Let's get one thing clear from jump street: The Cavaliers may very well be too good for the Celtics this year. They have ten guys who would crack the Boston rotation right now, and it will be 11 once they re-sign Zydrunas Ilgauskas. They have the world's best player in Lebron James. Joining him in the frontcourt are two guys who have made a combined 17 All-Star Game appearances -- Shaquille O'Neal (15) and Antawn Jamison (2). They have an underrated lead guard in Mo Williams, himself an All-Star last year, the perfect scoring point for a team that runs its offense through its small forward. Their backup bigs have size, and they do everything backup bigs are supposed to do -- rebound, defend, and scrap for loose balls. As a team, they are excellent both offensively and defensively.
For a half, Boston -- even without Paul Pierce -- looked every bit their equal. The Celtics played the opening 24 minutes the same way they played their entire championship season; dictating the pace, making open shots, protecting the paint and forcing the opposition into jumpers as the shot clock wound down. But the second half, in which the Cavs outscored the home team 60 to 32, told an entirely different story. Cleveland got whatever they wanted offensively, and Boston's scoring dried up.
It's a defensible position to say Boston just doesn't have enough to get through the East this year. For the first time since Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen arrived, I'm prepared to assert that a completely healthy Boston team isn't the best one in the conference.
The thing is, though, we can't say that for sure yet. Boston wasn't healthy on Thursday. By the midpoint of the second quarter, Cleveland wasn't, either, but at this point, Pierce means far more to the Celtics than Shaquille O'Neal means to the Cavs. Pierce's absence was a double hit, really; not only was the first team missing his offense, leadership, and defense on James, but the second team was missing its facilitator in Marquis Daniels, who replaced the captain in the starting lineup while battling the flu himself. And you can consider Boston being down yet another body if you think that Nate Robinson is going to improve after a slow start to his Boston career. Robinson was 2-of-6 on Thursday after going just 2-of-7 in his Celtics debut on Tuesday. Although Cleveland had come nearly all the way back from a 13-point deficit by the end of the third quarter, it was at the start of the fourth where this one really got away from Boston. The Cs desperately needed a spark off the bench to stop the bleeding, and it may be that in a week or two, Robinson is comfortable enough in his new surroundings to provide that spark. As it stood, however, Robinson provided little, and Rajon Rondo -- who played the first 45 minutes of the game before sitting the final 2:50, had tired himself out too much to attack the basket the same way he did in the first quarter (when he scored or assisted on each of the team's first 21 points).
Again, there's a distinct chance -- probably even a likelihood -- that the Cavs are just too good for us. We'll know for sure before the regular season is out; we're in Cleveland on March 14 before hosting the Cavs on April 4. As close followers of these pages know, I'm generally pretty optimistic about the team -- and the first half of this one was very encouraging -- but truth be told, I'm not very confident right now.
2 comments:
Dude, I agree 100%. The first half was very heartening, and then it seemed that we just ran out of gas in the 2nd. Cleveland's length is a problem for us, especially when the 2nd units are on the floor, and that's a problem we also face against Orlando and Atlanta. Here's hoping this rest is good for Pierce's knee and legs as well as his thumb, the energy Daniels provides is welcome and the whole squad does look better since the break. But the string of 2nd half collapses just makes us look extra old...
I don't know why, but I never thought to lump this one in with the other second-half "collapses."
Do you feel comfortable saying that the Celtics gave away the game last night? I don't. I'd say we gave away the Lakers game and the Orlando game and all the other ones we've lost with second-half leads. But last night, we just got beat.
That's not to say that we played decently and Cleveland played lights out; we didn't play well at all for the last 18 minutes or so. But Cleveland was the problem as much as we were. We didn't come out hyper-confident, looking to cruise through the second half, the way we have in the recent past. We didn't deliberately slow the offense down and let the ball stop in Pierce's hand. We just got beat.
I keep trying to remind myself that the playoffs are a different story, where only your top 6 or 7 guys matter. With no Pierce/sick Daniels/tired Rondo/rusty Nate last night, we can at least make the case that we're still not sure how our top 7 stacks up against theirs. But like I said, I'm not feeling very confident right now.
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