I gave some thoughts after the first game in this series (
http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=37202.0 ), so here's what I'm thinking after last night:
*The "bad, awful, burns in my guts" loss in game 1 doesn't sting quite as much now. It still hurts because this team could have it's foot on the Cavs' neck right now, but you can't cry over spilt milk forever. I'll take the split and keep it moving.
*More than the split, the fact that the Celtics recovered from what could have been a pretty devastating loss and came back even harder the next game showed me a lot. That's what champions do.
*This long layoff before game 3 could be a blessing or a curse. It SHOULD be a blessing, as it allows our older players to be completely physically recovered. It's only a curse if the team relaxes a bit, starts feeling like they got this thing, and then they come out flat in game 3. I don't think that'll happen, but I hope that Doc and the team leaders hammer on that point all week. This series is only 1-1, all it takes is one bad game and the Cavs are back in the driver's seat.
* The Rondo/Williams matchup looks like a weather vane for the series. Rondo is obviously the better player, and has to do more for this team than Mo does for the Cavs. But I don't think it's coincidence that in the 3 halves that Rondo dominated Mo the Celtics have won, but in the one half where Mo got hot it was enough to boost Cleveland over the top. Rondo has to continue to dominate this matchup to keep our foots firmly on their necks.
*THAT was what I was talking about from Pierce in my previous comments. His numbers from game 2 look a lot like game 1, and I think those are what we can generally expect from him in the series (~15 points, < 40% FG, similar # TOs to assists) outside of the 1 or 2 games when he'll almost inevitably explode. But to me, the difference between game 2 and game 1 is that in game 2 Pierce wasn't the focal point of the offense. The team started to go that route during their 4th Q drought, but for the most part Rondo, Ray and KG had the keys on offense and Pierce was able to concentrate more on just keeping LeBron in check. Then late, when the team needed a bucket, Pierce was able to score some key points and make some key passes. That's what we need from him...make LeBron work, keep the game honest, pick your spots to make key contributions.
*Along with Rondo, the biggest difference between what the Cavs saw from us in '08 and what they're seeing this year has been Ray Allen. Allen, for obvious personal reasons, was not at his best in 2008. In 2010 he is knocking down his shots and giving the Cs another offensive dimension that the Cavs can't really game-plan for. You can game-plan against Rondo, or against KG, or against Pierce, or against Allen. But if all 4 are doing their part, the Cavs can't game-plan against that. Really, no one can.
*One of the most important aspects of what I just wrote is that Allen and Rondo are the only ones producing at a noticably different clip than 2008. This is key, because it means that KG is producing at about the same level as he did in 2008. His interior aggressiveness on offense has been vital, as it creates a second mismatch to exploit.
Also, one other thing to consider, Garnett is averaging 18 and 10 but has made only 17-of-41 shots from the field. I don't want to derail this into a ref complaint thread, but I think I'm being reasonable to say that 5 of those missed shot attempts could very easily have been 2-shot fouls. If you do that and he makes 8 of 10, you're looking at a KG averaging 22 and 10 through the first 2 games without any change in how he has actually played. Just something to think about.
Conclusion: All in all, I like what I've seen in the first two games. The Celtics have clearly been the better team, but even though they lost a game that they should have won they accomplished the main goals: take home court, prove they can beat the Cavs, establish the things that they want to do in this series. This has been the Celtics team that I expected to see against the Cavs, and so far the results also are about what I've expected. Let's hope that the squad returns home starving to sweep the two games at home to really get a choke hold on this series.
