Boston is the only city in America in which people are saying this morning that the Celtics won, and thus will be playing Orlando Sunday afternoon in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. Everywhere else, LeBron lost.
Yup, the Boston Celtics capped off a great series with a great win, controlling play for all but a few minutes, absorbing a fourth-quarter incursion and then running off 10 straight points to ensure a 94-85 triumph and answer all the pre-playoff questions as to their real worth after concluding the season with a lackluster 27-27 record.
For two months they talked the talk, assuring the world that if they got healthy they could play with anyone. But we all needed validation, and we got it.
“The regular season is a lot different than the postseason,’’ said Cavaliers coach Mike Brown. “We knew they were going to be a different team. We hoped we were. They stepped up, and we didn’t.’’
It would be a vast overstatement to say that a team beat one man, but maybe not. It was pretty evident as this series wore on that, while LeBron James remained the best player — how many others could put up a forgettable triple-double? — the Celtics had the next four best players in the series. And it took everything those four had, plus everything bench players such as Tony Allen, Rasheed Wallace, and Glen Davis had, to subdue Cleveland’s phenomenal force of nature, who played this entire series with a bad right elbow.
“All we talked about throughout this series was that individually, we’re not going to beat them,’’ said Doc Rivers. “But teamwise, we were on the same page. It was a brutal series. Guarding LeBron James for six games is brutal. He is a monster. One guy didn’t do it. Our team had to do it.’’
