Boobie will probably miss the rest of these playoffs with a separated left shoulder after colliding with Anderson Varejao in Wednesday’s Game 5 loss at Boston. Gibson left the game and was scheduled for an MRI in Cleveland on Thursday, which revealed first-degree separation. Team officials said that Boobie would miss one to two weeks, but it’s safe to say that the Cavs will shelve the former Texas Longhorn for the rest of the playoffs.

“It’s not good seeing a guy that key to your team in a suit,” LeBron James told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “Somebody’s going to have to step up. A guy who hasn’t played much minutes is probably going to have to step up.”

And that “somebody” is probably going to be Damon Jones, who will finally be asked to do something to actually earn that $5 million paycheck of his. I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous: I mean, Damon Jones having to actually earn his money? Isn’t it enough to come up with different handshakes and theatrics to pull with LeBron during and after the starting introductions before returning to the bench with your warm-up pullover firmly glued to your back?

Boobie’s going to be missed. Just get well soon.

We played so well to start the game…so well. We were up by 10 points at times and we were doing fine on both ends of the floor. But the turning point in the game is when the Celtics went on a run, with around 4 minutes left, to cut the halftime lead down to 2 or so. Without that run, the Celtics probably don’t win that game. That gave them the momentum and the confidence they needed for the second half.

That big spurt was because of Rajon Rondo. When he starts hitting perimeter shots, you’re in trouble. The Cavs could afford to sag off with him being a bad outside shooter because he disrupts the defense once he gets in the middle. But once he started hitting shots, the Cavs had to close out on him hard and that opened up the middle and is what killed the Cavs defensively.

Does Kevin Garnett ever miss a jump shot? I mean seriously… Does he? I don’t think I’ve seen him miss one freakin’ jumper this whole entire playoff series. The guy is just unbelievable.

While our defense was solid, we let 3 Celtics get into the 20’s. When you have two great defensive teams playing in a series, there is not a whole lot of points to be scored. But when you have 3 guys get into the 20’s, scoring wise, that almost guarantees that team a win. Paul Pierce had 29, Kevin Garnett had 26 and Rajon Rondo had 20. In the two games that the Cavs have won, no player on the Celtics has reached the 20 point mark. But when the Cavs have lost, the Celtic players have reached the 20 point mark 4 times.

I’m hoping this game doesn’t get Paul Pierce going. He shot the ball well last night and really played well. I think part of the reason he did so well was because LeBron was trying to save himself for offense, knowing the Cavs would need him.

Little things win games and that’s why we lost. We didn’t hustle for the loose balls like the Celtics did. We didn’t tighten up defensively when we needed to. We didn’t make smart decisions when we need to. And we didn’t take smart shots when we needed to. The Celtics just wanted it more and it was obvious.

Speaking of little things… what the heck is the matter at the free throw line? If we hit around 72% of our free throws, we win that game. That’s only 2 or 3 more. That’s how much of an impact free throws have on a game and is part of the reason we lost. The good news is we got there, but the bad news is not converting.

LeBron showed up, the Cavs didn’t. He played well, despite his drought in the second half. I mean the man still had 12 points in the second half and ended up with 35 points in the game but the rest of the group didn’t. Delonte West was the only other guy who showed up, putting up 21 points. The only other player we had in double digits was Wally with 10 and the next highest was 7 points. That’s not going to cut it offensively.

This is the problem when LeBron tries to dominate the game: we have little ball movement. I place this mostly on Mike Brown for not calling the correct sets out and letting LeBron go 1-on-5 the whole night but at some point LeBron has to realize that a play isn’t working and do something else. Pass the ball off and cut. Post up more. Move more without the ball. Use screens to your advantage. Mike Brown should be taking more responsibility on the offensive end and doing those things. We won the two games with ball movement, player movement and assists. We only racked up 11 assists total, which is less than Rajon Rondo.

What was with Z? Granted he didn’t get many shots or touches (Mike Brown needs to get him more), he seemed really tentative and hesitant all night long. He didn’t seem like he wanted the ball and when he did get it on the low-post or elbow, he seemed to rush his decisions and play hot potato with it. The last few games he’s been Mr. Relaxed with a high confidence level. The other night he seemed like he didn’t want anything to do with the ball. Hopefully going home will cure that.

Delonte stepped up. He really made some nice plays down the stretch and kept the Cavs in the game. The best part of the whole game was when Delonte was aggressive and attacking the rim. It made the defense worry so much more about him and they really started to collapse on him, which will over time create open shots for others. And when he did get to the rim, he was getting to the foul line and knocking down free throws.

Joe Smith has been stellar. The guy is Mr. Consistency and has come in and provided an instant impact for whenever he’s on the floor. I really think that if he truly developed into the #1 pick potential that Warriors saw in him, we could have seen another Kevin Garnett.

We shot decently. I mean it’s not like we were throwing bricks at the hoop. Albeit our free throws and 3PTers were bad, we did shoot the ball at a decent clip.

