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Boston Celtics vs Cleveland Cavaliers Doc Rivers got a chance to see another side of LeBron James in February, when the Celtics coach was running the Eastern Conference All-Star team and the Cavaliers forward was winning the game's MVP award for the second time.It wasn't the shooting: Rivers has seen James score 30 points just about every time he's played Boston. Or the rebounding that led Rivers to dub James "Shaq-at-guard." Or the passing the coach compared to a Nolan Ryan fastball."His focus in the timeouts," Rivers said after practice on Monday. "It actually caught me off guard. His eyes were like beaming at me. You don't see that often. Especially not at the All-Star game."
Rivers will have to watch James work from the other bench on Tuesday night when Cleveland comes to Boston for Game 1 of their second-round playoff series. Unfortunately, he didn't pick anything up while coaching James that will help him coach against him."I wish," Rivers said with a laugh. "As a matter of fact, I saw things the other way."Before being held to a mere 26 points in their final regular-season matchup, James scored 30 or more in nine straight games against the Celtics - something only Wilt Chamberlain can match. Seven of those performances came before Boston put together its Big Three, though.In three games this season, James averaged 32 points, seven rebounds and just under 10 assists. PredictionBoston is not a "running" team. Sure they run into transition offense to get easy points (modern basketball unwritten rule) but when we talk about defense & half court offense it is very solid team on both ends. In defense they want to limit opponents FG attempts by forcing turnovers and poor shots. And they do their job on defensive pretty well especially at home. Looks at the series against Hawks. Atlanta did less than 70 FG attempts in 4 of 7 games. When I watched Cavs-Wizards series I noticed that Cavs offense was working good in early offense (when Lebron takes the ball and make shot from the dribbling in 5-7 secs) but they struggled often in latest fases of offense. Against Cavs were looking good in offense because Wizards did plenty turnovers - Boston will not allow them to do this in Boston at least. That's why I don't expect Cavs to score more than 90-92 points and possible range for Cavs is around 84-89 pts. Cavs increased their defensive skills in playoffs. It's normal for them and 96 points for Boston Celtics is a bit too high number as for me. Ok they scored 113 pts in Cleveland but hey they scored 92, 80 and 92 in other 3 regular season games... However those 113 pts were scored mainly because of 66 first-half points. Playoff is another story and I think that both teams will play positional, defensive basketball with long posessions and low number of turnovers. I expect Boston to continue their home-winning streak but my prediction that they will win by scoring less than 95 points and limiting cavs around 86 points. Hard to say that this big advantage over the line but I expect 174-178 points game instead of 183 points. Prediction: Celtics 92 - 86 Cavs Pick: Under 183.5 @ 1.91 Lasseters
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