SHAMELESS PLUG BONUS! (Check out my recap of Game 2 here.)

Took a look at Synergy (which you honestly need to get, now) after the game and noticed a lot of interesting numbers.

For the Celtics on offense, here’s what their offense looked like in Game 1 vs. 2.

Game 1: (3 plays were not classified as any of the below, they had a scoring % of 0)

And Game 2:

The Celtics lowered the amount of plays they ran that were Isolation, P&R Ball Handler, and P&R Man. But they increased significantly the number of Post-Up, Spot-Up, Cut, and especially Off-Screen. They jumped their scoring percentage on Off-Screen from 16.7% to 63.6%. That’s a huge differential in motion offense. The Celtics essentially found success by producing more plays off of motion and not just lining up and going at the Cavs. Notice the scoring percentage drop in ISO. The Celtics actually lowered the number of transition plays they employed, but raised the scoring percentage by over 9 percentage points. And while they scored less in Isolation, they did lower their turnover percentage significantly. If you want an indication that this game could have been even more of a blowout? Spot-up shots, a bread and butter NBA play actually increased in frequency and lowered in scoring percentage for the Celtics.

These number jive with what we saw, where the Cavaliers defense essentially got lost whenever the Celtics pushed the ball. At one point Shaq looked a jumpshooter five feet from the basket, could very easily have pursued a close-out, and just sort of, “eh.”

If the only play type you’re shutting down is the spot-up, which can reliably be counted on to project back to the mean? You’re facing a considerable defensive disaster.

For the Celtics, who says they’re old (we do, all of us, even the old guy in the corner)?! They’ve got motion! They’ve got sunshine! They’ve got rotations, who could ask for anything more?!

I was G-chatting with Matt and Ben earlier today, and they were all “Whatevs, brah — I see how it is. You think you can cover these playoffs without us? YOU NEED US. Who set this thing up? Us. That’s who. Who do your readers trust? Us. That’s who.”

And then they did this:

Lion Face – The Takeover

There’s not really any way to express how good Rajon was with the written word. Through two games, this is Rajon’s series. For the second straight game, he did pretty much whatever he wanted on the court and was by far the best player on the floor for loooong stretches. A floor he often shared with LeBron James mind you. About his Game 1 first half, I wrote that he played about as well as any human could. Tonight? He might have been even better. The 19 assists don’t even tell the whole story. He was Boston’s heart and soul and if he plays like this in Boston as well, the Celtics could be well on their way to the Eastern Conference Finals. In summation, Rajon Rondo not only sounds like the name that should belong to some sort of ancient sun god — he might be one.

Lemon Face – Cleveland’s Half-Time Speech

I have no idea what happened in the Cavs locker room during half time. But it didn’t work. 12 points in the third. Twelve. Uno. Dos. Unacceptable. Particularly when you, perhaps relatedly, give up 31 on the other side. I mean, Cleveland’s offense was hitting on zero cylinders all game long (91.5 offensive efficiency, 42.9% eFG%, 4/21 from three and 26/38 from the line for the game), but the third was particularly gross. And a lot of it came against Boston’s reserves given the team’s foul trouble. You can’t win a playoff game scoring 38 points in the second half. Not even at home. Not even after you watch the NBA MVP trophy being handed out to your captain before the game. This is not 1998 and Jeff Van Gundy is not hugging Alonzo Mourning’s leg.

Lion Face – Throwback Sheed

At this point, mocking Sheed’s tenure as a Celtic isn’t even funny anymore. There are no jokes that haven’t been made already, and everyone in the universe knows how that his inability to contribute can be blamed on his doughy exterior, half-hearted (at best) effort and unwillingness to do anything consistently beside hoist errant three-pointers. Tonight, none of that mattered. Sheed, in just 18 minutes, was a true difference-maker and showed us all the qualities that once made him one of the most feared, versatile power forwards to ever lace ‘em up. He hit 7 of the 8 shots he took and 3 of his 4 trey attempts. 17 points on 8 shots without even going to the line. CTC.

Lemon Face – Mo’ Williams, Mo’ Problems

You know what you did. You did it last season against Orlando, and you did it again tonight. If you don’t learn how to play a meaningful playoff game without having to wear a diaper for fear you might soil yourself on any given evening, your team will not continue to advance. Real talk.

