LeBron Beats Garnett, 74-69
Aaron Gettings
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This may shock some of you, but Doc Rivers did a couple things tonight that I not only LOVED, but that I've been asking him to do. Unfortunately, the Celtics were on the road so it didn't matter.
The first thing he did was give LeBron a little more room to maneuver. Instead of throwing our 5 guys at LeBron, leaving the rest of the Cavs open for easy buckets, we backed off. We didn't smother James until he got in the paint, and although he got a few easy buckets, the plan worked. The Cavs were held to 74 points on their home court, shot 32% as a team, and everybody in white not named LeBron shot 15-50. If I was any good at math I'd tell you what percentage that was... but I know it's low. Delonte was the only other Cav to score in double-digits with 10, and overall it was a great shift in philosophy. However, two huge flaws derailed our hopes of winning. First, we stood idle and let Cleveland swallow 16 offensive rebounds, destroying our morale and negating quite a few quality defensive stops. Second, and more importantly, our offense was just as impotent.
We didn't crack 20 points in a single quarter, couldn't get to the free-throw line (more on that later), shot 4-16 from downtown and only converted 40% of our shots. In a story that is becoming disgustingly stale, Kevin Garnett was the only Celtic who seemed able to score and had 25 of our 69 points. Paul Pierce tried, converting 5 of his 15 shots, but that's it. Rondo was disappointing after his huge game 5, basically doing nothing on the court - 2 points (that didn't come until the 4th), 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals, 3 turnovers. Ray Allen, shooting 3-8 with no 3's is making me wonder if we wouldn't have been better off with Wally, Delonte and the #5 pick. Perkins was a disaster, not boxing anybody out and racking up foul after foul (more on that in a moment).
Back to my original sentence, the second thing that Doc did that we at BostonSportZ have been begging for
was playing Eddie House (and keeping Cassell's ass on the bench). After seeing only seconds of court time through the previous 5 games, Eddie was on the court for 18 minutes tonight, and played very well. He closed out the 1st quarter with a long two, opened up the 2nd with a 3, and finished with 8 points (3-5 shooting) with 2 three's, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal and no turnovers. His defense was up to par (and far better than Cassell), and hopefully showed Doc that he deserves those backup minutes. While Sam and Eddie are both out there looking for their shot, Sam is going to take it no matter what (usually immediately after bringing the ball up the court) while Eddie has the sense to know when he's better off passing. It's a simple, subtle difference, but can mean the 2nd unit letting the game get out of hand, or playing good, quality basketball.
LeBron had a good game... not a great game, a good game. Despite what you're going to see on SportsCenter, LeBron wasn't AMAZING. The difference between LeBron in Game 6 and LeBron in the other games is what I said at the top -- we let him get some shots tonight. So, that alone inflated his numbers (which still weren't all that great). Stuart Scott will tell you how "King James scored 32 with 12 rebound and 6 assists"... But what they won't say is that he had 8 turnovers and shot a paltry 9-23 from the field. This wasn't even his best game of the series... His 21 point, 13 assist game was far superior. Just trying to keep things in perspective here.
I just want to take a moment now and rant about the officiating. I'm not blaming the loss on the Ref's... I'm saving that for Ray Allen who once again brought nothing to the game. However, I can't seem to understand how LeBron James single handedly shot more free-throws than our entire team 15-13, even though we started pounding the ball down-low instead of settling for jumpers. It was clear (to me, at least) that our guys were getting knocked around with no repercussions, while we couldn't do anything without getting called for it. In the last minute alone, Pierce got called on an absolute BS charging foul and he was dribbling past... you guessed it! LeBron who was moving and not even in front of Pierce. Ray Allen had a fast break layup in which he was fouled, put the ball up, it bounced off the backboard when Delonte came soaring in and swatted it away. Should've been a goaltend (once the ball hits the backboard, it can't be touched). The shot should've counted and Ray should've gone to the line for 1. Never called. Then, with 14 seconds left (and Boston down by 3), Cleveland inbounded the ball to Joe Smith who immediately traveled, which was never called. I seriously think Doc needs to pull a Mark Cuban and make a "Cleveland's Most Egregious Non-Calls" highlight film and send it to the league office. With LeBron traveling all over the court, never getting called for it, all the flopping Cleveland is doing and how much we're getting hacked with no whistles... there's something we have to be able to do. It's absurd.
MVC: Kevin Garnett. I said it before, and I'll say it again.... KG is the only Celtic out there who looks like he
truly wants to win that ring. 25 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks -- it wasn't his strongest game, but he was the only Celtic who appeared to be competent on offense.
Lastly, I just want to commend Doc on switching things up for Game 6 -- if Ray Allen and Rondo could've done ANYTHING the score would've been different and we could be talking about Detroit right now. I just hope Doc sticks to the same gameplan ion Sunday -- let LeBron do what he needs to do and make the scrubs he plays with beat us on the road in Game 7. I'm fairly confident in the outcome of that storyline. And, oh yeah, keep House on the court. Please.
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