Bad News Boobie. Looks like we won’t have Boobie for the rest of series and perhaps the rest of the playoffs, if we were to move on. Damon Jones, Sasha Pavlovic or Devin Brown will have to step up and give us some points off the bench or else we’re doomed.

Let’s just hope we can rebound and play well on Friday and hopefully force a game 7. I’m hoping for the best… I really, really am. I just hope the well coached, well oiled machine shows up and not the Mr. Potato head coached and rusty machine show up Friday.

If we can win, we have a definite chance. I honestly believe that. I think if we can get some momentum going in Cleveland it could carry over into Boston for game 7.

The team that has won the rebounding battle had won each of the first four games of this Eastern Conference semifinal series. That trend continued Wednesday night in Game 5 (disturbingly, might I add). Boston held a 38-30 advantage on the boards, including a big “tip-rebound” on the offensive end by Ray Allen that closed the door on a furious Cavalier rally in the final 20 seconds.

But it was Kevin Garnett’s 16 rebounds to go with 26 points that led Boston’s onslaught on the glass. The Celtics were able to get their hands on a disturbing 12 offensive boards, including five from Garnett alone, to clearly indicate their superior desire to win Game 5 compared to the Cavaliers.

Think about that: 12 offensive rebounds. After the Cavs went into the locker room with lost momentum despite controlling most of the first half, the C’s came out with far more energy in the third quarter and seemed to have their palms on every loose ball. And it would be that third quarter that would do in the Cavs, being outscored 29-17 and losing a three-point halftime lead.

You know what else Game 5 was about? Rajon Rondo. The Cavs continued to force Rondo to beat them from the perimeter, and he did. I told Boston fans not to bet on it anymore, but Rondo feasted on the open opportunities the Cavs gave him.

The night clearly belonged to the former Kentucky Wildcat, as Rondo’s three-pointer late in the first half shaved a 43-34 Cavs lead to 43-37. The Celtics seemed to catch a full head of steam after that. Despite being outplayed for most of the first half and trailing by as much as 14, the Celtics closed the gap to three at the break before going nuts in the third to open up a nine-point lead going into the fourth.

And it was Rondo’s layup early in the third that gave the Celtics their first lead of the game at 47-46. All in all, it was Rondo’s night, as he tormented the Cavs and made them pay for their blatant disrespect for his game with 20 points on nine-for-15 shooting, including two-for-three from downtown, and a ridiculous 13 assists to go with just one turnover.

But the C’s nearly coughed it up at the end, as Delonte West picked off an errant pass to make it 88-82 just inside two minutes left. The Cavs even closed it to 91-87 with 20 seconds left when Garnett missed a 20-footer with the shot clock running down, but that was when Allen reached up past Wally Szczerbiak to tip the o-board Boston’s way.

And if you weren’t paying attention, LeBron James showed up on Wednesday. I’m sure the honks at the four-lettered network were happy since it was an offensive display with not much of the all-around greatness that we have grown accustomed to from LeBron, but LB had 35 points on 12-for-25 (48 percent) shooting. He was, however, 0-for-5 from three-point range.

In that disastrous third quarter, LeBron scored all of just two points on one-for-four shooting. He finished with just 12 of his 35 points in the second half while shooting four-for-11 and grabbing just one rebound. But in the first half, James had 23 points on eight-for-14 (57 percent) shooting.

“I didn’t continue to shoot the ball extremely well like I started, but I was still able to attack and get to the lane and do the things that I’m used to or accustomed to doing. Pretty good performance by me as an individual, like I said, but us losing the game means more than anything.”

The 35 points and respectable shooting night was nice, but the Cavs didn’t need LeBron to do that to win Games 3 and 4. James had just three boards and five assists - judging by the way this team responded to LeBron’s all-around play in the two wins at Cleveland, I’d rather have LB ripping boards and getting his teammates involved instead of trying to take on the Celtics by himself.

Meanwhile, Paul Pierce, who LeBron had done an excellent job of shutting down through the first four games of this series, had his way with 29 points in Game 5. Pierce was Boston’s leading scorer and punctuated his night with a big two-hand crush late in the second half after slicing through the Cavs defense. Definitely not a pretty sight if you’re a Cavs fan.

Speaking of outside shooting, the Cavs were three-for-16 from beyond the arc. LeBron’s 0-for-five was definitely a big reason. Delonte West was one-for-three, Wally Szczerbiak was two-for-six, and Daniel Gibson was 0-for-two. Gibson, in fact, left the game late in the fourth with a bruised left shoulder after colliding with Anderson Varejao under the basket.

Boobie is scheduled for an MRI in Cleveland on Thursday, and man oh man do the Cavs need him in uniform on Friday night. Gibson always steps up in big games, particularly at home, and something tells me that the Cavs are going to need him for Game 6.

And where’s Zydrunas Ilgauskas? The big fella was the lone bright spot for the Cavs during their first two games in Boston. Wednesday? Z played only 26 minutes and got off all of five shots. Look, we know that Z isn’t exactly the most traditional 7-foot center in the league, but he’s still a luxury that most teams don’t have. The Cavs absolutely have to find ways of getting him more involved and maximizing his strengths in Game 6 and, if necessary, Game 7.

