Five keys to victory

1. Make it a game or make it a blowout — The Celtics spent most of the season routing teams, especially on their home floor. They beat the Hawks by an average of 25 points at home in the first round. The Cavs, meanwhile, played close games the entire season. They were actually outscored by their opponents over the 82 games, yet still were eight games over .500. The Celtics did not respond well in the close games in the Hawks series and there is a question as to whether their players are conditioned after taking so many fourth quarters off. The objectives for each team seem simple.

2. Handle the pressure — The Celtics are one of the most physical defensive teams in recent NBA history. They overplay the perimeter and apply lots of extra pressure to the opposition’s ball handlers. The Cavs have not handled this well at times in the past, especially on the road as Delonte West and Daniel Gibson have been inconsistent. For the Celtics, they are expected to win and easily. The tigher the Cavs play them the more they will battle not just the opponent but the lofty expectations of a very intense local and national fanbase.

3. Beware the backside — Both the Cavs and Celtics have similar defensive styles. They play shrink the floor defense, where they will bring lots of help to the side of the floor where the ball is. For the Cavs, this means where LeBron James is. For the Celtics, this is where Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett are. This will give chances for Ray Allen and James Posey and Gibson, West and Wally Szczerbiak to have open shots. Which team takes advantage will have an edge.

4. Big 3 or Super 1 — In just five years in the NBA, James as more playoff series victories than Garnett, Allen or Pierce. He’s been a much better clutch performer and he’s dominated in crunch time. Combined, the Celtics powerful trio just put together an amazing 66-win season but they have yet to show they can get it done in the postseason and their opening series against the Hawks was shaky. The Celtics have the talent advantage, but the Cavs have the best player. Which will be the difference-maker?

5. Doing it on the road — The Celtics were the best road team in the NBA this season but they were 0-2 in Cleveland 0-3 in Atlanta in the first round. The Cavs were in the middle of the pack on the road during the regular season and lost twice in Boston. But they have won 10 times on the road in the playoffs over the last three years. Whichever team can score a road victory will have a huge edge in the series.

Matchups

Point guards

Delonte West
6-3, 180, 4th season
Postseason: 10.2 ppg, 5.0 apg
vs. Celtics: 20.0 ppg, 5.0 rpg
Comment: Former Celtic who was well-liked but injury prone in Boston. Has been inconsistent since he’s been a starter with the Cavs which showed in the Wizards series. Big challenge will be to keep Celtics guards in front of him. Shot 50 percent on 3-pointers against Washington.

Rajon Rondo
6-1, 170, 2nd season
Postseason 11.6 ppg, 7.3 apg
vs. Cavs: 10.8 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 4.3 apg
Comment: Developed a great deal this season and is a excellent distributor. Against the Hawks he had 51 assists and just seven turnovers. Will pressure the ball on defense. Not a strong jump shooter.
Edge: Celtics

Shooting guards

Wally Szczerbiak
6-7, 245, 9th season
Postseason: 10.8 ppg, 1.8 rpg
vs. Celtics: 12.0 ppg, 5.0 rpg
Comment: Has been in a shooting slump since coming to the Cavs, though he may have had a breakout game with 26 points in Game 6 vs. Wizards. Big challenge for him will be keeping up with Allen as he crosses the court and gets screens for 3-pointers.

Ray Allen
6-5, 205, 12th season
Postseason: 16.1 ppg, 3.1 apg
vs. Cavs: 23.8 ppg, 5.0 rpg
Comment: Shot just 42 percent vs. the Hawks and was spotty with his production. He is a serious threat against the Cavs because he often operates on the backside of the defense where the Cavs will often gamble and leave him.
Edge: Celtics

Small forwards

LeBron James
6-8, 250, fifth season
Postseason: 29.8 ppg, 9.5 rpg, 7.7 apg
vs. Celtics: 32.3 ppg, 7.0 rpg, 9.7 apg
Comments: He has thrived against the Celtics in the recent past, especially when playing at home. His challenge will be to react properly to the double teams and look to make the correct passes as the Celtics will try to bait him into turnovers. Will be challenged defensively guarding either Pierce or Allen.

