Could the Celtics end LeBron’s reign in the East?
There are countless numbers that quantify LeBron James’s historic basketball brilliance. But it’s a team statistic rather than an individual one that might do it best.
James has led his team to the Eastern Conference championship and into the NBA Finals in seven consecutive seasons. He did it all four years during his Talents Taken To South Beach phase with the Heat, and he’s done it in three straight seasons since his celebrated (and perhaps temporary) Cleveland homecoming. The road to the NBA Finals doesn’t go through LeBron. It stops with LeBron, no matter where or with whom he is playing.
The last team to prevent him from advancing to the Finals was the 2009-10 Celtics. I suspect you know this. I also suspect you agree that it feels like a generation ago – because, in the lifespan of a basketball player’s career, it was.
When James hurriedly peeled off his jersey before bolting down the tunnel in the immediate aftermath of the Celtics’ clinching 94-85 victory in Game 6 of the 2009-10 Eastern Conference Finals, it was the last time he’d wear a Cavs jersey until 2014.
Players who shared the court with him that night included Shaquille O’Neal, Antawn Jamison, Delonte West, and Jamario Moon. The Celtics starting five hadn’t changed from the championship lineup of 2007-08: Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Rajon Rondo, and Kendrick Perkins. Rasheed Wallace and Michael Finley came off the bench.
It was a different time, one not so distant on the calendar, but one that seems so long ago when you ponder the box score. Yet here is James, all these years later, cutting through all of the brush to forge another path to the Finals, year after year after year.
Perhaps he’ll make it eight straight this year. But after the Celtics’ impressive, suspense-free 102-88 victory over the Cavaliers Wednesday night at the Garden, I’m not so sure. The Celtics ended LeBron in Cleveland once. They’re either going to do it again soon, or he’s going to beat it out of Ohio as a free agent this offseason (hello, Hollywood) before it inevitably happens.
It would be premature to draw macro-level conclusions from Wednesday’s game, which left the Celtics with a 31-10 record and a 2.5 game lead on the Raptors (and 4.5 over the Cavs) for the top spot in the Eastern Conference. There are too many unsettled variables in play to definitively say the Celtics are the superior team this season.
The Cavs, more sly than spry these days, were playing the second half of a back to back. Kevin Love gave them just north of nothing – he had 2 points on 1 of 11 shooting, and comically dogged it back on defense while griping about a no-call as Jayson Tatum knocked down a wide-open 3. He’ll be better in games of greater significance. And no one who is familiar with his work here requires convincing that Isaiah Thomas is going to be a blessing to their plodding offense when he’s back at full-throttle.
The Cavs are still to be respected. But feared? Not a chance. There were two developments Wednesday that enhanced the belief that the Celtics have a genuine shot of bouncing the Cavaliers from the postseason.
First was watching Kyrie Irving play with such poise and determination to make the right basketball play. If there was ever a game in which Irving might be tempted into Hero Ball Mode for 35 minutes or so, it would have been on a night in which he played the team from which he parted contentiously while a player he was traded for, Thomas, received a warm welcome at the Garden.
Irving played like he was intent on proving something all right, but it was the right thing. He finished with a well-rounded 11 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists on a night his shot wasn’t falling. He did not get frustrated or exasperated. He trusted his teammates against a team he really wanted to beat, and they came through, especially Terry Rozier (20 points), whom I’m convinced has added confidence and perhaps a few new tricks in his repertoire from playing with Irving.
It was a remarkably mature performance from Irving. The second encouraging development? Watching the Celtics’ youngsters rise to the moment too. Rozier was superb, and Marcus Smart was his usual pit bull self on defense. Jaylen Brown (14 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists) does not even seem to consider the possibility of backing down from James.
And Jayson Tatum, named Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month Thursday, is already a star, even if he doesn’t yet get utilized like one. It was amusing watching Jeff Green doing his maddening dance of inconsistency for the Cavs. When he was a Celtic, the optimists’ hope was that he would be an athletic slasher and reliable scoring option. It happened only sporadically. Tatum is already what Green could never become.
Sure, the Celtics could use another scorer – perhaps the rehabbing Gordon Hayward, the current chair-shooting champion of the world, will make it back to aid the cause this year. Or maybe they will find this year’s version of ’08 P.J. Brown by utilizing the injury exception. There are still many matters to be settled in the second half.
But the first-half finale was a fine and fitting culmination to a wildly enjoyable first half for the Celtics. Who would have known on opening night, when Hayward suffered an ugly leg and ankle injury against the Cavaliers, that the Celtics would be the better team at midseason?
The more maudlin among us thought all was lost that night. Turns out that halfway through this season’s story, there’s so much for the Celtics to win. Wednesday’s win was a midpoint rather than a turning point. But LeBron and the Cavaliers had better beware. The turning point in the rivalry is coming. And it might just arrive before LeBron can again flee the scene.
