Hoops

NBA Playoffs: Celtics vs Cavs Series

Your on another planet. 'Orbit' back to Earth or leave the forum.

WTF???

And then LC is he good in the locker room? $20 mill a year & sooks if something doesn't go his way. He is a joke & so are you! If he is playing i turn the tv off & i'm a bball junky. Pathetic!

Have read various internet news stories regarding a possible relationship between Gloria James and Delonte West
Im starting to believe that the affair did occur and that that was the reason for Lebron's poor performance. Supposedly Lebron found out just prior to Game 5.

In game 1:
-Lebron scores 35 points (12/24 fg, 3/6 3pfg, 8-11 ft) to go along with 7 assists and 7 rebounds, and just 2 turnovers

- West plays 27 minutes..8 points (4/6 fg)


In game 5:
-Lebron scores 15 points (3/14 fg, 0/4 3pfg) 3 turnovers

-West plays 9 mins..2 points (1/3 fg)


That is a pretty big difference between 2 games (Game 1= before Lebron knew about the affair; Game 2=after he knews about the affair).
I know players have bad games and all, but its so unlike Lebron to fold like he did
And someone tell me why Delonte's playing time was reduced from 27 minutes to just 9 minutes..Perhaps Lebron told coach not to play West or coach heard of the incident and refused to give him more minutes
Boy theres more questions than answers at this point.

someone posted on another forum (a post that I can't find now naturally) that reckoned Lebrons sub par performance in the last game was down to the fact that he had just found out that Delonte West had been having a relationship with his mother. Could be bullshit, could be true, I have no proof either way but made for interesting reading.

Beantown,good points made. Lewis could be the key to this series for the Magic. If he does have KG on him, he can really exploit that matchup for his benefit and for the benefit of the teams.

If KG has to guard Lewis on the perimeter, expect the likes of Howard and Carter to really exploit the interior without KG's shot-blocking/shot-changing ability.

Orbit this is what you stated about Shaq: "He's won c'ships with Kobe & Dwayne cos of his huge frame but the guards were the reason."

As pointed out by others, this was not the case. Shaq was the reason for the titles...not the guards - at least at the Lakers in any case.

Nothing personal taken, just pointed out your sheer stupidity yet again.

If you all consider watching Shaq throw clangers good basketball then maybe i should become a 36ers fan. He may have been of value in the early oo's but has now expired. How can you not get 17 boards a game with that size? Did any of u see that game yesterday? He can no longer play!! LC i think you get a bit personal when someone else is right...

I don't see that happening MACDUB. The Celtics are playing very well right now and showing no signs of fatigue. Pierce is the only guy who isn't fully fit, but he is still dangerous.

Let us also not forget that the Celtics took Orlando to seven games last season with a frontcourt rotation of Perk, Big Baby and Scalabrine! If fatigue hadn't finally got them at the end of the series, they could easily have won it too!

I don't know where you get the idea KG will guard Howard! That is Perk's job and he has been very effective at keeping Howard under control in the past. This is a critical matchup and with both players foul prone, games could turn on whether one of the two sits a lot due to foul trouble.

Nelson v Rondo is the other critical one I believe. Nelson has been playing very well and is a very dangerous weapon for Orlando, but lets not forget how much damage Rondo can do as well!

Outside of those two matchups I feel very comfortable with a recovered KG against Lewis and a tag team of the Allens and perhaps Pierce on Carter.

The wild cards for the Magic are Pietrus, who has always played out of his skin against the Celtics and Barnes, who also had a good game against them earlier in the year. With Pierce being a step slow at the moment, his matchup against Barnes and Pietrus is probably the one I'm a bit concerned about. If it was 2 years ago, I'd say Pierce would flat out embarass Barnes, but right now the Truth is not himself.

I see this series going 7 games. Hopefully whoever wins will have enough left in the tank to smash the Lakers!

Expect the Magic to run all over the Celtics.

Celtics had a very good game plan against Lebron James--however he and Mo were the only two the Celtics had to defend.

Different story with the Magic..Alot more scoring threats: Howard can get it going, Carter can light it up, Nelson is a serious scoring threat, Lewis can light it up from the perimeter and they get good offensive productivity from the bench with Pietrus, Williams and Anderson.

