Well, I don't think anyone could say that they saw this coming, but I also don't think anyone can be terribly surprised by it either. We knew that LeBron James is good enough to win a game all by himself. We know that the Celtics can have games (months even) when their offense looks anemic. Finally, this Celtics team has a penchant for making things hard on themselves by only playing their best when their backs are up against the wall. Those three elements converged to give us a perfect storm that the Celtics sailed right into without a life raft. We're headed to South Beach for game 7.
Paul Pierce was ice cold tonight. Kevin Garnett wasn't any better. And Ray Allen was once again quiet. So even if Rondo was on top of his game that would be a lot to overcome. Unfortunately he was flirting with an odd triple double - 21 points, 10 assists, ...and 7 turnovers. He was just not in sync with his teammates and give the Heat some credit for clogging passing lanes and anticipating passes.
The Celtics also got nothing from their bench tonight - though to be fair the rotation only includes Pietrus and Dooling at this point.
Every time the Celtics made any type of run to get it down to 10 points or so, the Heat, no... LeBron James would answer with a few buckets. The killer about it is that the Celtics were missing a lot of makeable shots. Just one of those nights I guess.
Hats off to the few fans that remained at the TD Garden to the end of this game for starting the "Let's go Celtics" chant. Thank you. Here's hoping that the team carries that chant all the way to South Beach with them and gives us more chances to cheer them on in the Finals.