Lion Face – PEEERRRRK

You knew it was going to be a good night for the big fella when you saw him hit a mid-range jumper early in the first quarter. KG kicked it over. Perk looked at the rim. No one challenged. And he was like “I’ll take anybody’s money if they just giving it away” before re-gathering and letting it fly. Twine music. Throw in some solid interior defense even before that shot when Cleveland unsuccessfully tried to run some offense through Shaq to start the game, and Kendrick had a lot to do with setting the tone for how this game would unfold.

Lemon Face – Kevin Garnett’s shooting

8/21. Not cool, dude. Not cool. /headbuttsmirror

Lion Face – Kevin Garnett’s Other Stuff

Nice work. /headbuttsmirror

Lion Cub Face – Antawn Doing His Job

You were dull, not all that stand-out-ish and generally Antawn-ian. But you did your job. You hit some shots (6/11 from the field and 2/5 from three), spaced the floor, played enough defense and rebounded well enough. Nothing to get too excited about, but this should be all that Cleveland really needs from you. Still, you’re going to have to have at least one 25+ point game in this series. It would be wise to try to make that happen in Game 3. Please advise.

Lemon Face – Anthony Parker Not Doing His Job

What would ya say … you do here? Quit trying to penetrate. You’re not good at it. Spot up, keep the ball moving and perhaps drive-and-kick a little. No one is going to let you get to the rim. This is the Boston Celtics defense — not the California Penal League. More importantly, play defense. They need you to control Rondo and other perimeter players and generally control penetration. Do what you are good at. Not the other stuff.

Lion Face – Al Roker’s Press Conference

Way to call out your team for putting up a game like that at home against a conference rival. Mike Brown was fiery, unapologetic, demanding and down-right pissed off in his post-game talk. “Aint a goddamn thing that’s going to be given to us in this series,” he said unhappily. A lot different than his giddy reaction after Game 1.

Lemon Face – LeBron

You were 1/7 on shots from outside of the paint. You only took 1 shot in the second quarter. And it’s not like you were creating a lot of great looks for teammates instead — not by your standards anyway (only 4 assists for the game). You turned the ball over 5 times. You missed 5 free throws. You had a few steals and that one insane — yet somehow now expected every game — chasedown block on Tony Allen, but your defense was not particularly good. You took some plays off, didn’t fight through screens all the time and missed some assignments. Sure, you finished with 24, 7 and 5 on not-terrible shooting — but that’s not enough. You don’t have Manu Ginobli or Pau Gasol. You have to play better for your team to win in these next — you hope — three series. If not, there won’t be three series at all.

After splitting two Celtics defenders, leaping into the lane, landing, and then going back up for a layup, it’s somewhat easy to understand why one particular third quarter play by LeBron James inspired calls of traveling from throughout the land. Not so fast, NBA ‘verse. What seemed like a travel to many looks an awful lot like a textbook jump stop to me. LeBron travels quite a bit, but he was innocent on this particular play. Take a look:

Graydon Gordian hasn’t frequented this space for awhile, but he’s still a member of the HP family. As such, I’d be doing both myself, my clan, and Graydon, my brother in Paroxydom, a great disservice if I didn’t at the very least mention his excellent piece on hard fouls for the fantastic Norman Einstein’s Sports and Rocket Science Monthly.

Graydon knocks it out of the park in what would probably be best described as a guest lecture; his piece is entirely audio, but hardly a podcast. It’s practically a sermon to the congregation of the bizarre 90s Knicks/Dynastic Spurs crossover congregation I know Gordian prides himself in being a part of. Nowhere is the aesthetic, the significance, and the beauty of the hard foul (you read that correctly) more accurately captured than it is in Graydon’s bit. Well worth your time.

Do you know what “nemesis” means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent.  -Bricktop, Snatch (2000)

And so old foes meet again. It would be overdramatic to say “for the last time” but doesn’t it feel like it? Don’t you get the sense that this will be the last rendesvous for these two teams in the playoffs? The odds of both teams maintaining their current rosters is low. It’s possible, don’t get me wrong. Amar’e's likely staying, as the extension is all but done. Ginobili is staying. Parker’s likely staying, Duncan’s not going anywhere, neither is Nash. But to meet again? Seems unlikely. There’s only so many times you can bump into one another at the cafe’, even in a small neighborhood.

So, weapons drawn, gents.