Want proof of the Magics scoring ability..They scored 114 points, 112 points, 105 points and 98 points in the 4 game sweep of the Hawks.
Celtics going to have their work cut out on defence. KG going to be tired defending Howard, Ray/Pierce going to be tired defending Carter and Rondo going to be tired defending Nelson...Will it limit the Celtics offensive abilities considering they are an ageing team

Orbit once again proves he is a tool.

Shaq is terrible & embarassing to watch. He's won c'ships with Kobe & Dwayne cos of his huge frame but the guards were the reason. Retire! Look how much better Pheonix are without him.

Looking at the cap numbers for the Cavs, they haven't got a lot of options to improve the team. Even once they renounce Shaq's cap hold and every other FA not named Lebron, they are still well over the cap. They have no assets other than James that anyone would want to give up much for. So all they can do is offer up expiring contracts to see whats on offer. That would be West, Parker, Telfair, Powe and Jawad Williams.

Probably their best option is to try to package Mo Williams and maybe Hickson and Parker for something. Wouldn't exactly have teams beating down their door for that bunch though.

An interesting side note to all the speculation about James is what will Shaq do now? Will he retire? Or look to go for one more run with a different contender? If he does, he will be taking a massive pay cut from $20 mill to maybe $3 or $4 mill if he's lucky!

No way LeBron re-signs with the Cavs, IMO. They've had more than enough seasons to get him a championship-winning supporting cast, so I don't know why James would expect they'll be able to do it in the future.

dingo - if LBJ leaves, then Cleveland goes back to sucking like they generally do in pro-sports!

True BT.

But you do need role players, and he has proven to be a guy that actually flourishes playing alongside LeBron. He finishes around the hoop, and not many other Cav's players can do that.

But yes, he is an expendable player - but for the right replacement.

Ah, I knew someone would say that LC. Hence I said everyone else is expendable. I don't mind Hickson, he's a solid young player, but he's not a guy they need to build around. If you can get a player or a pick that will help you by trading him, you do it in a hearbeat. Same can be said of guys like West, Moon, Parker. Solid players, but there's dozens of players out there who are just as good to take their places if necessary.

I agree with your last paragraph entirely Beantown with one exception, I also think JJ Hickson is worth keeping.

the u/20 western magic div2 team were 'overlooked' by basa for state champs this weekend... has this ever happened to any other teams before?

Jules, you're right, Lebron did seem relieved it was over. He has been under a lot of pressure and something has not been right with him in the last couple of games. The Celtics pressure was part of it, but Lebron also made a lot of uncharacteristic fumbles with his dribble, none moreso than that dribble off his leg that Rondo picked up for an easy layup after he'd got the lead back to 4.

Where James plays next season is going to be the most interesting story in basketball this off-season. No-one can really know what he will do. I don't think he will make his mind up until he sees what the Cavs are willing to do to keep him in the off-season.

They have a lot of retooling to do. Clearly the team as constituted is seriously flawed. I don't know what contracts players have and how much flexibility there is to make changes, but the only guys on that team that are must keeps are James and Varejao. Everyone else is expendable, from the coach on down.

Wooooot! What a turnaround for the Celtics this season. Watching KG and Pierce limp around in the last week of the season, I had very little hope they would be healthy enough to take the Cavs. But the Celtics were foxing big time!

Jules, I agree that Brown could have made some better decisions regarding the Cavs rotations, but I don't think it would have changed the outcome of the series. The Cavs weren't better than the Celtics two years ago and they aren't better than a HEALTHY Celtics now.

Once I saw KG come out in game one, move like the KG of old and completely own his position, I knew the Cavs would be in trouble. With a healthy KG, the Celtics defence and rebounding is back and they have a guy who is almost an automatic two points either on the box or with his spot up jumper. All of a sudden if you're the Cavs, you have a problem, because no-one on that team can guard KG one on one and if you double team, you've got the best passing big man in basketball finding Allen, Pierce, Rondo and Perk all game long.

Secondly, Thibodeau and the Celtics have absolutely worked out Lebron and they executed their defence against him beautifully. Their team defence was so good, not only a gimpy Pierce was able to defend Lebron, but Ray and especially Tony Allen also did great jobs on him. No other team plays Lebron even close to as well as the Celtics do.

