Boston Celtics 89 - Cleveland Cavaliers 73: Game 2 Recap

- Tonight was a classic "the final score was not indicative of how much of a blowout it was" type of game.

- LeBron James missed some shots he usually makes. There's no denying that. But two games in a row now he has struggled mightily from the floor. And a lot of that has to do with how hard he has to work. Cavs fans love to talk about game 5 against the Pistons last year.  And rightfully so. However, I remember LeBron running free and dunking with abandon. That has not been the case so far. And yet it was not just LeBron. How many times did Wally Szczerbiak get trapped along the sidelines? A lot of blogs have moaned about Cleveland's offense. And they're right. Giving LeBron the ball inside the half court line and giving him the green light has numerous issues. I'd even argue that's why LeBron is making over the top reactions to any kind of contact.

- Zydrunas Ilgauskas can straight up shoot.

- At some point I talked about Leon Powe not getting time with KG because of height issues. Well they played together tonight and there was nothing wrong with it. Meanwhile, Powe was awesome with 11 points and 7 rebounds. But I was most impressed with 2 of his offensive rebounds that came off of his own missed shots. And one was a dunk. That's hard to do. Later on he threw down a big time dunk.

- Rajon Rondo has an interesting night. He was 0-6 from the field but perfect from line (7-7). He also grabbed 5 boards and 6 assists. However, he had 4 turnovers as well and struggled to get clean looks against big Z and company.

- Quick tip to the networks. You can focus on Kevin Garnett as you cut to a commercial after he made a huge play if you want to. I'm not going to tell you to stop.  Just know that KG will be yelling, "Motha f*$?a!" over and over again. I'm just the messenger.

- It's going to be a while before I can fully express how much I loved Boston's defense. It was fantastic to watch. The hustle, double teams and all around team effort was something to behold. I think it actually raised my basketball IQ. Just awesome. I can't emphasize this enough.

- I loved the way Ray Allen got it going in the third quarter. That was really good to see.

- KG (13 points, 12 boards, 1 steal, 1 block) and Pierce (19 points, 6 boards, 2 assists, 2 steals, 1 block) had monstrous games even if the stats don't show it.

- Great, great team effort.

- I'm definitely coming around on the Sam Cassell era.

- Just a great night to be a Celtics fan.

- Bonus point - How about Jeff Van Gundy joking about Tommy Heinsohn's objectivity? I enjoyed that.