Bad perimeter shooting, an inconsistent and sloppy defense, poor rebounding, and 12 turnovers. Yeah, it’s no surprise that the Cavs lost, but they only lost by seven after having a shot at the end. Cleveland controlled an overwhelming majority of the first half. What’s frustrating, however, is that the Cavs had Game 1 in their hands, as well, and let it slip away. Game 5 was winnable, maybe even more so than Game 1. With both of their wins in Cleveland being in convincing fashion, the Cavs could have won this series in five if they had closed the deal in Games 1 and 5.

Take that with a grain of salt. Game 6 is first, and if the Cavaliers can keep Boston’s road woes going, they’ll have a shot of making the third time (let’s forget about Game 2’s debacle) a charm on the Celtics’ parquet floor.

And Game 6 is Friday night (8 p.m. Eastern) on ESPN.

Cavs fans may be more upset about the fact that the turnaround in this best-of-seven is being looked at more as a “Boston collapse” than a “Cleveland surge.” Looking at this series nationally as it stands right now, the overwhelming response to the series being tied 2-2 is about the Celtics not being able to win on the road. Heck, they can go 0-12 away from the Garden and still win the championship (although it would take going to seven games in every series and 16-0 at home).

And it doesn’t help as far as getting national recognition when LeBron isn’t doing much of anything. Before that resounding dunk in KG’s mug, LeBron’s contributions to this series were limited to making others around him better and locking down defensively. Although that’s the beauty of LeBron’s game, this Sportscenter world is not going to appreciate it.

So now this series has become all about “That Dunk” and Boston’s road woes. What it should be is a testament to just how much head coach Mike Brown has grown in three years as a strategist and defensive mastermind who has made some incredible adjustments in this best-of-seven series. And just as Simmons used his space to bash Doc Rivers, it would only be appropriate for me to give the lion’s share of the credit on Cleveland’s part to Mike Brown.

Help on perimeter defense. Brown’s adjustments have brought out the best in Delonte West and LeBron James, as both have brought good help defense to expose Boston’s weaknesses. Even when Rajon Rondo’s jumper was falling in Game 4, the C’s still couldn’t pull it out. If you’re a Boston fan, don’t bet on Rondo hitting jumpers like that for the rest of this series, if at any time ever again.

This has also helped cut off any open looks for Boston coming off screens. It also helps that Ray Allen has been ice cold with bum ankles during this series, but the halfcourt defense has been exceptional for the majority of this series.

The only time this defense looked out-of-sync was in the second and third quarters of Game 2, when the Cavs were giving up way too many transition and second-chance opportunities. The former may be a direct result of one of the big keys we’ve talked about in this series - protecting the basketball - but other than that hiccup, the Cavs have locked Boston up completely.

Playing the right rotation. The first time I noticed Brown’s ability to play the right rotation was in a regular season game against Phoenix back in January of 2006. Against a run-and-gun team like the Suns, Brown put in Anderson Varejao at center, Donyell Marshall at power forward, LB at small forward (of course), Sasha Pavlovic at shooting guard, and Damon Jones at the point. Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Drew Gooden were benched for almost all of the second half, and the Cavs used the outside shooting of Marshall, Jones, and Pavlovic, the reckless abandon of Varejao, and 44 points from LeBron James to out-gun the Suns that day.

In this series, he’s got it going on again. The hot hands stay on the floor, and mismatches are exposed. Expect to see more of Varejao completely hounding KG and getting under his skin in Game 5 and for the remainder of this series. It’s what Varejao did to make a name for himself in the ‘06 playoffs against Detroit, and it (along with the flopping) has become his trademark.

The Cavs knew what they were getting when they hired Brown in the first place. Like I’ve said before, Brown is no Mike D’Antoni or Rick Adelman. He isn’t a savant of the triangle offense like Phil Jackson. Owner Dan Gilbert knew he was bringing in Brown because of the overused “Defense Wins Championships” mantra.

Brown was the 2005 version of Tom Thibodeau. He was the reason the Pacers stayed in tune with a solid defense despite going through a season of Ron Artest fighting the city of Detroit, Jermaine O’Neal blowing out his shoulder, and Reggie Miller looking jurassic as hell.

So Gilbert and the Cavaliers organization are getting what they asked for in June of 2005. And to be honest, it is the brand of basketball that wins championships. It’s not going to get you on Sportscenter like the Phoenix Suns or Los Angeles Lakers, but those Suns and post-Shaq Lakers don’t have any rings, either, do they?

Brown has been exceptional in doing the job that was asked of him. For that, you would have to be absolutely foolish to not stand up and applaud him for the job he has done so far in these playoffs.

Pluto spent a lot of time explaining the way contracts work in the NBA and how it would be very difficult for a team other than the Cavaliers to lure LeBron James after 2010. Honestly, I thought we were past this point - yes, I know that a lot of you are going to throw my own LeBron-is-leaving-Cleveland pieces right back at my face and call me a hypocrite, but the sense of entitlement from the city of New York and the ridiculous notion that LeBron James has to play in New York is now approaching the point of being childish.

