Equally bad

By Gary Dzen

May 7, 2008

1 minute to read

Ugly begets ugly.

LeBron James went 2 for 18 in Game 1 for the Cavs. Paul Pierce and Ray Allen combined to go 2 for 18 as well.

“They balanced each other out, basically,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said after the game. “It was a great win, and if you’re Cleveland you are thinking that they almost won with LeBron playing like that. If you’re us, we’re thinking we won with Paul and Ray not scoring, so it’s probably a wash.”

Pierce said he didn’t mind his offense taking a back seat if he could slow down LeBron.

“You know, try to be aggressive on offense, and at the same time I know I got a tough job of trying to slow down LeBron,” said Pierce. “So that is all playing into my hands. There is a lot of things I got to do to help this ball club and you know unfortunately the offense wasn’t there, but hey we preached defense all year long. That’s the way we try and win games and that’s about it.”

Kevin Garnett said the Celtics can’t put the pressure on Pierce to slow down one of the league’s best players.

“Guarding LeBron is going to be a collective effort,” said Garnett. “At the end of the day, the bigs got to be there, we all have to communicate to him, and guys have to be ready at any time to step up.”