For those of us that believed in Seven Seconds or Less, we foolish, naive believers, the seeds of hope will likely stay stuck in our throat, choking us, even as this team bears little resemblance to the Omega Flight that brought questions of the very foundation of winning basketball less than a half-decade ago. This team rebounds. It defends (no really!), it’s built tougher, built wiser, built as some sort of hybrid model. But those seeds of hope will remain because the Suns still run. They push. They challenge you, and they spread the floor. There’s no grind to their game, just an inexhaustible fire, fueling the scoring machine.

It’s impossible not to ask the question. “What if they actually f***ing won this series?!” The idea, that finally, mercifully, some small measure of revenge could be enacted upon San Antonio for all the damages wreaked on this team feels like validation for all the work D’Antoni did, for all the brilliance Nash ha brought us, for this bizarre team that was so damn fun for so many years. Shouldn’t there eventually be a karmic yang to the yin? Some sort of small retribution for the years of misery the Spurs hammered Phoenix with?

The answer is no. Because this is professional sports, not Final Fantasy IV.

The Spurs will win this series, because we have no reference in the playoffs in the time of these constructed rosters to believe otherwise. There’s too much history. Tim Duncan hit a three to win, for God’s sake. The Horry thing was a disaster and it’s become a terrific barstool debate. Seriously, you want a good time? Get four non-Spurs, non-Suns NBA fan friends together and bring up the Horry body check. It’s fascinating. It’s Horry’s fault. It’s Nash’s fault. It’s Amar’e's fault. It’s the league’s fault. It’s a good rule. It’s a bad rule. It’s just the rule. It wouldn’t have mattered. It would have changed the whole series. It wouldn’t have changed anything. It goes on and on and on and at this point, a lot of people are violently passionate about pleading people to just let it go.

But how can you? With what was on the line? With the direction that series had taken? It’s the stuff of harmless tragedy, and those are the kinds of things we love to argue about more than anything, because it allows us to exhibit our greater philosophical leanings without the burden of things that matter. If you’re a realist, saying that children die because everything dies and it’s simply probability has the result of exposing you as a heartless and cruel being, even if it’s not a true representation. But say that Amar’e was suspended because them’s the rules and the breaks, and you can revel in a position of unbridled fact cling. You can believe in the existence of aliens and be labeled a cook, but say you think there was a conspiracy that involved Donaghy and, well, you’re still a cook, but who cares? The point is that this rivalry represents two very different and very complex systems of thought.

I’ve long said the Spurs are murderers of fun. They are. Fantastic basketball team, and now, more than ever, having seen how Pop handles that team, how Buford constructs it, how Duncan leads it, they’re even more impressive than they’ve ever been. But they are murderers of fun. Everything the casual fan would enjoy, the team vanquishes. Run and gun teams. Fast paced basketball. Dynamic superstars. And this year? The chance of an upset over LA. I made the case that the Spurs needed to try and get the Lakers in the first round. That’s when they’re most vulnerable, and you saw that with OKC. Give them the light, and they’ll muster up just enough willpower to get the job done. And now the Spurs have eliminated the team most likely to be able to upset the Lakers, while Utah has dismissed the second, and now San Antonio faces the third with every advantage including an overwhelming amount of history. Home court advantage? Who cares? San Antonio has proven it can beat Phoenix at the bottom of the ocean if it has to.

Spurs fans will blast in outrage that they, moreso than any other team, can dispatch the Lakers. After all, look at their last regular season game! But again, ths is fool’s gold. For all the teams the Spurs have a dominant playoff record against during their decade-long reign, the Lakers are 4-2 in the playoffs against the Spurs since the arrival of Duncan.  And the re-emergence of Bynum, even injured, makes things that much harder.

But we’ll have plenty of time for that later. For now, this series should be a gem, or at least, more competitive than the last time these two met in the first round, when the Suns were a discombobulated mess on account of the Big Liability and the fact that honestly, that Duncan three pointer ripped the very heart from their chest and they were never the same. This team has more heart, more guts, more impulse and more fire. But the Spurs are still the Spurs. Capable of outworking you, getting the little plays, those tiny looseballs that seem insignificant but prevent you from easy scores, able to snatch rebounds that seem to come straight at them, able to nail layups that consistently look about as lazy as can be but are actually just timed impeccably.