Paul Pierce
6-7, 235, 10th season
Postseason: 18.0 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 4.7 apg
vs. Cavs: 13.5 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 4.0 apg
Comment: Dynamic scorer who can run very hot and cold from the field. He will often settle for jumpers but is very skilled at creating his own shot and getting inside and drawing fouls when he feels like it. He sometimes gets personally involved in rivalry with James.
Edge: Cavs

Power forwards

Ben Wallace
6-9, 240, 12th season
Postseason: 3.2 ppg, 7.2 rpg
vs. Celtics: 6.0 ppg, 6.0 rpg
Comment: With his back healthy, Wallace seems to be jumping several inches higher and being more active on both ends over the last two weeks. His challenge will be to deal with Garnett when he leaves the post area and pulls him from the basket and keeping him off the boards.

Kevin Garnett
6-11, 220, 13th season
Postseason: 21.0 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 3.9 apg
vs. Cavs: 15.3 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 4.3 apg
Comment: Has been the emotional leader of the team and plays the role well. Is the defensive captain and will often run the offense from the post on offense. He will look to set up other teammates first but can score from anywhere on the floor and is long enough and quick enough to impact numerous plays at the defensive end.

Edge: Celtics

Centers

Zydrunas Ilgauskas
7-3, 260, 10th season
Postseason: 14.5 ppg, 7.3 rpg
vs. Celtics: 14.0 ppg, 12.5 rpg
Comment: Has been very solid in the postseason over the last few years because he’s difficult to guard and is an excellent offensive rebounder. His challenge will not be to allow Perkins easy baskets and putbacks on the weakside, where he thrives opposite Garnett.

Kendrick Perkins
6-10, 265, 5th season
Postseason: 7.6 ppg, 6.4 rpg
vs. Cavs: 8.8 rpg, 4.5 rpg
Comment: Has improved but is still the weak link for Boston in the starting lineup. He’s foul prone and get out of position too much. However he’s a developing shot blocker and often benefits from having little attention paid to him.
Edge: Cavs.

Bench

Cavs: G Devin Brown, G Daniel Gibson, F/C Anderson Varejao, F Joe Smith, G Sasha Pavlovic.
Comment: Smith and Gibson both played excellent minutes against the Wizards with Gibson showing his best shooting touch. Varejao rebounded well but both he and Brown suffered at the offensive end. Pavlovic is just coming back from injury and his minutes may be limited.

Celtics: F James Posey, G Sam Cassell, F/C P.J. Brown F Leon Powe, G Eddie House, F Glen Davis, G Tony Allen.
Comment: Posey is a strong defender and good 3-pointer shooter and Cassell is veteran leader. Powe and Davis are energy players who can change the game. House is a gunner who has a history of success against the Cavs.
Edge: Celtics

Coaches
Cavs: Mike Brown, third season, 145-101 regular season, 23-16 postseason.
Comment: He is one of the best defensive coaches in the NBA and is in the second round for the eighth consecutive season as a coach. He’s got a 5-2 series record as the Cavs’ head man and has shown he can make excellent adjustments between games in a series.
Celtics: Doc River, seventh season, 339-328 regular season, 12-17 postseason.
Comment: He’s a good motivator who has successfully developed a deep and sound rotation that maximizes his team’s talents during the season. However, he’s only won one playoff series and his moves in close games against the Hawks did not pay off.
Edge: Cavs.

