Celtics (2-1) at Cavs (2-0) 10/14

[FLCeltsFan]

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Boston Celtics (2-1) vs Cleveland Cavaliers (0-2)
Tuesday, October 14
Petersen Events Center
Pittsburgh, PA
7:30 PM
TV:  CSN
Radio:  WEEI
 

Probable Starters
                
Rajon Rondo/Ray Allen/Paul Pierce/Kevin Garnett/Kendrick Perkins

 
The Bench
Tony Allen
Glen Davis
JR Giddens
Eddie House
Darius Miles
Leon Powe
Gabe Pruitt
Brian Scalabrine
Bill Walker
Sam Cassell
 

Probable Starters
              
Mo Williams/Wally Szczerbiak/LeBron James/Ben Wallace/Zydrunas Ilgauskas

The Bench
Daniel Gibson
Tarence Kinsey
JJ Hickson
Anderson Varejao
Ronald Dupree
Darnell Jackson
Jawad Williams
Vernon Hamilton
Michael Dickerson
Lorenzen Wright
 
Inactive
Eric Snow  (Knee)
Delonte West (personal reasons)
Sasha Pavlovic (Questionable - ankle)

Players to Watch
     
Tony Allen/Kendrick Perkins/Patrick O'Bryant/Bill Walker
Tony Allen finished with 25 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists in his last game against the Cavs.  The next night his play was very shaky against the Rockets. The Celtics are looking for some consistency from Tony.  If Perk plays as expected, the Celtics will be watching to see how he plays and how his conditioning is going after being out with the injury.   It will also be interesting to see how O'Bryant reacts to being moved to the bench and playing mostly with the second unit.  Finally, Bill Walker has been the story after each of the Celtics first 3 games and it will be interesting to see what the Celtics get from him in this game. 

Players to Watch
       
Zydrunas Ilgauskas/Wally Szczerbiak/Mo Williams/Ben Wallace
Zydrunas Ilgauskas is playing very well and is averaging 14 points, 3.5 rebounds, and shooting 76% in 21 minutes per game so far in the preseason.  He will be a good test for the Celtics centers.  Wally is one of 3 players fighting for the SG spot on this team.  With Delonte out for personal reasons and with Sasha Pavlovic out with an ankle injury, Wally has been the SG by default.  He needs to earn the spot, however.  Mo Williams was brought in to take some of the scoring load off of LeBron and so far has been playing well.  Ben Wallace played only 5 minutes in the first game vs the Celtics and his skill level has slipped considerably at this point in his career.  It will be interesting to see how much he still has left. 

This is the second preseason meeting of these two Eastern conference rivals.   The Celtics came out ahead 96-94 in their first meeting as the Celtics youngsters out played the Cavs youngsters down the stretch.   The Celtics were led by Tony Allen who scored 25 points and pulled down 4 rebounds.  The Celtics 3 stars all played less than 10 minutes in this game.   LeBron played just under 14 minutes. 

From the reports out of practice, Perk is expected to play in this game.  He had a good practice on Monday and we should see him in this game although his minutes may be limited.   The starters should all play limited minutes again, although it will probably be more than the 10 minutes they played in the first meeting between these two teams.  Even if it is just for a short time, the matchup between Paul Pierce and LeBron James is always a good one. 

[Redz]

Scary jack in the boxes

[silvershamrocker]

The Celtics will play Cleveland at least 6 times this year: 2 in the preseason and four times in the regular season. And probably in the playoffs too. I think Cleveland will be the biggest challenger from the east.

[PerkinsERA43]

I think any team built totally around Lebron will fail to win a championship. He is simply too much of a focal point. He takes up a ton of cap space, dominates the ball, and makes any offense run poorly. Lebron will have to get to a point where he is just so good that he can score consistently with an entire defense focusing on him, or he will have to downshift his role into one of a superstar, which is to say he controls the ball maybe 40% to 50% of the time, as Kobe does. Currently, Lebron is running the offense from the top of the key at least 70% of the game, making him a MEGAstar. If this continues, Lebron will never win a championship. If his role is downgraded, and a co-star is brought in (Mo Williams is NOT a co-star) he could win an 3 or 4, maybe more. Currently though, I think the Cavs still cannot win. Maybe in one year Lebron will be just so utterly dominant that the Cavs can squeeze 1 'ship out of him. Unfortunately, the way it looks to me, the Cavs in their current format (Lebron + pieces, instead of Lebron + star X + pieces) missed their one chance to get a ring (against the Spurs). Cleveland will always be tough, but they will never win.

/ERA

[Surferdad]

PerkERA, Mo Wiliams is a [dang] good player and should be an upgrade over Larry Hughes or Wally or anybodfy else tyhey've brought in as a #2.  Ilgauskas can score too and is about as solid a center as you need.  Ben Wallace is a shadow of his former self but still anchors a very good defense.

In spite of all that, I agree that the Cavs are not winning a championship as presently constructed, but they will certainly make life hard for the C's this season.

[Surferdad]

Yikes Rondo looks sharp tonight.  Steals, the hard push, great feed to Paul, that "cup the ball" thing he does, and a reverse lay-in, YEAH!

[Tenacious D]

Nice take by Miles for 2 and 1. He and Walker are not afraid to go to the rim. Brings a new dimension to the club, post Pose.

[Scalablob990]

Can't watch the game, can anybody alert me to how Dmiles is playing so far?

[Surferdad]

Can't watch the game, can anybody alert me to how Dmiles is playing so far?

He's playing with a ton of energy but his shot is off, probably just a timing issue.  He did havbe a couple of nice post-up moves, one of which resulted in an easy inside score on some rookie.  He looks active on defense.

[Scalablob990]

Thanks for the update hopefully they don't play scal tonight, that would be the kiss of death.

[gar]

Confined to radio and internet. RED SOX getting hammered and no where to turn - not even a box score on ESPN. Some good news please! Noticed a nice early lead. Assume Perk is his beastly self again. How did Cleveland get back into it. How is the second unit holding up.

Thanks

[Surferdad]

Thanks for the update hopefully they don't play scal tonight, that would be the kiss of death.

Now, now, it's only a pre-season game so wins and losses don't matter, but yeah there's no reason to play Scal very long if at all.

Walker hasn't played yet.  Expect him to get time in the 2nd half as well as more time for Miles.

[KG Living Legend]

Hey PerkinsEra, nice summary of the cavs. Basically what your saying is he needs his Scottie Pippen. Who do you guys think would be Lebron's modern day Scottie. Not someone to incredible. I always thought marion would be perfect. Or do you think Richard jefferson and Lebron on the Cavs would be good enough to win a title?

[CoachBo]

Frankly, the second five has been ghastly.

[Cman]

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I still can't quite get over the weird jack in the boxes....  Those strange Yogi Bear like bodies are giving a thumbs up.  Or are they looking for a hug?  And the heads are not PP and LBJ heads...