Matchups? Who cares. Yes, Nash is better than Parker, and George Hill, but George Hill will have a good series and be surprising and knock down shots you don’t expect him to because that’s what Spurs draft picks do. Richard Jefferson will struggle but have one good game that will help seal a win. Jason Richardson will inexplicably have a bad series while Manu Ginobili just continues tearing it up. Duncan, aging though he may be, will still get the turnaround to fall on Dudley/Frye/Amundson while Bonner will magically find himself wide open after a bizarre rebound caroms directly to McDyess who will flip it to him and then Amar’e will be blamed for bad defense while he’s pursuing where the rebound in almost any situation would have gone. We know these things because we have seen these things. We know the scorn and laughter the Suns will receive and the adulation for yet more proof of how truly great the Spurs have made their franchise even in their waning heydays.

I don’t intend to bring a morose tone to what should be an epic series, but too often we’ve seen one side take this battle. The Suns, by many accounts, were the best team in the league several years in which they lost to the Spurs. Why would a year in which they are not be any different? Enjoy the series, it will be fierce and dramatic. But carry not in your heart the hope for victory. We are in the Spurs’ territory. And there is no water, nor relief, nor hope here. Just dust and bone and championships.

The majority of us who didn’t live under a rock or in a womb throughout the 1990s all know where the title of this post comes from.

It’s one of the many iconic moments from Seinfeld that people still quote today. People still use it today like it’s the first time such a comedic routine has been uttered. The scene was one of those many Seinfeld moments in which Jerry was able to joke about things that people always wanted to hilariously say. Apparently, having a rental car reservation of some sort used to be like trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

Do I have anyway of knowing this? No. I was only nine years old when this scene was broadcasted for the first time. And yet, still I found it hilarious that someone would be essentially calling out a person in the service industry that worked for a company that was trying to screw over its customer. It highlights the act of taking a reservation as one of the easiest things someone could do. But the reservation itself is futile if it can’t be held until someone redeems the reservation.

It’s brilliant writing and satire that still holds true today.

In today’s NBA and especially the Western Conference playoffs, it correlates perfectly to the way teams try to beat the Los Angeles Lakers. Everybody wants to knock off the “evil” Los Angeles Lakers. They’re looked at as the Yankees of the NBA even though they haven’t won the most championships of their sport. However, they are often THE most or one of the most successful teams from year to year. And because of this success and polarizing stars (Kobe Bryant is essentially the Roger Clemens/Alex Rodriguez figure), they often have the most bandwagon fans pretending to root for them rather than rooting for the eventual winner.

This causes the majority of basketball fans to loathe a franchise that is actually quite amazing. We want them to lose so that our losing team doesn’t seem so bad. If someone can knock them off in the playoffs, it makes it seem like the little guy can get a break and the evil empire can be brought down for at least one season.

The problem is that this doesn’t seem to happen often enough. The Lakers always seem to get the breaks, calls and luck to continue to be more successful than the uniforms you root for. You can almost sense it coming too. The Lakers’ opponents will be doing very well up until a certain point when everything just falls apart and the Lakers persevere to become victorious. It’s a vicious circle that just goes round and round, which is what makes it not only vicious but a circle.

The fourth quarter of Game One between the Lakers and Jazz is what reminded me of the reservation bit from Seinfeld. The Jazz grabbed an improbable lead with just over four minutes to go. Why was it improbable? Because they had played like crap throughout most of the game and yet found themselves in a very advantageous position to steal Game One on the road against a Lakers team that is an absolute nightmare of a matchup for Utah.

But anybody can take a fourth quarter lead against the Lakers in a playoff game. It’s the HOLDING the fourth quarter against the Lakers that is the most important part.

With a 91-89 lead and 4:10 remaining in the game, Wesley Matthews took a handoff from Paul Millsap around the left block and made a tough reverse layup against Lamar Odom. This extended the Jazz lead to four points and put the Lakers in a precarious situation. They were in serious danger of dropping the first game of a series in which they should cruise to the Western Conference Finals. Even better, they were up double digits for much of this game with a huge early contribution from their putrid bench and yet, here the Jazz were, ready to take this game.

Unfortunately, we all know the rest of the story to this game. The Jazz didn’t have nearly enough poise and execution to answer the answers from the Lakers. Kobe Bryant went into Hero Mode and scored 11 of the final 15 Lakers points to pull out a victory and put the Jazz in the horrific position to try to be the first team in NBA history to beat a Phil Jackson led squad in a playoff series after losing the first game.

