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Celtics hold off Cavs in potential playoff preview 113 - 117
April 4, 2010
With a 117-113 victory, the Boston Celtics can mark this one down as a win worth its weight in momentum. But it didn't feel like they beat the Cleveland Cavaliers. Only survived. Despite the loss, Cleveland earned home-court advantage throughout the playoffs thanks to the Lakers losing to the Spurs on Sunday. Up by as many as 22 late in the third quarter over a Cavaliers team missing Andersen Varejao, Shaquille O'Neal and coach Mike Brown -- ejected in the third -- the Celtics looked well on their way to their biggest win of the season on the strength of remarkable ball movement (28 assists on 39 shots). "We knew if we didn't come here and play Cleveland [was] just going to wipe us out," Kevin Garnett said. But then, as they've done so many times this season, the Celtics slowed down and the ball stopped moving. Rather than working for open looks for the likes of Ray Allen (27 points through three periods), they cherished every tick of the clock. And then, LeBron James happened. Evoking memories of his 48-point dominance of the Detroit Pistons in the playoffs years ago, a visibly ticked-off James (42 points on 31 shots) scored 20 of Cleveland's 32 fourth-quarter points, with all 20 coming off layups, dunks or free throws. The Celtics were helpless as James got to the rim at will.
As long as I am on the court my team will never quit," James said. "It doesn't matter if we are down 20 or down 30. We have a chance to win until the zeroes are on the clock." Boston eventually regrouped just long enough to stave off the furious Cavaliers onslaught, breaking a tie with 1:25 to play and getting Allen an open look at a three that gave them a four-point lead seconds later. But, fittingly, the three deciding plays in the game came from James, the first of which was on Allen's three, when LeBron went rogue defensively, going cross-court to try and strip Paul Pierce and leaving the weak-side undermanned, clearing the passing lane to Allen. The second such play was when James missed 1-of-2 free throws with 21.6 seconds to play and Boston up three. Up to that point, James could not be stopped in the paint, meaning that with Pierce's missed free throw, the Cavs could have been down just two with 13.8 left. But, up three, the Celtics wisely chose to foul instead of allow Cleveland to shoot from deep, and again LeBron made 1-of-2.
The play that will be remembered -- at least until the playoffs begin and this game is rendered meaningless -- came in the last ten seconds. Though James' misses should have been crippling, Kendrick Perkins missed a pair of freebies with 10.7 on the clock and Boston up two. James grabbed the rebound on the left side of the rim and rocketed down court with only Tony Allen in position to defend. It was a situation primed for an overtime-forcing layup or free throws. But James opted to go for the dramatic win, pulling up for three. "It's tough to question anything he does," Rivers said. "And who didn't think that wasn't going in when he shot it? You clearly wanted him to drive if you were [Cleveland], and we clearly wanted him to shoot because at least we got a chance of missing." It missed. "I wanted to win," James said. "In transition, those are probably the best shots you can get. I was able to get a clean look, it just went a little left." Following the shot and a Boston timeout, Tony Allen goaded James with some emotive language, prompting both teams to meet in front of Boston's bench as words were exchanged. Up to this point, six technical fouls had been called, with Brown being ejected, Rasheed Wallace being benched after screaming at Rivers and Rajon Rondo almost completing Boston's implosion with a tech at the 3:14 mark of the fourth. Though the game had been decided by that final "group meeting", it was made very clear that there was no love lost.
"This game has lost a little bit of that in the years, all the talking, teams not liking each other," James said. "That's the same thing I kind of figured out last year when I walked off the court in Orlando. People were mad I didn't shake hands, why should I be happy? I'm not happy. I'm disgusted that I lost. I move on to the next season. That's what this game has lost, it's lost what it had in the 80's and early 90's where teams really didn't like each other." "Just like we didn't like Detroit, that's just how the game goes," Ray Allen said, confirming James' sentiments. Whether they like each other or not, this game was still deserving of a few asterisks. Cleveland not having its best interior and pick-and-roll defender in Varejao is one, as the Cavaliers struggled to rotate fluidly into the middle. But more than that, Cleveland had clinched the top seed in the Eastern Conference as wasn't playing for anything tangible. The Celtics, however, were floundering. "The game wasn't important until we had a 20-point lead and almost gave it away," Rivers said. "I thought, 'We had to get this win now.'" They got it, but just barely. In the grand scheme of things, how much is that worth? "We all know the playoffs are where it's at," James said.