Who’s the pressure on now? Is it on the Cavs, who must win on the road in Game 5 in Boston to maintain their momentum and keep from having to win a Game 7 in Boston? Or is on the Celtics, who seemed to tighten up in the fourth quarter in Game 4 in Cleveland and who now head back home hoping they can continue their home-court magic? I know this much – the Cavs have changed the momentum of this series, and ending the way they did – with LeBron James’ thunderous dunk – will only give them more momentum heading to Boston. It does not mean they will win there, but if I’m taking a guess (and that’s pretty much what I’m paid to do) I’m guessing the Celtics are feeling the heat a little more than the Cavs right now.

It’s getting to the point where I’m going start fawning over LeBron James. That is frowned on in our profession. But the guy is simply amazing. He has another “off” shooting night, gets 13 assists, a huge fourth-quarter three and then ends the game with a slam dunk for the highlight reels. I’m not sure if TV can convey the power and force that was present when James drove that ball through the hoop. To think he went by two Celtics defenders – two pretty good defenders – and slammed the ball in over Kevin Garnett … it was electrifying. The Q went bonkers, and the Celtics had to try to strategize during a timeout with that replays of that dunk playing over and over and over again on the Q’s big screen. Imagine sitting on their bench and glancing up and seeing that slam replayed again and again and again. Kind of takes the air out of a team.

Boston is averaging 81.5 points per game and shooting 40.5 percent in the series. Those are numbers that should make the Cavs defense proud, and those are numbers that are good enough to win a series.

I’ve been pretty hard on Anderson Varejao in these playoffs. Dr. V’s swooping drives to the basket had started to become maddening. But in Game 4 Varejao played an excellent, excellent game in defending Kevin Garnett. Garnett started strong, making his first four shots. He finished 6-of-13 and missed his only two shots in the fourth quarter. Varejao seems to play sometimes like one of those toys you got when you were a kid, where you press the bottom and the figure on top flails around, arms and legs going any which way. That’s Varejao. And it seemed to bother Garnett.

I don’t know why Garnett sat almost the first five minutes of the fourth quarter (along with Ray Allen). That one’s hard to explain. The Celtics lineup early in the fourth was Glen Davis (“Big Baby”), P.J. Brown, James Posey, Sam Cassell and Paul Pierce. It stayed that way until 7:26 remained in the game, when Garnett and Allen returned. Garnett wound up missing two shots in the fourth quarter, and Allen took one three and missed it. The “big three” in crunch time? Three-for-10. In Game 1 Doc Rivers and the Celtics bench lost track of the shot clock in a key situation, but skated because Boston won. In Game 4, that lineup started the fourth quarter.

Rivers did have a cogent quote on James following the game: “You think LeBron is struggling? He had 21 points, 13 assists, six rebounds. He probably forced 15 fouls. We don’t look at that as LeBron struggling. You only look at field goal percentage. We don’t. We look at the way he’s playing his total and he’s making plays. The Gibson threes and those threes don’t happen without LeBron James. We are forcing him to take tough shots, and having said that I think he’s playing terrific.”

Paul Pierce, meanwhile, continues to be a bit of an enigma when he’s on the court with LeBron. Pierce has a tough time scoring over James, and when James scores Pierce seems to feel the need to score. Pierce is now shooting 18-for-52, or 34.1 percent. Aside from a decent Game 2, he’s been outplayed by James. Quite frankly.

Pierce’s foul on James in the second quarter looked bad, but wasn’t. Even James admitted that. He said Pierce held him up, which helped protect him. It could have been called a “clear path” foul, but Pierce had the angle. That being said, it produced a comical sight when Gloria James, LeBron’s mother, got into things with LeBron, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce. As Gloria yelled at Pierce, LeBron told her to sit her tush down. He didn’t use tush of course. As James said, “the commissioner doesn’t care if this is your mother. You can’t allow fans and players to get involved with each other. And I can’t afford for my mom not to be at every one of my games.” James said he should have chosen better words, adding: “Thank God it wasn’t Mother’s Day.”

Give credit to Joe Smith, who quietly plays like a true professional, which is what he is. It was painful to see him take the shot in the you-know-where in the fourth quarter from Sam Cassell (accidental), but Smith stayed in the game and came up with some key rebounds. Earlier he had come up with some key shots. Smith doesn’t get the mention of the acquired guys who now start, but he has been invaluable the last two games.

Watched Mike Brown when he signaled offensive plays in to the Cavs. It seemed like every time he did, the play resulted in a basket or open shot. During a timeout, Brown called the play that set up Daniel Gibson for a key three in the fourth quarter. There was one play the Cavs ran in the fourth quarter that saw Gibson run around some screens to try to get a three, but the Celtics cut him off and then cut off James, the next option. Sometimes the other team plays good defense. Point: Brown is not an offensive mastermind, but the Cavs do have an offense that can work when it’s run effectively. And Brown was very smart in the use of his timeouts. Most came at key times when he needed to settle his team down, or to remind it do things like … um … move the ball.

The maturity of James continues to amaze. Consider what he said in the huddle after his ferocious dunk with 1:45 left. “We need to get another stop.” Right after the play of the year, a play that will be talked about for years, he’s thinking what to do next.

Some quotes:
LeBron on his dunk: “Our fans deserved it. They were great. Our team deserved that type of play.”
Doc Rivers on the Celtics’ fourth quarter: “We have to play better under stress. I call them ‘hero’ shots and I thought we took a lot of those instead of just stressing what we do.”
Mike Brown; “To end up with seven turnovers, 35 baskets and 24 assists against these guys, in a game like this, is pretty good.”
Wally Szczerbiak: “We have got to take the positives that we got in Game 1 and Game 2. We could have gotten Game 1; we were right there. Game 2 we got off to a great start. I don’t think that there is any question that we can win, but have to play well for 48 minutes.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 1:55 am and is filed under Cavs, LeBron, McManamon, Mike Brown, Playoffs vs. Boston (2008). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.