And this is the problem for all of those hopeful giant slayers who want to knock off the Lakers in the playoffs. They usually find a way to beat you and there’s not much you can do about it. You can find plenty of fourth quarter leads but if you never hold onto that lead then you just become another notch in the Lakers’ bedpost.

Five Random Paroxi-Notes From This Game

1. I’m not so sure that Wesley Matthews can dribble a basketball. He’s a fantastic rookie and definitely giving hope to those talented players who never get drafted. However, whenever I watch him try to dribble the ball with a defender hounding him, I start to get the feeling that he would dribble the ball off his foot in the All-Star Weekend Skills Challenge.

2. Usually we see Kobe Bryant try to put games away with long two-point jumpers. It looks beautiful when the shots are going and it looks like he’s lost a few steps of greatness when they’re not falling. However, to put this game away Kobe found a way to be aggressive and drive towards the basket more often than not. When he took jumpers, they were relatively close (around free throw line distance). This is the Kobe that scares me at the end of games. If the other Kobe makes the long jumpers, I can live with that. But if Kobe is going to drive to the basket at the end of close games, color me terrified.

3. Carlos Boozer may have had the most deceiving 18-point, 12-rebound performance in NBA playoff history. I don’t think you can be happy with the way he played this game. Yes, it’s a horrible matchup for him. Yes, he has to be worried about contending with the Lakers size. But he still has to be more aggressive in the offensive side of the court. On defense, just try to be as tall as you can and hope Pau Gasol misses. There’s not much else you can do. But on offense, you’re letting the Lakers bigs off way too easy by taking turn-around jumpers. Go to the basket, get physical and try to draw some fouls. You’re in a contract year for crying out loud!

4. The Lakers made just two three-pointers in this game. The two players that made threes for the Lakers were Lamar Odom and Luke Walton. I want you to let that marinate for a bit then look at the fact that those six points were essentially the deciding margin in this five-point loss. I know it’s not that simple but still this needs to be considered. Let me know when you’ve stopped trying to stab your brain with your pencil.

5. The Jazz actually did quite well against the Lakers on the boards. They lost the rebounding battle 43-38 but were able to hold their own throughout the entire ball game. I think the reason for their ability to hang with the Lakers bigs on the boards is due to the fact that Pau and Bynum are slow jumpers and the Jazz were batting the ball all over the place if they couldn’t secure the rebounds initially. And this might actually be the key to hanging with the Lakers on the boards. You have to take advantage of the slow jumping by LA’s interior and bat the ball against the backboard. It’s not as simple as I’m making it out to be but it’s the only way to counteract their length. Once the ball goes quickly back to the glass, the Jazz big men have the distinct advantage of quick-jumping back up to get the ball. It worked quite a bit in this game and could be a decent strategy if the Lakers aren’t crashing the boards with all five guys.

Game 1 of the Cavs/Celtics series was a pretty good representation on what we will see throughout: an excellent-to-watch, hard-fought game with momentum shifts, highlight-reel plays and various guys carrying their respective teams for long stretches.

And, oh yeah, a Cavs victory.

Boston played just about as well as they could in the first half — with Rajon Rondo playing just about as good as any human could — yet it still wasn’t enough. Cleveland ramped up its defensive intensity after the break, closed off the paint and forced the Celtics to take tough (although more makeable then they showed) jumpers, leaving little room for error after the shooters went cold.

The Cavs were already starting to look like the superior team by the time Mo Williams got out on the break and dunked — for the first time since he got to Cleveland — over Paul Pierce. Mo mean-mugged, got fired up and scored 10 straight for his squad, including the thunder stuff. Then the Cavs did some Thunder stuff — applied some suffocating defense.

With no one on the Celtics able to get going against this teamwide-ramped-up effort (and Anthony Parker taking over the job that Mo had failed at throughout the first half: keeping Rajon in front of him), LeBron did the rest. 10 points, 3 boards (2 offensive) and 2 blocks in the fourth for the King, who finished with 35 points, 7 assists, 7 boards, 3 steals and those 2 blocks for the game. This, while shooting 12/24 and getting to the line 11 times. As odd as I seems, this is what we should expect most of the series. If so, the Cavs’ much-deeper bench (Jamario Moon, Delonte West, Anderson Varejao and JJ Hickson combined for 26 points compared to just 12 for the Cs reserves) and much-younger legs (Delonte, Hickson and Jamario in particular showed the age gap) should be plenty to shake off Boston in six games.