I asked Pluto not to spend so much time with this nonsense, but the object of Pluto’s ire was this sack of crap published in Monday morning’s edition of the New York Newsday. Apparently, hiring Mike D’Antoni in the Big Apple is part of new team president Donnie Walsh’s master plan to bring LeBron to New York in 2010. Yeah, just like bringing in Larry Brown in 2006 was supposed to bring LeBron to New York in 2008.

My God, the amount of stupidity that media outlets require in their hiring process for writers is just alarming. Absolutely alarming.

“Walsh is banking on this to be just another reason for LeBron James to seriously consider making the Garden his home if he declines a player option and becomes a free agent in 2010…It would take a lot of payroll maneuvering in the meantime and, perhaps, some tough decisions. As the roster stands, the Knicks will have just $28 million against the cap going into the 2010-11 season. It’s the perfect storm; the best player on the planet is available and the richest team in the league has cap space.”

(Throws up in mouth) RICHEST TEAM IN THE LEAGUE? You piece of sh—t New Yorker! Your basketball team doesn’t have jack! In fact, the richest owner in the league resides in Portland, Oregon, not New York! Paul Allen, the owner of the Trail Blazers, is one of the 10 richest men in the world!

The Knicks? Rich? The only thing rich about the Knicks is their rich history of being the beating post for the rest of the league. And Charles Smith in Game 5 of the ‘93 Eastern Conference Finals. And Reggie Miller’s eight points in 18 seconds in Game 1 of the 1995 Eastern Conference Semifinals. And P.J. Brown flipping Charlie Ward in the 1997 East semis as Pat Riley tormented his old team to lead the Heat past the Knicks in seven games. And John Starks going two-for-18 in Game 7 of the 1994 NBA Finals.

And you’re going to steal LeBron freaking James from the Cleveland Cavaliers. What a freaking joke.

That’s not all. This clown actually believes in his mind that the Knicks and D’Antoni have this all planned out. Based on the way he’s thinking (and what his “sources” are saying - gotta love quoting those “sources”), D’Antoni actually has an offense planned out for LeBron:

“One person with knowledge of D’Antoni’s thinking suggested he ‘would probably use [James] at the four spot [power forward]…He would fit in anywhere…James is the mold of the ideal player for the D’Antoni system. ‘Ideally,’ the person said, ‘you would have a bunch of 6-9 guys who can handle the ball and shoot threes.”

Who was this “one person with knowledge of D’Antoni’s thinking?” Krusty the Klown? Peter Griffin? Eric Cartman?

And of course, we can’t have random “LeBron is going to New York” rumors without the four-lettered network.

But before moving on, I’m going to have to take this opportunity to call out the four-lettered network’s Chad Fraud and John Hollinger. You know, the latter really confuses me, as I thought that Hollinger was one of the few guys who knew what he was talking about. But Fraud is the same guy who spearheaded the Darko Machine back in 2003 and has gone way out of control in hyping up European players.

Both guys, however, picked the Celtics to beat the Cavs in five games. Obviously, that’s not going to happen, but I can’t help but question the stupidity behind this logic. The Celtics needed seven games to beat the Hawks, couldn’t win a game at Atlanta, yet they were going to cream the defending Eastern Conference champions in five?

Next up: Tim Legler and Jalen Rose, two former players who picked the C’s in six. And then there’s Chris Sheridan, who picked the Celtics in seven.

But that’s not why Chris Sheridan should be wearing a rainbow-colored wig and big red nose today. It’s because Sheridan echoed the Newday’s crap about D’Antoni being used to lure LeBron.

Come on, Chris: that is soooooo 2005. Get with the program.

“D’Antoni wouldn’t touch a question about how much James, Wade and the other 2010 free agents had come up in his discussions with Walsh — ‘No, you’re not going to get me to go there’ — and he discounted the notion that he had formed any sort of special bond with James during their extensive time together the past two summers with Team USA. (They’ll be together again this summer in Beijing, when D’Antoni can whisper in James’ ear that it might serve everyone best if he waits until 2011 to decide between the Cavs, Knicks and Jay Z’s Brooklyn Nets, whose new arena probably won’t be built until then anyway.)

“‘I learned that [James] wants to learn to speak Mandarin and conquer the world of Chinese business. Like with Kobe, I learned how focused he can get, and I learned that he wants to be the best player — just like Kobe,’ D’Antoni said.”

Learning to speak Mandarin + conquer the world of Chinese business + wanting to be the best player = Wanting to play for the New York Knicks! See how easy it is? It’s one of the basic algebraic formulas they teach kids in middle school these days. How silly of us to think that the laws of the universe would want to have it any other way!

Unless you’re from Cleveland and have a deep, vested interest in the success of the city’s star-crossed sports teams, you just don’t get it. Sheridan surely doesn’t get it (or much of anything else, for that matter), and the goof at New York Newsday doesn’t know it.

