WaitingForNextYear

Looking ahead to the Cavaliers next matchup in the Eastern Conference Semi’s against the Boston Celtics as one of the NBA’s best rivalries that nobody knows about gets ready to start up once again.

With the Boston Celtics taking care of their own business against the Atlanta Hawks 99-65 Sunday afternoon, the Eastern Conference Semifinals matchup with the Cavaliers is now set. Cleveland will travel to Boston for Game 1 on Tuesday, as LeBron James and Paul Pierce get ready to face off once more. It’s one of the best kept secrets in the NBA, but LeBron and Pierce have one of the NBA’s best rivalries going. These two players definitely respect each other, but they don’t seem to particularly like one another. Much of it has to do with the fact these are the 2 best small forwards in the East and they always end up guarding each other. Furthermore, these two teams have had more than their fair share of close games against each other over the past few years, and these 2 players have been the ones to decide the outcome of those games.

It’s logically conceivable that a vast majority of blogs, sportswriters, analysts, etc. will all pick Boston to win this series. And why shouldn’t they? Boston was the story of the NBA this year, winning 66 games and running away with the Eastern Conference. The acquisitions of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen paid instant dividends for Boston as they came out on fire this season and never really looked back. This is a team that was created for the sole purpose of winning an NBA Championship now. But don’t expect LeBron and the Cavaliers to just roll over and die. This is a going to be a close, tough fought series. Why do I think this? Simple. I have history on my side.

Granted, both of these rosters have undergone major overhauls and makeovers in the past 12 months, but going back to the 2004-05 season on, these 2 teams have played each other about as evenly as any 2 teams can. In 14 games over that stretch, the Cavaliers have gone 10-4, but the series really could have gone either way. The average margin of victory over those 14 games is just 6.64 points per game. If you take the lone blowout (a 115-93 victory in 2005 by Cleveland) out of the equation, the number drops to just 5.46 points per game. To find the last time either team won against each other by more than 10 points, you’d have to go all the way back to March 24, 2006 when the Cavs pulled out a 94-82 victory. 10 of the the last 14 games have been decided by 5 points or less.

Even this season with the vastly improved Celtics team, the results haven’t changed much. The two teams split the series 2-2, with every game being won by the home team. 3 of the 4 games were decided by 5 points or less, with the lone exception coming in a game that LeBron James missed due to injury early in the season (a game the Celtics won by ten, 80-70). In the season series, Boston held the advantage in FG shooting at 46.73% to 39.99%, but the Cavaliers shot the ball slightly better from behind the arc at 32.30% to 31.45%. These two teams are a very interesting matchup, and there’s no reason to suspect that this series is going to be heavily tilted one way or the other.

For his part, LeBron James absolutely loves playing the Celtics. In 15 career games against Boston, LeBron is 10-5. He is averaging 30.33 points, 6.33 rebounds, 6.33 assists, 2.33 steals, 1.13 blocks, and 2.80 tunovers per game. Over those 15 games he has shot 47% from the field and 32% from three-point range. He averages 10.53 free throw attempts per game against Boston. All in all, these are some of LeBron’s best all around numbers against any one opponent. This year alone LeBron averaged 32.3 points per game against Boston, adding 7 rebounds and 9.67 assists per game. For the Cavaliers to have any chance in this series, LeBron will of course have to continue putting up these numbers.

So what will be the keys to this series for the Cavaliers? One will be Delonte West. The Cavs are at their best when Delonte is doing a good job getting the offense flowing early in the shot clock and when he’s protecting the ball and playing solid defense. Delonte is familiar with playing in Boston as he began his career there, and it is extremely important that he is able to slow down the man who took his job, Rajon Rondo. In his only matchup against Boston with Cleveland, West did not have a good game at all, and the team struggled for it. The second big key will be for Cleveland to dominate the glass again as they did for the most part in the Washington series. In the regular season series, Cleveland held the rebounding edge 44.3 rpg to 39.3 rpg over Boston, and that must continue in this postseason series. Finally, three-point shooting will be key again for Cleveland. To neutralize the effectiveness of Boston’s suffocating defense, the Cavaliers MUST show that they can knock down open threes. This means the focus will be on Wally Szczerbiak and Daniel Gibson in particular. The Cavs attempted 20.8 three-pointers per game in the regular season series against Boston, but made just 6.8 of them per game. If the Cavaliers are going to be relegated to shooting high quantities of three pointers again this series as they did in the Washington series, they had better hope that they keep knocking them down, or Boston will take advantage and find the edge they can exploit to win this series.

All in all, this is going to be a great series and I’m very excited to get it going. I’m not going to make any predictions because a) that’s not really my style, and b) my predictions are always wrong anyway, so I’ll just say that I would be surprised if this series is shorter than 6 or 7 games. Obviously, with the Cavaliers’ inconsistent play with this new roster, I am worried about their true ability to win this series, but when they are playing the way they are capable of, there’s no reason they can’t take this series 6 or 7 games and possibly even pull this one out. It’s going to be fun to watch, and I’m looking forward to the ride.

A Few Boston Blogs To Read In The Meantime

Celtics Blog
Green Bandwagon
BostonsportZ
Loy’s Place
Celtics 17
Red’s Army
Perkisabeast
Sports of Boston
New England Sports Blog