(Doc Rivers might want to think about giving Nate Robinson a little run to squeeze a little energy out of his roster. Think about how loud the Banknorth Garden would get if the little guy hit a three? Has to be worth a shot. Especially if you’re giving Mike Finley four minutes for whatever reason.)

All it took to close out this one out for Cleveland were a few nice buckets by LeBron after he was able to Shinobi the less-effective-as-the-game-went-on Boston defense and some solid interior work by Shaq (see more below). James hit the dagger three with 22 seconds left on a pick-and-roll where Paul Pierce just totally pooped the bed.

As it turns out, however, they barely even needed all that late-game execution. The Celtics fumbled around so poorly on offense that they only managed three points over the final five minutes. Credit some of that to Cleveland’s close-outs and rotation, credit some to Boston simply missing makeable shots and not forcing the action into the paint.

Either way, it’s pretty tough to beat a better team when you can’t score. I think John Wooden said that once. It’s in that pyramid or something.

A few other thoughts

• Sideshow Varejao grabbed a huge offensive board at the end of the third that gave the Cavs a 2-for-1 to end the quarter. The re-set got JJ Hickson a nice bucket on the interior. Then the Cleveland D forced Paul Pierce to settle for, and miss, a bad three. And after LeBron attacked the hoop for two points to close the quarter, Mike Brown’s boys found themselves up one going into the fourth. The Cs, who had just watched Mo go off post-posterization and watched a nice first-half lead evaporate, now had to look up at the scoreboard while sitting on the bench and see themselves losing. Even being up one point there might have helped them say, “OK, we withstood their run and played poorly in the third, but we are still up … This is still our game.” Down one, they couldn’t do that. The third turned from merely a bad quarter by a team with a lead to a quarter that changed which team controlled the game. Without that Varejao rebound, that doesn’t happen. What he does doesn’t make the box score, even though the boards are sometimes impressive. You just have to watch. Please do.

• Mo talked in the post game about how the Cavs always like to keep going to a guy when he’s hot and/or capable of exploiting a favorable match-up. They did this with Delonte in the second quarter, and he was able to drive into the paint on, by my count, at least four occasions. Then they did it again with Shaq late. Perkins bit on his shot fake with the score 90-90 and Shaq worked him in the post with an up-and-under out of the Kevin McHale collection. Diesel got Perk out of position on the next trip, too — which was likely beneficial for both Shaq and the Cavs low-post game for the rest of this series, even though he missed that particular look. The following is my speculation, but this perhaps helped keep Shaq ready to score a few minutes later when he ran a pick-and-roll with LeBron. Boston doubled the ball-handler, Mr. James, but LeBron was able to thread a pass to O’Neal who missed the lay-up but stuck with it and got the tip-in. The lesson here: Feed the big fella and the big fella stays happy. Keep the big fella happy and the big fella will stay engaged late. Keep the big fella engaged late and he can be more than just a space-eater. As I mentioned on Twitter, “The rumors of Shaq only being relevant as a big body to bang with Dwight Howard have been greatly exaggerated.”

• Paul Pierce was excellent early, but faded after half-time and was down-right ineffective. 1/10 shooting in the second half, with the one make and seven of the misses coming in the fourth. (KG followed a similar pattern, shooting 1/5 in the final period.) It’s safe to say that the Celtics can’t win this series — and perhaps not even a game — if Truth doesn’t act Truthier. The script for Celtics’ victories should play out similar to how Game 1 started for Boston: Rondo runs the show early with Ray Allen getting off for a stretch or two (two treys for him in the third and a few buckets in the second) and KG alternating between good jump-shooter and offensively irrelevant as his oldness and inconsistency allow. Paul, of course, needs to be involved throughout and the bench must play better (Big Baby was particularly garbage: 5 points on 5 shots with 3 turnovers in 12 minutes), but what Pierce needs to do is be Boston’s closer. When the Cleveland defense is really on its grind late, Doc Rivers needs to be able to count on Pierce for a few “I got this possession” buckets. They wouldn’t have won the title in 2008 without him doing this. In fact, they wouldn’t have even beaten the Bulls last year without it. So they sure as hell need it to beat the Cavs.

• Apparently LeBron has a boo boo on his elbow. He looked 100% to me. If you care about the topic, go to any other NBA website for more.