I’m not going to be naive here: I will stick by my previous statements that there is a chance that LeBron James will leave Cleveland in 2010. But it won’t have anything to do with market size, endorsement opportunities, Jay-Z, or Mike D’Antoni. I’ll bet you the mortgage on this one (I mean it). What keeps LeBron in Cleveland are those things that we seem to forget about when massaging this out-of-control rumor mill: the things that happen between the lines.

Here we are, on the cusp of a monumental playoff upset and a return trip to the Eastern Conference Finals, and we have to deal with this. But the truth is that the Cavs are a scrappy bunch that has to keep fighting as the underdogs to get to where they should be at this point of LeBron’s career. It should be the Cavs - and not the Celtics - winning over 60 games a year with a solid supporting cast that fits around LeBron like a glove. They should be the favorites in the East every year considering that the conference’s best player wears their colors.

Keep giving him a subpar supporting cast, and you’re playing with fire.

So keep your focus on GM Danny Ferry and how this team is built around LeBron in the next few years. Don’t focus on Jay-Z, don’t focus on Mike D’Antoni, and certainly don’t focus on the New York Newsday and the four-lettered network.

If the four-lettered network’s opinions translated to anything, then the media creation known as the 2007-08 Boston Celtics would be raising their 17th banner into the rafters by now. But as we all know, there are still at least two more games to be played against a certain team from Northeast Ohio before we can get that far.

Game 5 is tonight (Wednesday) at 8 p.m. Eastern on TNT.

Who’s the “f***ing f***ot” now?

Make no mistake: This was not the Cavaliers getting hot from three with random role players. This is not LeBron James willing his providence upon a lost cause and saving it from the throes of certain doom. This is not a case of the 66-win team’s hubris causing them to come out flat and get derailed by an inferior opponent. This is the Cleveland Cavaliers, who won 21 less games than the Celtics in the regular season, would not have made the playoffs in the Western Conference, and have gaping holes in their roster that badly need to be filled this off-season, when they finally have some expiring contracts, a legitimate trade chip, and expiring contracts to work with, flat-out outplayed the Celtics in this game from the opening tip to the final minute. The thoughts:

I’m Going To Lay Some Bold Knowledge On You: There’s No Better Perimeter Defender Than LeBron James When He’s Committed to That End.

I’m serious. Watch this series. Paul Pierce: 18-52. That’s Boston’s best scorer, and he hasn’t had a scrap of room to work the entire series. He’s been completely taken out of the game. And lest you think he’s in some sort of funk, every single time Sasha Pavlovic, a good on-ball defender, was sent to check him, he absolutely destroyed him and got an easy bucket. Oh, and LeBron’s been an absolute monster on the weak side, with 3 steals and 2 blocks tonight, including one absolutely impossible from-behind stuff of KG on what would have been an easy layup. You don’t see this in the regular season, but there is nobody better when he’s committed.

Bolder Knowledge: When LeBron is Unleashed on Defense, This Is The Best Defensive Club in The League.

I’m serious. They’ve been absolutely destroying good offensive teams in the playoffs for three years running now, because LeBron unleashes himself defensively in the playoffs and MB is an absolute defensive savant, and when given time to prepare preps his team to take away strengths as well as anyone. He’s cut off Ray Allen’s air with double-traps off screens. He has unleashed the beast upon The Truth. He’s letting KG get his on the offensive end, trusting his bigs instead of over-helping and letting him get his teammates involved, which is what he wants to do. He’s made Rondo try to beat the Cavs by shooting instead of driving.

Let’s Talk Offense.

It looked like we made adjustments early, with LeBron taking his man to the blocks but inexplicably settling for a 16-foot fadeaway instead of taking another dribble, going straight up and using the glass, and then LeBron coming low off a curl and finding a WIDE open Wally Sczerbiak on the weak side for three. Then it was pretty much back to the LeBron Iso for four quarters, possibly because Delonte West needed to go to the locker room due to eye irritation, probably caused by looking at Sam Cassell and Rajon Rondo for 13 straight quarters. When he came back, they ran my FAVORITE PLAY BECAUSE IT’S EASY AND WORKS EVERY TIME, which is getting Delonte moving and having him hand off to LeBron with momentum to the weak side, which got LeBron a chance at a lefty layup which he unfortunately missed.

LeBron Was Magnolia Tonight.

There are few true geniuses in the world, and exactly zero perfect people. There are three options when it comes to genius; you can marginalize it, give it the car keys and see what happens, good or bad, or harness it and turn it into something impossibly amazing. Paul Thomas Anderson is a genius, and he’s long since answered the “I Have the Damn Car Keys” stage of his career. This means nobody can say “You know, Paul, this movie’s kind of a downer. Maybe we could carve out the more downer stuff and turn this more into a modern comedy of errors.” However, it also means nobody can say “This is an amazing goddamn movie, but why in the hell do you have a completely unexplained plague of frogs 2:45 into the movie that completely takes everyone in the audience out of the story and makes the whole thing feel self-indulgent and contrived? Do you realize this would work with pretty much anything other than the plague of frogs?” It’s also why you get the most depressing 15 minutes in film in Boogie Nights (with a title card), and the ending of There Will Be Blood, which I haven’t seen (it’s on the list), but I’m told is completely bizarre and polarizing, as well as the music.

