LeBron James is about to find himself on the wrong end of a paragraph laced with Rocky Balboa references.
You've all seen the Rocky quint-ology - I know this because there's a 100-question multiple choice test for those who apply for my kinship. Those who passed with flying colors should immediately know the scene that jumped into my mind while watching Rajon Rondo slice the Cavaliers defense to ribbons on this lovely Mother's Day.
It's early in the Balboa-Drago fight, Rocky's stumbling on spaghetti legs back into a corner. The Big Russian is closing the space between Rocky and the turnbuckle, inching in for the kill, when Rocky lights up his jaw with a furious right. He cuts Drago, injures him, stuns him for the first time in the movie. For a brief second Drago looks like he can be beat, and this is the first time that Rocky realizes he is the only one who can beat Drago.
Within seconds, Rocky starts to pepper the Russian's facial features with haymaker after haymaker, and when Drago foolishly tries to choke our hero (through boxing gloves, really?) Rocky responds by hitting him with a double-A Spinebuster that would have made Arn Anderson smile.
As Rocky collapses into his corner, Mick's nameless replacement trainer shouts "Ya hurt him! He's not a machine. He's a man!"
When the clock read 00:00 in the Faux Boston Garden yesterday afternoon (I refuse to call it the TD-North whatever it is now), LeBron was the one bleeding for the first time.
And Rondo was smiling, hands stained in a beautiful shade of red.
Every so-called expert wrote off the Celtics when this series started. Despite the fact that the Cavs proved nothing in the first-round while the Celtics dismantled the Heat, the C's only loss coming at the hands of one of Dwayne Wade's best playoff performances ever. Despite the fact that this Celtics team starts three of the 30 best basketball players EVER and runs a point guard who is on the verge of becoming a super-duper star in this league. But hey, if Jalen Rose says Cavaliers in six, you've got to believe him. Right? (Pacers fans looking to defend Jalen Rose please hit the little "X" in the upper right hand of this blog now. I've no time for you.)
Here's an important piece of news boys and girls. Championship teams tend to have at least one or two tough-as-nails guys that pull the team together in tight spots to help them earn those rough, grind-em-0ut wins. The Cavaliers have Anderson Varajeo. Yeah...
This Cavaliers are the Ivan Dragos of this year's playoffs. They can't recover when someone figures out that they aren't invincible. At least not on a game-to-game basis. The Cavs waltzed through this season, and last season, because LeBron could beat almost any team not named the Celtics, Magic, Lakers or Thunder with his aura. His resume and sheer ability had most teams wetting themselves an hour before tip off.
And when that didn't work. When a team didn't collapse under his alleged greatness after the first 12 minutes ... well the Cavs then tend to find themselves in trouble.
Look no further than this Celtics series for the proof. Boston should be up 3-1.
Game 1 - Boston leaps out to an 11-point lead, LeBron looks tentative about his elbow injury/bone bruise thing, and Cleveland looks flat and stomach-punched through 24 minutes. The Cavs get smart in the 3rd quarter though, Mo Williams starts to run the floor realizing only the speedy Rondo can keep pace, the Celtics wilt like the older generation-past team they are accused of being, and Cleveland outscores their guests by 19 in the 2nd half to take Game 1. This one would seem to defy my theory except...
Game 2 - The same thing happens! Cleveland can't pull away early and this time the 3rd quarter is a Celtics shooting gallery where they outscore the Cleveland Paper Tigers 31-12. Rondo ties the incredible Bob Cousy's team playoff assists record at 19. Cleveland does surge late by the way, but as we will see again in Game 4, they don't have the toughness and grit to finish the run. Celts win 104-86.
Game 3 - LeBron gets pissed, Cleveland comes out with their Shamrock-stomping boots on and never look back, blowing the Celtics out the door for a 2-1 advantage.