With the first round now over, we need to put to rest our fallen brethren. Here lie the Miami Heat, Rest In Peace.

Autopsy Report:

NAME: Heat, Miami

DIED: 4.29.10

AGE: 5 Games

Cause of Death: Complete systemic failure. Structural failure of offensive load capacity. Possible cognitive degradation (Spoelstra lobe).

SUCKAGE: COMPLETE.

Case Summary:Is it any wonder this team was vanquished? Doesn’t it feel foolish to have even though for a heartbeat that Rondo wouldn’t destroy their guards, and that Wade’s attention diverted thus would free Ray Allen? Or that Jermaine O’Neal would really have a good playoff series at this point? Or that the Celtics would give Michael Beasley the one shot he can hit? Or that we would not see the team we’ve feared for so long?

The Heat were overwhelmed in this series. I’d love to give you some sort of deep breakdown of matchups and swing plays or how one philosophy won over another, but really, this was an ass kicking. Kicked them up and down the floor. It was, as Graydon often refers to such series, “A Gentleman’s Sweep.”

Why is it called that?

“Because you give ‘em one. You know, out of a sense of being polite.”

Wade went off, and gave them a shred of dignity, but really, it was abject domination. Perkins didn’t even need to go low on O’Neal. Just shoved him back. O’Neal settled. Didn’t shove back, didn’t battle, didn’t scrap. Just conceded. Meanwhile, the Heat looked like an NCAA team, winging it around the perimeter. There was simply no penetration. The Celtics were everywhere, knew everything. Help, constantly. Double on penetration, triple set on Wade, they were everywhere. When the Celtics are plugged in like that, you have to have great players to force the issue and create stresses. The Heat simply could not do so. They buckled. And in the end, they were revealed as the weakest link in the playoffs.

Obituary: The Heat fooled me. Again. I found myself constantly amazed by their record this year, as every time I would watch them and think “What an abysmal offensive squad.” They lacked any secondary scorer. And you need that secondary scorer to open up the kind of shots their players can make. Quentin Richardson. Mario Chalmers. Carlos Arroyo. Michael Beasley. They’re all spot-up shooters, making an offensive living off the work of the truly gifted. And Jermaine O’Neal was not that weapon. He had good games. But this team was flawed. And I knew it.

But entering the playoffs, I looked at the record. And they have DWade. And Jermaine O’Neal should be able to dominate Kendrick Perkins. And the Celtics have sucked. Okay, I’ll pick an upset here. Miami in 7. D’oh.

And so now the Heat find themselves facing an uncertain future, with no remnants to build around. The mood around Miami is nothing but sunshine and cupcakes. Wade says his heart is in Miami, so he’ll re-sign.  Sure, Beasley may be on his way out, but hey, with all that cap space, how can they go wrong?

Well, for starters, their supporting cast is significantly worse than that of the New Jersey Nets, the worst team in basketball. They Heat do not have Brook Lopez, who has a viable hook shot, low-post moves, and miles and miles of ceiling to climb. They do not have Devin Harris, who bounced back from a significantly bad first half of the season to look very much himself. They do not have Courtney Lee, who for all his faults, is still entering his third year in the league, has experience playing in the Finals and once he develops a bit more will have a complete set of mid-level skills on both sides of the ball. They do not have a guaranteed top 4 pick in an NBA Draft full of potentially great players. They do not have Chris Douglas-Roberts, even, for all his faults. They do not have more cap space. The only reason the Miami Heat are better than the New Jersey Nets is that they have Dwyane Wade, Spoelstra (and he’s not coming off a gem of a series), and Riley, who has not made a brilliant move since…I suppose if you count the trade for Shaq that counts.

But the weather is really nice!

And that’s what it comes down to. You have to appreciate Wade for wanting to re-up. He’s got no reason to be loyal, not in this, the season of basketball capitalism’s apex. But you also have to look at what happened to Garnett and realize that he has an obligation to his legacy to ensure that Riley has the ability to execute the plan before you sign on the dotted line. It’s his priority to convince the help Wade needs to come before Wade can give his assent. But this will likely not be how it goes. Maybe the weather’s enough. Maybe Wade will be enough. But if I’m looking at this team beyond the 1 and 2, I’m seriously concerned about what kind of formula they’ll have for next season.

But hey, 2009-2010 Heat, you’ll always have this. Well, no you, so much. But you were there.