Fans From Both Sides React To Cavs-Celtics

With the first game in the books, it was time for our bloggers to take stock of their respective teams. We’ll start in Cleveland with SBN’s Fear the Sword, where the Cavs—as I said in my preview—are still a guard short:

They call Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce the ‘Big 3’. Tonight, they were. Pierce had 23 points and 11 rebounds, Garnett 13 points and 10 rebounds while Allen chipped in 16 points. Combined they were 16-19 from the free throw line as well. Rasheed Wallace looked energized by his new digs as well, scoring 12 points(3-6 from deep).

The Celtics might be at their best, however, when Rajon Rondo is playing at a high level. Rondo does alot for the Celtics and when he is playing with a lot of energy the team seems to feed off of it. Rondo played that way tonight scoring 8 points to go along with 6 rebounds and 10 assists. A little bit of everything.

For the Cavaliers it was LeBron James scoring 38 points in 45 minutes – way too long if you ask me. Mo Williams added 12 while newcomers Anthony Parker and Shaquille O’Neal scored 10 a piece. For Cleveland it was their bench that forgot to show up. Daniel Gibson, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Jemario Moon scored a grand total of 10 points.

It was painfully obvious that the Cavs are playing a Guard short. That is an obvious statement since Delonte West is dealing with personal issues. I saw Delonte on the court before the game and he looked great….physically. Whether it is West, or the rumored Antonio Daniels, the Cavaliers need another ball handler – Boobie Gibson is still a liability with the ball in his hands – and to be honest the team could probably use both Daniels and West.

As for Boston, it’s tough to imagine a better start—prevailing down the stretch against your stiffest competition for the Eastern Conference crown. SBN’s Celtics Blog is in a good mood this morning:

For a game that started off so poorly, it actually ended up being a very nice start to the NBA season for us. Yes it was just one game, but it sets the tone for the season. It marked the first time since 2004 that we were able to win in Cleveland. If you were doing a power poll today, you’d have to put the Celtics ahead of the Cavs.

It also plants a seed of doubt in the minds of LeBron, Shaq, and the Cavs as a whole. They are already questioning themselves after a massive playoff thud. They’ll get better. They’ll win a lot of games this year and they’ll be there at the end as one of the East competitors. They might even beat us a few times. But they will have to chew on this loss for a while. And they’ll have to answer questions about “if the Cavs can’t win, will LeBron bolt?”

In reality, a few bounces of the ball either way and the Cavs could have won this game and it would be the Celtics having to deal with it. Celtics fans would be justifying the loss as “just one game” like the Cavs fans are right now. We’d probably be turning our anger on Big Baby and the distraction he caused this week. Or maybe we’d be howling at the Celtics to either sign or walk away from the table with the Rondo negotiations. In short we’d be looking for someone to blame. Thankfully we don’t have to do that.

We won. The Cavs lost. End of story. And a good start to the season.

Indeed, while it's just one game, the Celtics have to be feeling good, and the Cavaliers must be a little concerned. Shaq looks like he's a solid 360 pounds, and while the O'Neal-Ilgauskas duo makes for a hilarious sight gag, it's sorta far fetched to think of it as a realistic lineup. And in the end, it was James again, carrying the Cavs on his back. For Cleveland, that's not a good sign. 'Bron can win 55 or so games for them, and maybe get them to 60, but come playoff time, they'll need somebody else, and right now, it doesn't look like they have him.

As for the Celtics, a lot of ifs. If Garnett can stay healthy like that all year, if Rasheed Wallace hits on 50% of his threes, if Ray Allen and Paul Pierce both play at that clip, and Rondo continues to provide that weird, staf-stuffing presence at PG... If all those things hold true, the Celtics will probably win the NBA title. A lot of ifs, but still, not many teams (five, by my count) can say that they're best case scenario is an NBA title--last night, the Celtics showed us what they look like at their best. Stay tuned to see if they--and all those aging knees--can keep it up for a whole year.