It was unexpected, especially the way it happened, in six games, with Boston winning twice at the Q, with the Celtics defense suffocating the life out of the Cleveland attack. But it wasn’t altogether inconceivable.
Going into these playoffs, it seemed to me as though there were three possible outcomes in regards to which squad would end the year raising the Larry O’Brien trophy. In scenario number one, the Lakers would do it because they have more talent than any other team. In scenario number two, the Magic would do it because they ended the regular season playing better than any other team. And in scenario number three, the Cavs would do it because LeBron James would rain fire from the clouds for two straight months on every other team, while his adequate-enough teammates followed him in neat order to the podium.
You can throw scenario three in the trash.
But as you do that, be sure to reach down and pick up that crumpled piece of paper outlining a fourth scenario that we threw away months ago: the Celtics do it because their defense is Oh-Eightesque, Rajon Rondo is a Sistine Chapel-level work of art, KG is again confident/homicidal, Truth is looking Truthier by the day, and Ray Allen is Ray Allen.
We could have seen all of this coming. But few, including myself, did.
But prescience, no matter how much all these sportswriters try to tell you over and over and over again, does not matter. Not one bit.
What matters is that this Boston team just dressed down the best regular season squad in the NBA this season — and did so maliciously and without flinching. They walked into the Cavs building in Game 5 and ripped the heart out of team that was in a dazed stupor while watching its leader — the best basketball player most of them have ever shared a court with — play with the intensity and aggressive of Wally Szczerbiak — the name of a random soft player that seems appropriate to use here since he is a contender for best Cav player LeBron ever played with prior to the guys on the current roster arriving. (With Z, the lone holdover from early Jamesian Cleveland era of futility, being the only other real candidate.)
Then, back on friendly turf for Game 6, the Celtics did what their leader asked and treated their first chance at closing out a wounded, confused, disorganized team like it was a Game 7. Garnett, impassioned and ready to execute, scored 6 of his team’s first 12 points as Shaq loafed around the perimeter, chasing him like Andre the Giant trying to fight the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride. (Two Nets-related notes here: (1) Russ Bengston has proposed that we call CDR “Tbe Dread Pirate Roberts” and I think you should begin complying, and (2) Sebastian Pruiti of Nets Are Scorching did a great video breakdown of KG’s early game jumpers over on his other blog NBA Playbook.)
Rajon did his I-might-be-better-than-Deron-Williams thing. Ray got involved, most notably with some Big State-era hops to throw down a vicious dunk over Mo Williams. And Tony Allen stepped up off the bench to change the game in ways that no Cav reserve, aside from perhaps Varejao in his 26 minutes of action, would.
Really, that’s all it took.
The Cs kept things rolling, LeBron was never able to go next-level and remained a (perhaps over-)willing passer whenever confronted by two Celtics defenders (which occurred on almost every play) or stymied by the open space around him collapsing (which, again, occurred almost constantly). LeBron did not dynamically open up a space/time continuum-altering wormhole as we have previously seen at times in his career. He did not become a rabid bull donning rose-tinted glasses of destruction. He was not a streetcar named mayhem. But he played pretty damned good basketball, particularly for a man who continually appeared to lack any dexterity in his right arm given the way he was unable to dribble precisely even while open, let alone once he became enveloped by Celtics defenders.
Was it a heroic offensive performance by an individual? No. But it was an adequate attempt to execute on a night when he had trouble executing. If anything, he “played the right way” too much, consistently choosing a skip pass to an open man in position to shoot or a clever interior pass to players who, had they not been named Anderson Varejao or Shaq, were in position to finish at the rim. Was it an approach to the sport that Cleveland fans, and even just curious onlookers wondering what the best player on the planet was capable of doing, truly wanted to see out of a man we have so often seen bomb atomically? Probably not. But it was not an unengaged, laissez-faire approach that we saw from LeBron in Game 5. He was active, he was cutting to spots, he was trying to get position in the post. He was not brazenly dribbling to the hoop with no regard for human life — or double teams or open teammates. Perhaps he couldn’t and was sick of mishandling the ball every other time he dribbled hard into the lane. Perhaps he thought working the offense could work. Perhaps he thought Anthony Parker, Mo Williams, Antawn Jamison and others had a better chance to make open jumpers than he had to finish left-handed over three guys.
Regardless, he was out there, playing hard and actively trying to help his team put points on the board. (Until the last minute that is, which Joe Posnanski breaks down amazingly in this must-read piece.) It’s weird that I even feel the need to type that. But he forced me to with his Game 5 performance. And so many members of the media and blogosphere forced me to with their over-reactions and hyperbole-filled character assaults following LeBron’s terrible, inexplicable no-show the last time out. The fact is that James was engaged, helpful on offense and active (19 rebounds people … doesn’t happen by accident) even if he wasn’t ungodly.
Really, however, this isn’t about him as much as yall want it to be. Not for me it isn’t. See, I’m a basketball fan, not a soap opera fan or someone interesting in reading your armchair psychoanalysis of a man you’ve never met. So this is about the basketball that will (in case you forgot) continue to be played for the next month.
This is about the Boston Celtics doing the damn thing.
Well, they just did. And if you think they have no shot of doing it again — versus the Magic, versus the Lakers or even versus the Suns — you were too caught up in LeBrongate to pay enough attention to the stellar defense and revitalization of confidence that has been occurring in Boston so far during these Playoffs.
(For more on this, go read Bob Ryan’s fantastics piece on the Celtics victory.)
