I caught the 4th quarter live and still have to go back and watch the rest of the game. Give the Cavs credit. They hit baskets when they needed to, had stretches of tenacious defense and overall played great team basketball. That was a tough loss to handle and I actually feel very similar to how I felt after Game 4 of Round 1. The scary thing is that Cleveland is coming together as a basketball team that is obviously better and deeper than Atlanta. Some other brief thoughts:
- I did not enjoy watching Daniel Gibson attack Sam Cassell at the start of the fourth quarter. That coincided with a number of truly awful Celtics offensive possessions.
- The "Celtics can't win a road game" storyline is warranted and slowly killing my enthusiasm.
- There was a stretch in the 4th quarter where both teams played outrageous defense. Everything was contested and each team was forced to shoot jumpers they could not make.
- I can't even link to LeBron's cruch time dunk but will most likely see it one million times over the course of the next year. And rightly so. It was impressive.
- For all his struggles last night, including an ill-advised 3 with Boston down 76-73, Paul Pierce gave it his all on the defensive end.
- Back to Boston...
Coming later (most likely tomorrow): What's in a name? - A look at Ray Allen vs. Delonte West/Wally Szczerbiak.