It’s a ‘one on three’ game tonight.
Everybody knows who wins one against three – even if it is MJ himself as the one.
This Cavaliers team doesn’t look like the team that drove to 50 wins and the NBA Finals last year…yet.
In their last meeting, the Celtics pummeled the Cavs 114-89 in the final preseason game for each team. The Cavs finished with a dismal 1-6 exhibition season. And to boot, they were kicked into the regular season with that complete beat down by the upstart new look Celtics.
In that contest, if you want to call it that, the Celtics scored 62 points in the paint. They did it against a team that prides itself on keeping teams out of that area particularly. The Celtics shot 59% and had more assists (34) than the Cavs had baskets (31).
Lebron James said at that time…
”The season starts next Wednesday. We either get it together or get blown out some more,” James said. ”It’s as simple as that.”
The Cavs are currently 8-6 and riding Lebron to a 3 game win streak and are winners of 4 of 5. LeBron has 2 straight triple doubles, an Eastern Conference Player of the Week Award and is leading the league is scoring at 31.3. It looks like the Cavs have gotten it together behind their leader.
The only quality win in this 5 game move is against Utah, beating Indiana, Toronto and Minnesota in the last 3 games.
The Cavs are only team in the NBA with a better spread in rebounding (+5.5) differential than the surprisingly good rebounding Celtics (+5.2).
But they do it somewhat differently. Boston is the best at controlling the defensive boards (1st in NBA @ +6.9) while Cleveland is the best at getting offensive boards (1st in NBA @ +4.2). Something has to give tonight.
The guy they most have to keep off the offensive boards is Big Z. He leads the league with 4.6 a game. Gooden gets 2.9 offensive boards as well.
A frontline of Zydrunas Ilgauskas (11.8) , Drew Gooden (9.9), and Lebron James (8.4) hold down the middle pretty well for Cleveland. So Lebron has help afterall.
Last year’s play off surprise, Daniel “Boobie” Gibson, is the new dimension to the starting line up, scoring 12.7 points a game, a solid 51.7% from the floor, and an atmospheric 53.9% from downtown.
Larry Hughes, and Donyell Marshall are out for the Cavs. The Cavs are also missing Anderson Verajeo who is holding out for a better contract. Verajeo led the league in charges taken last year and added a durable defensive component to the team.
Ray Allen and Tony Allen are ‘day-today’ for the Celtics. Ray is more likely to play tonight than Tony.
The Celtics continue to lead the league in defense, allowing only 89.7 points and 40.9 FG% to their opponents.
The Celtics offense plays better on a 2 day rest, scoring at 108.3 pts vs 102.7 overall. The Celtics last played Saturday against the Bobcats.
Tonight’s game is at Loans Quickens Arena and they will rematch in Boston on Sunday @ 12:30 PM.
The Cavs are last year’s NBA Finals representative from the East. If you are looking for a top 5-6 team test for the Celtics this year, you will have to wait until Wednesday December 19th when they play Detroit or December 29th when they play Utah.
They don’t play the top 3 teams out west (San Antonio, Dallas, and Phoenix) until 2008.
In the meantime, the Celtics continue to build chemistry and can rack up the wins if they keep up this pace.
Still, the Cavaliers are playing well and are a good test for the Celtics. This is a good time to have long armed James Posey on the team. He can match up well against LeBron. If he keeps him in front on him, it will be a difficult night for the Cavaliers’ leader. They will need other players to step up.
On the other hand, the Celtics will not have a healthy Ray Allen and I’m sure will try to test him defensively as well, if Ray plays.
Check in after the game for a complete analysis.
T