Cavs 105, Wizards 88

–Perhaps the most complete game played by the Cavs since the trade and quite a stepping stone as they move onto the next round. If losing Game 5 because their offense shut down was the catalyst to get the offense to move the ball like this then it was more than worth it. Watching the Cavs operate with the ball tonight was like watching the Lakers and the Spurs and I am being dead serious there. But it was combined with some excellent defense, which I will discuss in a moment. This is the type of confidence the Cavs had on the road in the playoffs last year. We’ll see if it lasts.
–This was LeBron’s best game of the postseason. Not only was he leading the way in getting the ball moving — he took just two shots in the first quarter — but he was the emotional leader too. After he was hit in the face and the groin in the end of the third quarter, he looked like a general in the timeout before the fourth. He was marching up and down while Mike Brown was huddled with the coaches and he was yelling at his teammates to keep up the defense and finish the Wizards off. He was upset that Antonio Daniels was allowed to get the dunk at the end of the third. Then you consider his stat line: 27 points, 13 rebounds, and 13 assists with two steals and a blocks and, ahem, one turnover. A superior effort. To see him lead and play like this, you just understand where it all comes from. The Nike money, the other teams dreaming of 2010, all the praise. To watch him grow from when he was an 18 year old just figuring this out to the sort of all around performance he gave in this game has been special for Cavs fans.
–Wally Szczerbiak has been due to have this sort of game for about a month. He said tonight this was the worst shooting slump of his career. Who knows if it will last, but it did remind all of Donyell Marshall’s performance in Game 6 at New Jersey last year. What was impressive about him and Daniel Gibson tonight is they often didn’t settle for the 3-pointer, the drove the ball a great deal too. That’s how the Cavs ended up with 29 assists and just seven turnovers. Gibson was tremendous in handling the ball and Delonte West, in case anyone didn’t notice, had 15 assists in the last two games. Both of them shot 50 percent from 3-point range in the series, which was huge. Last Sunday I wrote a piece about how the Cavs had to really watch West and Gibson in these playoffs to decide how large of a commitment they needed to make in the offseason as both are free agents. This was after Game 2, when they’d been awful. Play no attention to the headline, it doesn’t convey the story’s real topic. Both have made a strong case in the four games since.
–Mike Brown and the coaching staff get points tonight for making some fixes in the offense, especially with where the 3-point shooters were positioned. Washington had a hard time finding them after really doing a good job in Game 5 of protecting the corners because they knew Gibson and West would always be there.
–The Cavs defense in this series may have been overlooked a bit since there were three blowouts. They ended up giving up just 92 points a game, four times holding the Wizards to 88 points or less, and just 43 percent shooting. Tonight after the first quarter they really cut down the Wizards’ drive-and-kicks. By using crisper rotations, the Cavs forced lots of late shot clock shots and many were low percentage. Also, double teams on Caron Butler were effective.
–Also maybe overlooked in the series was Joe Smith, who is moving on to the second round for the first time in his 13-year career. Or as LeBron said: “When he got to the league, I was like nine years old and I had just started playing basketball.” Smith had eight points and five rebounds and he averaged 5.5 points and 4.8 rebounds in the series. His mid-range jumper has been off for the last few weeks, but he sure did come up with a lot of loose balls.
–After all the talk about the officiating in the series, the Cavs were called for 139 fouls, the Wizards 137. The Cavs shot 175 free throws, the Wizards shot 174.

Pregame

Staring lineups

Cavs: Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak, LeBron James, Ben Wallace, Zydrunas Ilgauskas
Wizards: Antonio Daniels, DeShawn Stevenson, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, Brendan Haywood

Officials
Steve Javie, Ken Mauer, Tom Washington….Javie and Mauer both are known for taking over games and are not afraid to dole out punishment. Mauer does not mind the camera on him and Javie is known for having a short fuse. Washington is a total pro, lower key. All three are lead officials during the regular season.

LeBron on the Darius Songaila suspension: “It was something that wasn’t basketball related. They asked me if I thought it was intentional or if I had anything with Songaila in the past. Was it intentional by him? I don’t know if it was intentional or not. (Will suspension clean things up?) I’m not sure if that was their intentional, we’re going to play basketball. It’s going to be physical, it should be physical. But at the same time you have to draw a line what’s physical and what’s not, what’s not basketball-related plays.”

Eddie Jordan: “Darius was very important to us, his numbers may not speak volumes but his play does. I stood my ground and said what I had to say and I’m not going to fight the league or the officials.”

NBA Vice President Stu Jackson: “Following the game, the next day we conducted an investigation that included interviewing both of the players involved and also taking input from the officials on the floor. After that, we reviewed the video and then ultimately gathered all of the information and made a decision…In viewing this many times, we do feel that this was intentional contact.”

–Jordan said Andray Blatche will get extended minutes. He has been inconsistent in this series but at times has played very well.
–Expect the Cavs to make some adjustments with their offensive sets, they may move Daniel Gibson and Delonte West around so it is harder for the Wizards to stay attached to them.
–Sasha Pavlovic probably will play. You have to expect some rust.
–Caron Butler played great in Game 5, but a big reason was because his jumper was going. He actuall started feeling it at the end of game 4. He was just 1-of-9 on 3-pointers in the series and he hit 4-of-8 and Game 5. I expect the Cavs to double team him closer to the basket, but they will live with him shooting outside shots. With double teams on him, though, Antawn Jamison may get open looks.
–The Cavs have had some success in the last few games with LeBron catching the ball on the move after it reaches the halfcourt in transition, usually though a dribble hand off at the top of the key. This is actually a Wizards-style play. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more of it.
–Look for Zydrunas Ilgauskas to get the ball early to apply pressure on Brendan Haywood.