Game 4 - Boston surges out and ahead, Cleveland rolls back to break even into the fourth. And this is where the tough physical team takes the edge. LeBron gets stripped by Tony Allen early and Boston is up four. Kendrick Perkins starts playing more physically than the Cavs entire front line. Anderson Varajeo starts shooting 20-foot jumpers that he can't hit in warm ups. LeBron falls in love with that long-bomber from three mentality (LeBron 3Pt-Shooting in Game 4? 0-5. Jamison? 0-3. That's great when your top 2 scoring options go Zero-for-the-game from deep).
When you force the Cavaliers to rally late, the wheels come off. Varajeo thinks he's Garnett or Pau Gasol shooting baseline jumpers. LeBron puts up those all-or-nothing off-balance three pointers. Shaq fouls out. They don't have gritty hustle players except for Varajeo, who is such an offensive liability that it almost negates the intangibles he brings on defense.
Meanwhile the Celtics have Glen "Big Baby/Ticket Stub/No 7th Man Should Have This Many Nicknames" Davis scoring four quick points to widen the gap early in the quarter. Rondo is hustling to offensive rebounds and nailing put backs to ice the game late while Mo Williams saunters around the circle instead of crashing the boards.
We've got plenty of series to go, and the Celtics do need to win a second game in the Quicken Loans arena where the Cavs are tough to beat. But between Rondo's arrival as the 4th superstar in the Celtics starting five and the gash opened up on the Cavs once-invincible visage, it would no longer be a shock to see a Conference Finals that travels through Beantown.
Well, there are three other series...
Suns def. Spurs 4-0
Phoenix has always been scary for one pretty simple, obvious reason: Nash-to-Stoudemire.
Well that's still there. Except now the Suns know how to play defense because Alvin Gentry is not a one-dimensional coach like a certain ex-Suns/now-Knicks guru named Mike D'Antoni (Damn it) and they have a deep/dangerous bench that includes Channing Frye, Goran Dragic (who won Game 3 by himself) and Louis Almundson. The matchup between Phoenix and the Lakers 2nd unit in the Conference Finals could tilt that series when it happens, but I'll save that breakdown for my prediction column sometime later this week.
And is the last stand for a veteran Spurs' squad that has been so much fun to watch for nearly a decade?
The Parker-Duncan-Ginobli core, albeit older, will stick around, and they have some talented young reinforcements in George Hill and DeJuan Blair (steal of the '09 draft). But we all knew despite Popovich's leadership and Duncan/Parker's near indomitable will to win games, this team was gonna suffer as the 7-game series went on. They needed to knock out Dallas in 5, buy time to rest, and find a way to send the Suns through a time machine so they could bring their 2009 suspect defense and chemistry issues into this year's tilt.
Scary thought #1 for the 2010-11 Season: If the Thunder continue to improve (Definitely happening), the Blazers stay healthy (very possible) and Memphis gets five or six games better (coin-flip, but possible) could we see the Spurs finish 9th out West and out of the tournament come 2011?
Lakers lead Jazz 3-0
I am really having a hard time believing Utah lost game 3 in Salt Lake City ... but I guess I shouldn't. You knew that the loss of Okur and the Kirilenko injury were going to absolutely kill Sloan's Jazz when they faced a team with speedy, long big men. And they don't make 'em much better than Gasol-Bynum and Odom.
