-for-16, which now puts the Celtics at a hideous 12-for-44 (27 percent) on 3s in the series. With so much emphasis being put on LeBron’s horrendous shooting, three-point shooting is going to determine this series.

Boston seems like they can afford poor three-point shooting and get away with it. The Cavs, however, can’t. We must see more of the same from downtown (i.e., double-digit treys made and around 50 percent from beyond the arc) for the Cavaliers to advance to the ECFs.

If LeBron can’t pick his shot back up, at least he has picked it up on defense. LB’s shooting from the floor makes the Celtics’ three-point shooting look like the Phoenix Suns (ok, the pre-Shaq Phoenix Suns), but it was good to see LeBron make a mark on Game 3 with his defense. There were the highlight film plays (like pinning Rajon Rondo’s layup against the glass), but there were also the four steals to go with the brilliant job helping suffocate Paul Pierce, who scored 14 points but needed to hit all six of his free throws to offset a three-for-eight shooting night.

And speaking of defense, you have to love this new defensive strategy from Mike Brown. Let the Celtics’ Big Three have theirs, but don’t let the other guys beat you. I wrote earlier in this series that the Cavs need to pick which one of that “Big Three” to shut down and which one to allow to let loose. Instead, Brown has decided to expose Boston’s lack of depth on the bench and shut down the mediocre talent that surrounds Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen.

The part that was specifically brought up by Jeff Van Gundy on Saturday’s ABC telecast is how Delonte West is allowed to “roam like a centerfielder” in the halfcourt defense and ball-hawk. West usually brought help on guys like Pierce and Ray Allen, and that usually left a guy like Rajon Rondo wide open. The Cavs were daring Rondo, a terrible perimeter shooter, to shoot. Instead, he’d put the ball on the floor and try to slice the Cavaliers’ big men including Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Ben Wallace, and Anderson Varejao.

Good luck, Rajon.

Speaking of Wallace and Varejao, the Cavs will need both again tonight. Too bad both are listed as questionable for Game 4, and that may come back to dictate how this series progresses. Wallace played like the Big Ben we have been longing for since that February trade, putting up nine points, yanking nine boards, and being the solid anchor of what was a well-oiled machine of a team defense.

Without that kind of Ben Wallace, the Cavs will get abused down low by Kevin Garnett all night long. The last thing you want to do if you’re Mike Brown is put Joe Smith on him all night long, bringing back memories for Garnett about how he was drafted fifth in 1995 after Smith went #1. You don’t want to make this into a 1995 NBA draft version of “I told you so!” between Garnett and Smith. Trust me.

And only 10 turnovers. After fumbling it away 17 times in an ugly Game 1 and 15 times in Game 2, the Cavs did a great job of protecting the basketball and playing more efficiently in Game 3. And that stems all from LeBron improving in that department. After a combined 17 turnovers by himself in the first two games, LB only had two in Game 3. It’s already hard enough to win when you’re the Cavs if LeBron James is shooting around 20 percent from the floor. It’s downright impossible when LeBron is Mr. Freeze and Santa Claus at the same time.

So put that all together: great perimeter shooting, a solid defensive gameplan, and protecting the basketball. It was good enough to wail on the Celtics by 24 in Game 3. Trust me, it will be good enough to beat them altogether if it continues.

If it continues.

Game 4 is tonight, Monday, at 8 p.m. Eastern on TNT.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 11:03 am and is filed under Jeff Van Gundy, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Anderson Varejao, Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak, Rajon Rondo, Ben Wallace, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Phoenix Suns, Detroit Pistons, Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James, Kevin Garnett, Daniel Gibson, Mike Brown, Boston Celtics. 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.