Halftime — Cavs 56, Wizards 48

–This game is being played at the Wizards pace, but the Cavs are executing better on offense. They have 17 assists on 23 baskets, which is remarkable for them. Daniel Gibson and Wally Szczerbiak’s ability to hit the outside shot has had a major impact on the game. LeBron is also distributing very well, he has seven assists with six rebounds and 10 points.
–The reason the Cavs were able to surge into the lead, though, was they finally got some stops on defense. The Wizards missed some shots, like the Cavs surely will in the second half, but the jumpers were more contested and they repeatedly made them wait until late in the shot clock. The Cavs gave up just 17 points in the second quarter after 31 in the first.
–It seemed to me like Gibson may have tweaked his right ankle on the last play of the half. We’ll have to see if that affects him at all, he is just now getting back a rhythm after that right high ankle sprain.
–The Cavs have changed up on Butler, using LeBron on him a lot more and lots of double teams. He’s only got five points. Jamison has gotten some looks as a result and he had 16 points, whic is good, but he’s also taken 14 shots. The Cavs will live with some of that, they have decided.
–It’s obvious the officials are giving no leeway tonight. Already two very quick technicals, including the one on LeBron. All parties will have to keep their cool in what promises to be a tight second half. You have to figure this is going to come right down to it again.

Postgame

Stars
LeBron, 27 points, 13 rebounds, 13 assists
Gibson, 22 points
Szczerbiak, 26 points
Jamison, 23 points, 15 rebounds

Quotes
Mike Brown: “Terrific, terrific, terrific, terrific, terrific performance by our guy, LeBron. Our guys had a close it out mentality.”
LeBron: “Cleveland is advancing. That speaks louder than me saying anything about the fans here or DeShawn Stevenson. It was a gruesome series, there were a lot of things going on in this series besides basketball and it was fun.”
Eddie Jordan: “”He’s a load, man. He puts so much pressure on your defense if you got support people to make shots.”

¶

Of all the hits in this series, it is surprising that the one Darius Songaila gave to LeBron James in Game 5 was the one that earned a suspension. Eddie Jordan maintained that not only was the hit accidental, but that LeBron embellished the contact. As Jordan said yesterday: “I thought he got tangled up with LeBron and LeBron tried to get untangled and in his method of getting untangled, Darius’s arm flew up and at his chest. And LeBron’s a terrific actor. We’ve all seen his commercials.”

But here is the thing, it was obvious that Songaila hit James in the face and it happened after a play, there was no ball to go after. Secondly, and this is most important, it seems pretty clear that the NBA warned the Wizards, and maybe the Cavs, that it wanted no more funny business after Game 4. A couple people told me the NBA thought long and hard about whether to suspend DeShawn Stevenson after his flagrant foul because of all the hard hitting in the series. Songaila’s hit was apparently the final straw, even if it wasn’t as severe as the others.

The Wizards have fairly stated their point that fouling hard is part of the playoffs. The Cavs have fairly argued that LeBron has to be protected. At the end of the day, he’s a superstar and he keeps getting hit in the head and the NBA wanted to put a stop to it.

From what I hear, the Wizards didn’t hear until after shootaround and they were upset they didn’t find out until a day and a half after the incident so they couldn’t prepare.

The Cavs surely would’ve preferred Brendan Haywood or Stevenson to get suspended but Songaila’s suspension hits the Wizards’ depth and their rebounding ability. They are already thin on the front line and Songalia was playing a lot of backup center. So I suspect Andray Blatche will get a lot more playing time tonight. There is a chance Jordan may have to play rookie Dominic McGuire, who hasn’t played a meaningful minute in the series, a little. Both Blatche and Haywood are foul prone, so expect the Cavs to force the issue with Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Blatche has not handled Z well.

Also, at shootaround, it seemed like there was an excellent chance Sasha Pavlovic would get minutes tonight. I expect a tighter leash on Wally Szczerbiak.