It's really tough to watch Deron Williams (the best point guard in the league until Chris Paul stays healthy and/or Rondo improves his three-point shooting) continue to bang his head against a Kobe-sized wall, but Utah just can't beat the Lakers in a seven-game series. Okur is gone and AK is still nursing that calf injury, so they just can't stretch the floor and create room for Boozer to work in the low post. Millsap is a great sixth man, but he's only 6'9, and the combo of three seven-footers is just lethal for this otherwise talented Jazz squad who really deserve a Conference Finals appearance one of these years. They just need one season where they end up far away from L.A. in the bracket
Magic lead Hawks 3-0
Did Joe Johnson just play himself out of a max contract? Or did someone kidnap him and replace him with the ability Basketball IQ of Darko Milicic? The Hawks have just completely come apart at the seams since the season ended. They barely survived a Milwaukee Bucks team that was down its two best players (Bogut/Redd) and ran a starting line up of Brandon Jennings-John Salmons-Carlos Delfino-Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Kurt Thomas. Mind you, Dan Gadzuric got significant playing time during this series. DAN FREAKING GADZURIC! AND THIS SERIES STILL WENT SEVEN GAMES? EXCUSE ME, I need to go huff paint and then realize Brandon Jennings might have been able to make the Knicks an 8 or even a 7-seed when I look at that line up and realize we could replace Delfino, Mbah A Moute and Kurt Thomas with Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler and David Lee. Wow.
Anyway, the Hawks maybe push this to five, simply because Josh Smith has a tendency to explode when his back is against a wall, but man did these Hawks die off. And how good is Orlando playing? Likely to be 8-0 or 8-1 when they draw a banged-up Cleveland team whose confidence is irreparably shook? Or they get a tired, run-down veteran Celtics squad tasked with winnings its second-straight slug fest with a top-tier contender.
Look at those Position matchups:
Magic-Cavaliers:
PG: Jameer Nelson (ORL) over Mo Williams (CLE)
SG: Vince Carter (ORL) over Anthony Parker (CLE)
SF: LeBron James (CLE) over Matt Barnes (ORL)
PF: Antwan Jamison (CLE)/Rashard Lewis (ORL) - Push
C: Dwight Howard (ORL) over Shaq (CLE)
Orlando wins 3-1-1 by position, and has a far superior bench. Oh and the only position they win, small forward with LeBron, is a double-edged sword. Since Matt Barnes is in Orlando for the same reason Ron Artest is in L.A., as a defensive/mind game specialist meant to drive LeBron freaking nuts. Now Barnes has the added benefit of the LeBron elbow drama to focus his special set of skills on.
Let's look at the matchups for the series I really really, F$@%!$%!ing really want to see:
Celtics-Magic
PG: Jameer Nelson(ORL)/Rajon Rondo (BOS) - Push
SG: Ray Allen (BOS)/Vince Carter (ORL) - Push
SF: Paul Pierce (BOS) over Matt Barnes (ORL)
PF: Kevin Garnett (BOS) over Rashard Lewis (ORL)
C: Dwight Howard (ORL) over Kendrick Perkins (BOS)
Carter could of course, come alive and destroy Ray Allen, and Nelson/Rondo both have the ability to take their game to a mind-boggling other level. Watching Rondo undress the Heat's PG-by-committee of Carlos Arroyo/Mario Chalmers in Round 1, while Ja-Miracle did a similar "This is Pulp Fiction and you're Ving Rhames" routine on Raymond Felton, reminds us that either of these guys could kill the other on any given night.
Barnes would drive Pierce insane, but Pierce will still likely score 20 PPG.. Dwight has a huge advantage over Perkins, yet Garnett could clamp down Lewis' ability to stretch the floor. Do you not understand why I want this series yet? The Magic should logically dissect the Cavaliers. Flay them alive. Sell their vital organs to crazy James Bond villains who want to use them for nefarious schemes! But Boston-Orlando should go seven games. And there could be blood. And Nate Robinson could dunk over Dwight Howard to decide a Conference Championship! (of course Nate would first have to find his way out of Doc Rivers doghouse, and there's a better chance that he finds me a Knicks fan who wants an Eddy Curry autograph. And if that fan exists, I will immediately find him and leave an M-80 in his mailbox.)
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This is all moot for now. All we all need to be aware of is that Boston-Cleveland can, and likely will go the distance. LeBron Drago is staggering, and bleeding. Rondo is eating thunder and crapping lightning. He knows LeBron's not a machine. He hurt him. Now he's got to finish him.
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