LeBron played great. He got in the paint and drew contact and finished, played the aforementioned meastly defense, made 13 legitimate assists and created easy buckets for everyone, and nailed two threes when he got his feet set. However, he also had a plague of frogs. It’s not that he needs to work on his jumper. It’s that there is no goddamn way he should be throwing up as many shots as he does from 20 feet, off the bounce, with time on the shot clock. Kobe Bryant doesn’t make those consistently. Michael Jordan doesn’t make those consistently. Larry Bird doesn’t make those consistently. Jesus himself, if he came from heaven and focused only on his perimeter game, would not consistently hit those shots. Oh, they would have hit some of them, maybe even enough of them to give you the illusion they have it in their bag. Usually, LeBron peppers in 3 or 4 of the 10 or 11 he takes to keep everybody honest. But it’s always bad basketball, and the fact LeBron can’t hit water off the bounce right now just goes to highlight that fact.

Here’s the thing: This always happens when a great perimeter scorer is given the car keys-they pepper in those “hero shots” with the drives and open shots that give them the value that makes those decisions above reproach. Kobe in 05-06, Arenas last year, Baron in 05-06 (Christ, you should have seen him), AI in his heyday. 400,000 jumpers an hour for the next two and a half years isn’t going to make the shots LeBron is taking go in. What he needs is a player like a Pau Gasol who can have the offense run through him and make him the key cog instead of just giving him carte blanche. It can be with a true high-caliber point guard, an unselfish post-up weapon like Gasol, or anyone who can get him better catches and opportunities than he’s getting in the LeBron Iso. Then he’ll be Stanley Kubrick.

Tonight’s LeBron Hard Fouling Thoughts:

Tonight’s hard foul on LeBron came when Paul Pierce bear-hugged LeBron going at full speed towards the basket, sending him spinning into his mother. While tangled, LeBron absolutely unloaded on Pierce with an elbow. It’s nice to have the league’s most prominent star on your team sometimes, as there is about a 0% chance you’ll hear about that elbow tomorrow, much less that the league has done anything about it. You know what? I support that elbow. This “wrap LeBron up” stuff is crap. When you’re going full speed like that on a fast-break, you are absolutely amped. All you see is the basket and your mind goes into CRUSH KILL DESTROY FIGHT FLIGHT SEX mode. When you get hit in the back without a play being made, it is some bullsh—t. It is an absolute bitch move, because physically and mentally you’re just not in a place to function at rational speed. I know this from running a very white, very 5-8 fast break for my boarding-school JayVee Team. (That was my freshman year. The next year, they made a “thirds” team, which I was placed on. In fairness, I was a much better baseball player. You can actually find my stats. I’m serious. Google my name.) LeBron is 6-9, 260, moves faster than I can hear, and was playing in front of 30,000 amped people. (I imagine being able to finish a break like LeBron would be like Superbad’s description of having a gun-like having two c—ks, only if one of them could nail ten-foot high lady parts in front of 30 million people at 200 miles per hour.) Pulling that move is extremely uncool. It’s dangerous to everyone involved. Jesus, just let him dunk. Honestly, there’s like a 40% chance of getting a flagrant right now, it pisses the entire team off and gets the crowd as involved as the dunk, and you don’t risk suspension.

Other People. They Were There Too.

Ben was nice, and his passing finally got daps from Doug Collins, but with only 1 rebound on the offensive end and no blocks, he wasn’t quite the force he had been in previous games, which was okay, because in crunch-time we had…

ANDERSON VAREJAO RETURNS. He’s still a little voluptuous, and his springs aren’t quite back yet, which his zero offensive boards showed. But Andy was fearsome on the defensive end, showing on screens, getting an offensive foul call, and smothering his man in the post. And on offense, he was able to find those seams around the hoop again and put himself in position for easy finishes, which even got his horrendously ill-advised “complete” offensive repertoire going, making a mid-range J and some horrifying to watch post moves on KG that actually went in. When you’re on, you’re on.

Wally-hit open shots, played strong D on Ray Allen, didn’t try to do too much from mid-range, provided some scoring help for LeBron. That’s all we ask, Wally.

Joe Smith-those simian arms were great on the boards, and he is just plain not missing anything he looks at right now, be it from mid-range or around the hoop. Nice pass to Andy in crunch-time.

Big Z-Surprisingly off tonight, only going 3-10 and pulling down 7 boards. Couldn’t find offensive flow from mid-range, although he did have one nice up-fake drive. I think Z takes like 14 steps when he drives. Perhaps there’s a rule you get an extra step for each screw in your foot. We still love you, Z. You are the man around here, except for…

BOOBIE GIBSON AND HIS WATERMELON BALLS.

