Preview: Cavs at Celtics, February 25th
2010-02-25Now I want to try and throw a car. That right there is a pregame song.
Relevant Statistics:
Pace: Cavaliers 93.2 (25th) vs. Celtics 94.0 (22nd)
Offensive Efficiency: Cavaliers 108.7 (4th) vs. Celtics 104.6 (13th)
Defensive Efficiency: Cavaliers 101.2 (7th) vs. Celtics 99.1 (1st)
Notes:
As you can see, rumors of the demise of the Celtics D have been greatly exaggerated. Moving the ball and getting some scoring will be critical if the Cavs want a win.
I haven’t seen enough of KG since he’s come back from his knee injury. If he’s anywhere near 100%, his mobility and length will make him a nightmare for Jamison. If he’s moving as badly as I’ve heard, Antawn could give him fits out on the perimeter.
Rondo is not the guy you want to be facing if you’re trying to get your shot back. He does tend to over-help, so Mo might find himself free for some open threes.
Perk vs. Shaq will be fun, but not pretty.
No Pierce for the Celtics tonight, which is a huge break for the Cavs. If it gets close, they just have to trap Rondo hard on the pick-and-roll, recover to Allen, and dare someone else to beat them.
Nate Robinson, when he’s on his game, is a grown-up Marcus Thornton. Watch out for him.
Storyline to watch: Leon Powe making his Cavs debut against his former team.
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I said JJ could be that energy big off the bench, and boy did he do just that tonight. Just because he’s not a legit starter, doesn’t mean he can’t provide useful minutes off the bench. Brown has to keep playing him.
Oh, and Powe looked decent tonight as well. One of the silver linings of Shaq’s looming absence will be increased playing time for Powe, so we can see if he will come close to what he was with Boston.
i’d like to give mb some props for tonight just cause he always gets blamed but rarely gets praised. i didn’t pay close attention to what sort of adjustments he made during half-time but they were clearly effective. man! what a difference between those two halves!
from the celtics.
All is well that ends well! Hope he wants to come back.
@ dan, absolutely it does. I think that’s what makes LeBron so great is that it seems like he should be breaking things off and doing his thing, but he still acts as a facilitator and gets guys like Andy and J.J. shots that wouldn’t have otherwise. He’s awesome to watch, that’s for sure.
Mike Brown hopefully can see that small ball against these small teams can work. Yea, we need shaq. Yea, we REALLY need Shaq against Orlando and L.A. No, we do not need shaq play a lot of minutes against a team like this who can’t dump it down inside and score.
thanks brad! i suppose it just “seems” that way. Still think he could have 35 in his sleep, if that was his goal.
Rich, I mentioned first that things flowed well! :-) it was fun to watch a comfortable lead again. Just nitpicking, hoping we can put the best product on the floor when they face Orlando or ATlanta in the Conference finals. I’ll be upbeat from now on!
@ dan, LeBron gets 6.7 shots at the rim per game, and Durant gets 5.2, so LeBron actually takes it to the hole more often than KD.
@ Jason, I saw that Powe/Hickson rebound, but I just think that Hickson had the position for it but Powe wanted it so he could grab a stat or two in his first game back. He was totally looking to score on offense, too, so he was just lookin for his first numbers in garbage time, I think.
Leon Powe has missed the entire season… I doubt that he’ll be anywhere near 100% by the time the playoffs roll around, and I doubt MB’s gonna interfere with anyone’s minutes and put him in unless its a blowout (like the end of tonight’s game was)
I like Powe, but him and Hickson need to figure something out so they’re not fighting each other for rebounds. There was one that looked particularly ugly, and one of them needed to back off. I’m sure they’ll figure it out with more minutes, though.
I’m absolutely thrilled that even without either of our big centers we still handled the Celts. Our depth is amazing, as is the versatility of this roster. Ferry needs more credit for putting this lineup together.
What was with everyone except Boobie playing? He didn’t even get any garbage time minutes. Why is this?
And dan finds a way to find nothing but negatives in a 20 point win in Boston. Cavs fans = ultimate negativity.
odd, they looked very comfortable with JJ as the big man, things flowed well. Why doesn’t Bron drive more? I mean, hes gotta know that no one can stop him going to the rim consistently. So much has been made in the last couple of weeks of Durants streak. I have news though, If Lebron attacked like he does and tried to be the high scorer on the team, I swear he could get 35 in his sleep! This game didn’t “feel” like he dominated. But look at that stat line! Those threes are great, but I just wish he… Read more »
that was a strange but wholly satisfying game. i knew all along we would come back and that they weren’t gonna just dominate us the whole game, but i didn’t anticipate us coming back and totally destroying them. GO CAVS! :D