This year’s
Eastern Conference Finals squares the hated Miami Heat against the Celtics of
Boston. I as much as anyone would love
for the Celtics to win this series and knock off the vaunted Heat who plan on
winning, not one, not two, not three… you get the idea. As it stands now it is extremely hard for me to
make this case. There are a few people
though that can make this series interesting:
1.
Rajon Rondo
More
than anyone else Rajon Rondo will determine whether or not the Celtics can
compete with the Miami Heat. He is the
one player on the Celtics who can have performances that reach the levels of
Lebron James and Dwayne Wade. He will
have to control the tempo of the game, keep the game at a slow controlled pace
that prevents the Heat from running in transition, and dominant the game
getting into the lane, scoring, rebounding, and creating easy shots for his
teammates. For the Celtics to have any
chance Rondo will have to average about a triple double a game scoring around
20 points per game with multiple games of 15 assists or more.
2.
The Big 3’s
The matchup of the Big 3’s, or depending on whether or
not Chris Bosh is able to play at all in this series, the Big 3 against the Big
2 should favor the Miami Heat regardless.
While Bosh is out with injury, the health still may favor the Miami Heat
with regard to this. As of now Paul
Pierce seems to be significantly hampered by his sprained MCL and Ray Allen has
almost no lateral movement dealing with bone spurs in his ankle. These guys have to guard Lebron James and
Dwayne Wade respectively, a hard enough task to do when healthy, but when
injured this task is next to impossible.
The only hope for the Celtics in this matchup is if Bosh is unable to
come back, a strong possibility, to provide floor spacing, Garnett has a
dominant series, and Wade reverts to pre-knee drain form where he shows little
lift and ability to hit a jumpshot.
3.
The Role Players
This
is a series where for both teams the role players are a significant weakness
for the team and whoever is able to get decent contributions out of their role
players may be able to swing one or two games.
The only consistent role player currently healthy for either team right
now is Brandon Bass, a solid jump shooter who can provide consistent and necessary
auxiliary scoring for the Celtics. The injury
to Avery Bradley was a devastating blow for the Celtics as he has transformed
into an elite defender who has given Wade troubles this season. The Celtics need to hope that players like
Mickael Pietrus, Ryan Hollins, Greg Stiemsma and others are able to play adequately
in the series. For the Heat, they have
to hope that their role players make the open shots that they are going to
get. This has been a problem for the
team this post season in that Shane Battier, Mike Miller, Mario Chalmers, and
Udonis Haslem have not been able to consistenly hit the open shots they are getting. If those players consistently hit their shots
then this Heat team almost becomes unbeatable.
4.
Coaches
Doc
Rivers has become one of the best coaches in basketball and his end of game
play calling, his minute managing and rotation juggling over the course of the
season has been impressive. Erick Spoelstra
on the other hand is going to be coaching for his job as he is trying to take
the team to the NBA Finals for the 2nd consecutive season, but
really anything short of a championship this year will be a
disappointment. This is a matchup that significantly favors
the Celtics as Rivers has proven that he can handle himself in these situations,
while Spoelstra has seemed to botch some decisions that cost his team games.
Overall I believe that while the Celtics will compete
hard the entire series and give the Heat all they can handle, I’m going to say Heat in 6. I would love to pick the Celtics, but I had a
hard enough time convincing myself that they would win 2 games. The Celtics have almost no chance of winning
game 1, but I think they win games 2 and 4 while the Heat win games 1,3,5, and
6.
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