Holy living breathing Christ, I would not trade Boobie Gibson for anyone right now. He does look like a different player in the playoffs, as he was driving pretty fearlessly. Kids: if you’re fast, small, and have a good handle, force the issue. You will get a foul or an easy floater. There is no reason Boobie shouldn’t average 15 off the bench next season, although his ignoring of shooters when he droves further drives home the point he is not the point guard of the future.

However, when it mattered, Boobie stepped into his customary role: CLUTCH BOMBER WITH ICE WATER IN HIS VEINS. Seriously, he is the perfect shooter to go next to LeBron James. He’s quick enough to find seams where your average spot-up guy like Wally or Mike Miller would be stuck on the weak-side, he knows precisely where to be when LeBron gets double-trapped, he’s unflappable when his feet are set, and lest we forget, 200 lb. testicles.

69-71, 8:45 to go-BOOBIE. 69-74.

75-79, 2:55 to go-BOOBIE. 75-82.

Comparing this to Boston’s supposed shooters:

75-82, Ray Allen, supposed best shooter in the game, open three: clang. You are Tyrone Nesby compared to Boobie.

7:09, 76-71: Sam Cassell, supposed owner of league’s largest balls, absolutely WIDE open: Clang. You do not have the balls you claim to own. Boobie Gibson makes your balls look like peas in a stiff beach breeze.

I LOVE BOOBIE GIBSON.

That Chick In the Yellow Book Ads? With the Tattoo From the Guy She Wasn’t Marrying? Totally Hot. Would hit that in a millisecond.

This recap needed a heterosexuality boost. But lest we forget the play that closed out the game:

LBJ Making the DPOY his B-I-T-C-H.

The important thing here-LeBron generally has trouble when the second defender gets there after the pick-and-roll, as he’s usually fast enough to beat the second man to his spot. When a team like Boston is able to get that second man there and wall off the lane, he generally has trouble, but this time he made the adjustment when James Posey was just a hair late, giving him a sweet inside-out dribble and giving him the best seat in the house for KG getting posterized. Stay up all night in your hotel room watching that, Ticket. Ya big bitch. And thanks, Garnett and TNT, for putting Garnett clearly screaming “F***ing F***ots!” at the top of his lungs in slow-motion as you went to commerical. I’m sure this will become as much of a story as it would be if he’d gotten caught slinging out an ethnic or racial slur about a race different from its own. And ESPN, at least you didn’t run the Tim Hardaway story into the ground for two weeks last year. I’m sure that was because it’s so rare to find homophobia in professional sports and not because John Ameichi’s book, which you published, was hitting shelves that week.

Sorry. Cavs going to Boston with a tied series and the Celts on the ropes after being soundly overplayed when you consider the totality of the first four games. Happy Thoughts.

Boston, you ESPN-hyped, championship-less, nickname-aping, bitch-fouling, hate-speaking, unwarranted testicle-aggrandizing bastards, we’re coming for you.

In this knee-jerk NBA, the Cavs were left for dead after absorbing a 16-point beating at Boston on Thursday night. Down 0-2, they were left for dead. Heck, it got so nasty that I, of all people, began writing “LeBron is leaving” articles.

Thank goodness there’s only a day between each of these games in this series, or else God knows what else I’m capable of.

But Game 4…Game 4 was real, as the Cavs won, 88-77, to send it back to Boston tied at two games apiece.

Perimeter shooting. Not as ill as the 52.6 percent on Saturday night, but still solid: six-for-17 from downtown for a respectable 35.3 percent. Daniel Gibson got back into the swing of things, going two-for-four from beyond the arc and five-for-nine from the floor to finish with 14 points to go along with four assists and six rebounds. Wally Szczerbiak kept his hot hand, going two-for-four from three-point range and six-for-11 from the field to match Boobie’s 14. And the fact that LeBron went two-for-five on 3s offset Delonte West following up a stellar Game 3 with an 0-for-4 three-point shooting night.

Boston, meanwhile, kept struggling on 3s. We pointed this out going into Game 4, and the Celtics’ perimeter shooting woes continued on Monday night. The C’s were three-for-14 from three-point range, dropping them to 15-for-58 (25.9 percent) for the series. It looked for a while there in the third quarter that Ray Allen had found his stroke back, but Allen finished just four-for-10 from the floor and didn’t make much noise after the third period in finishing with 15 points.

Only LeBron James can make up for bad shooting nights. His shooting woes continued at seven-for-20 (35 percent) shooting, but LB dropped 13 dimes on the Celtics, including an absolutely sick nasty no-look drop to Joe Smith in the lane that was ridiculously amusing. He continued to pack the stat sheet elsewhere with six boards, three steals, and two blocks. And he again played a large role in helping the Cavs absolutely hound Paul Pierce, who suffered through yet another awful night of six-for-17 shooting, 0-for-3 from downtown, and just two trips to the charity stripe to get his 13 points.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention LeBron’s posterization of a helpless Kevin Garnett to put the exclamation point on this one, as you can see if you fast forward to the 00:46 mark of this video.

