"We good. We good. We are all good friends when we come here," Pierce said. "But once we leave here, it's back on."
Said Mike Brown, coach of the Cavaliers and the East team, "Come Monday morning, it's going to be different."
While the Celtics and Cavaliers are the cream of the crop in the East and the Lakers and Spurs are the marquee squads of the West, it will be interesting to see if things stay that way.
"Everybody is saying that, based on the record of the four teams and how we've played, that those teams are the best," Pierce said. "That's pretty much the top four teams record-wise.
"But you never know when teams start getting healthy like the New Orleans Hornets or somebody makes a big move. Phoenix's roster, they're one of the most talented teams in the league. You never know what can happen in the second half or the playoffs."
Said Spurs All-Star Tim Duncan, "Like everything else, you need a little bit of luck, a whole lot of health, you need the ball to bounce your way a little bit, and if all those things happen, I hope we're right in the mix."
The Eastern Conference race seemed like a three-team battle among Boston, Cleveland, and Orlando just weeks ago. But with the Magic losing guard Jameer Nelson - probably for the remainder of the season - with a shoulder injury, the expectations now are that Boston and Cleveland are the real East contenders.
"With us and Boston, we go out and try to play at a high level every night," James said. "If people want to put us into that class, we're going to take away from the fact of what we are trying to do every night and that's to try to win basketball games and try to sustain a great effort every time we go out."
Orlando (38-13) is actually only four games behind Boston (44-11) and two games behind Cleveland (40-11). The Magic have two healthy All-Stars in center Dwight Howard and forward Rashard Lewis and an All-Star-caliber forward in Hedo Turkoglu. Veteran point guards Anthony Johnson and newcomer Tyronn Lue have the tough task of filling Nelson's shoes.
Howard is confident the Magic are still a championship-caliber team.