Combine that with the obvious - that Rondo and Allen are going to be able to have their way with the Cavs very average backcourt - and you know its going to be tough for the Cavs to win.

Just think what would have happened if Pierce was even close to as fit as he was in 2008!

Yeah - he was 1 turnover shy of an unwanted quadruple-double! But you are right, hje tried everything but could not pull it off on his own.

I was puzzled to see how few minutes JJ Hickson saw on court, both in today's game and in the entire series. He barely got a chance to work up a sweat!
He had a great regular season and for some reason has been shelved in this series...

I also believe his private jet is destined for the windy city...

Game over! Yaaaaay! Bye-bye LeSycophant!

The Cav's are...

G.O.N.E.

GONE!

Reports are that he has been sighted as either heading the New York or Chicago...

The clock is ticking for the Cavs...

I reckon the Cav's can bounce back today and force game 7...

Yeah you got me there Jules.

Jules, it may not be his elbow, but if not that, he must have really been feeling the pressure in yesterday's game, because his shot was so far off it was like one of my social games! It's a real head scratcher for me, because Lebron has generally performed fairly well in pressure situations in the past and it has been his team that has let him down.

Still, as a Celtics fan I'll take it! After the second half of this season, who'd have thought they'd be in a position to meet the Magic in the East Finals? It sure has been sweet to see KG finally playing like the KG of old. I had been at the point of accepting that the Celtics would be saddled with a gimpy KG for the next two seasons, but now I'm starting to feel like this team can still compete for a title after all.

Jules, "Mike Brown" is a dud.
What?

That's ridicolous. Brown has brought out the best in guys like Andersen Varejao, JJ Hickson, West and Parker. Brown has done a fantastic job--I don't think too many coaches could coach such a superstar like Lebron, whilst enjoying the team success that they have had.

Your blaming Brown for the loss. Check the box score today and see that Lebron went 3-14 fg, 0-4 3pfg for just 15 points. Check the box score and see that the Cavs had 17 turnovers. Check the box score and see that the Cavs got outrebounded 41-31

Brown didn't shoot 3-14 from the field. Brown didn't committ 17 turnovers. Brown didn't get outrebounded 41-31.

The Cavs, IMO, were the best regular season team because Brown did such a fantastic job. The reason why they have struggled in the Celtics series is because the players haven't stepped up.

Jules, your comment just sums up how ignorant GM's and fans react when their team is struggling.."Oh it must be the coaches fault". Im sick of hearing it. Sure when it happened with P.J. Carlisemo= fair game..he was terrible.
But why look at the coaches all the time? Avery Johnson was fired after leading the Mavs to 67 wins in the regular season. Then they lost the playoff series against GSW. Johnson was fired, which was B.S. because guys like Dirk, Jason Terry, etc. didn't step up..None of them got fired!

And also potentially number 1 pick ... John wall then trade Harris

I must say, an Orlando vs Phoenix NBA Finals would be quite entertaining!

Either way, Orlando will be going on to the Finals. No question.

I can only pray to god that Phoenix can top the Lakers. I can't bear to see the Lakers in the finals again.

If OKC just learned to box out when a shot goes up, we would have probably had a game 7 in LA with the potential upset.

Knicks should look at grabbing Joe Johnson with Lebron so they have a scoring punch. They'd be idiots to release David Lee.

Have been too busy to post much lately, but that was a huge win for the Celtics. Something was clearly amiss with Lebron today, because his shot was WAY off and he couldn't keep the Cavs in touch when the Celtics got KG and then Ray going in the 3rd.

I'm guessing that Lebron's elbow is coming up better some days than others, because he has been dominant in other games this series. Whatever it is, Cavs fans better hope he can come good for game 6, because the Celtics are playing great team basketball right now and there is no way the Cavs win without Lebron scoring and creating effectively for his team.

If the Celtics close this series out in Boston, you could be right LC, that might have been Lebron's last game for the Cavs at the Q. It would be sad for Cavs fans if Lebron has a dud elbow and that were to lead to an early exit and a Lebron defection though.

If Lebron knew it was his injury that cost them, perhaps he would still resign with the Cavs? He does seem to have a genuine connection with his hometown of Akron.