And that solid defensive gameplan from Game 3? It carried over to Game 4, as the Celtics were held to just 38.6 percent shooting from the floor.

The key, however, was Anderson Varejao, who first made a name for himself nationally in that second-round series with Detroit two years ago. We all knew Varejao as being the defensive energizer ever since he first came to the Cavs way back in 2004, but Kevin Garnett got a mouthful of Anderson on Monday night. KG got 15 points on six-for-13 shooting, but he only came up with two in the second half as the Cavs defense was able to completely stuff and rattle Boston’s bewildered offense.

Whenever I think of Anderson Varejao now, the first thing that comes to mind (besides the amusing flops - I think the guy once flopped away from the ball to draw a technical foul) is this following excerpt from the Akron Beacon Journal’s Brian Windhorst from a blog entry in March of last year:

“I think Malik Rose was seconds away from hauling off and hitting Andy Varejao. He’d simply had enough of him and his feisty antics in the third quarter. He got his fifth foul and Isiah left him in, which apparently didn’t make him too happy, because after Varejao missed a free throw, Rose went over and slammed him. This accomplished two things: He didn’t have to play any more and he got a shot in on Varejao. So Jerome James came in for a minute, committed a turnover and got his own slam in at Andy…After the game, Mike Brown told me Andy gets on people’s nerves because he ‘breathes on them and his hair gets in their mouth.’ That’s pretty nasty, but true I believe.”

Yeah, that’s pretty sick, but it’s a big reason why Varejao has successfully gotten under Rasheed Wallace’s skin in each of the last two postseason. Now it’s Garnett’s turn, and if Anderson can keep up this “by whatever means necessary” routine for the remainder of the series, Cleveland’s defense is going to be a lot harder to solve.

And I know you saw that graphic on TNT near the end of the game about the Cavs having held opponents to under 90 points in these playoffs in eight out of 10 games. This Cavs D is no joke, people. I’m talking to you, Mike Brown detractors.

Talk about protecting the rock - just seven turnovers. That includes not having a single turnover in the final 17:51. The bad news is that the C’s got 15 points off of those seven turnovers while the Cavs managed just nine points off of eight Boston turnovers. LeBron had four of those seven turnovers, up from two in Game 3, but overall it was a very clean effort from the Cavs. They shot the ball fairly well, had a good gameplan, and did a great job protecting the basketball. We didn’t see that in either of the first two games in Boston, so the results based on those improvements shouldn’t be that surprising, no matter whose corner you’re in for this series.

Here’s another key stat for you: The team that has won the battle on the boards has won each of the first four games of this series. The Cavs held a 42-38 advantage Monday night with their rebounding-by-committee routine.

So the Celtics are now 0-5 on the road during the playoffs. Of course, that’s what all the media honks will focus on going into Game 5 on Wednesday night back at the Garden. But if this series is anything like the two Detroit series’ of postseasons past like we mentioned earlier, expect a different Cavs team to trot out on that parquet floor. The Cavs stunned the Pistons in Game 5 two years ago at the Palace to take a 3-2 series lead back to Cleveland.

And last year…last year. Lest we forget. How can we ever forget about LeBron James scoring the last 25 points for the Cleveland Cavaliers, 29 of their last 30, and 48 overall in an epic 109-107 double-overtime victory - the kind of moment in which you’ll always remember where you were and what you were doing for the rest of your life?

That was Game 5 last year. Game 5 this year is Wednesday night (8 p.m. Eastern, TNT).

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.

They’re probably my favorite series of commercials lately (I can’t wait to see them put some Brian Billick clips on there now that he’s fired, and Coors Light seems to only use retired or fired coaches out of jobs), and the comedy is sometimes just off the charts (”They are who we thought they were!”). But that got me thinking: if you were at a Mike Brown press conference and had a chance to ask any question you wanted to, what would you ask?

One fan got his wish. And the best he could come up with was, “Hey, is LeBron gonna score 50?”

Some random fan wearing a red “Rise Up!” t-shirt just strolled into Brown’s press conference after Game 3 wearing a pass that kind of looked like what media members wear for press access. Media affiliations are in fine print, so the dude just got away with meandering around the team’s locker room and press conferences.

After the Mike Brown press conference, the guy was able to get into the team’s locker room pretending to be a reporter. That’s before somebody finally realized that he wasn’t a real member of the media (gee whiz, you mean media members don’t show up to press conferences wearing red “Rise Up!” t-shirts?) and a band of Cavaliers employees chased him out the restricted areas.

So for all the security and precautions that the Cavs are taking under owner Dan Gilbert, it isn’t enough to screen out a fan in a “Rise Up!” t-shirt pretending to be a sports writer. And the other thing is that he doesn’t even say what media outlet he was representing. There’s “Bob Ryan, Boston Globe,” or “Terry Pluto, Cleveland Plain Dealer,” or “Brian Windhorst, Akron Beacon Journal.” What does this guy say?

“Hey, is LeBron gonna score 50?”

And by the way, if you’re wondering about Brown’s answer:

“Uh, I hope so.”