Allen Moll is an avid NBA and College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen is a regular columnist for thehoopdoctors.com, Bleacherreport.com, UpperDeckblog.com, and his own blog, Hoops Haven .
As the NBA season tipped off last night, two of league’s preseason favorites squared off in a match that could possibly be a preview of this season’s Eastern Conference Finals. With the Boston Celtics taking on the Cavaliers in Cleveland, the NBA got a dream matchup for fans, as Lebron was clearly the best player on the floor, with 38 points, but the trio of Pierce, Garnett, and Wallace, proved to be the best team, by winning, 95-89, getting their first victory in Cleveland since December of 2004. I know it’s early, but it appears the green and white are back.
The story lines were abundant as both teams took to the hardwood for the literal tip off of the NBA season. Celtic fans were given some bad news last weekend upon finding out that their newly resigned post presence off the bench, Glen “Big Baby” Davis, will miss significant playing time after breaking his thumb in a fist fight with a former high school teammate. Surely, because of the injury and bad behavior, team and possibly league suspensions are to follow. In his absence, Sheldon Williams, should soak up his minutes.
The hype surrounding both team’s newest offseason acquisitions, Shaq with Cleveland and Sheed with Boston, never really surfaced as both players played supporting roles for their teams. Rasheed Wallace, who came to Boston from Detroit in the offseason, seemed comfortable coming off of the bench, totaling 12 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 blocks. He played the role of perfect compliment to the Celtics potent lineup by helping to space the floor on offense to create open shots and by playing his usual top notch team defense, even guarding Shaq at times. It was evident that the Shaq/Lebron experiment will need some more time to mesh. Cleveland surely hopes to get more than the 10 points and 10 rebound effort from O’Neal if they hope to challenge for a NBA title. In my opinion, he failed to answer the question of how he and Lebron will share the painted area late in games, as opposing teams will undoubtedly employ the old “Hack-A-Shaq” technique of forcing the big man to make his free throws in crunch-time. Since Shaq is only effective down low, this at times will force Lebron to be more of a jump shooter, taking away his best attribute, getting to the basket for the “And One” play.
With that being said, James was his usual phenominal self, showing off a noticeably improved jump shot, on his way to a game high 38 points. One could argue that his two best moments in the game were on defense, where he made two highlight reel blocks on Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen dunk attempts. The first coming early in the 2nd quarter when Rondo was able to steal the ball and race for an apparent easy breakaway dunk, only to have Lebron swoop in from behind for the rejection, sending Rondo to the floor and slamming hard into the base of padded goalpost. He then sprinted to the corner to complete the play with a 3 point bomb, which was in essence a 5 point turnaround.
Kevin Garnett attempted to quiet his critics in his return to the hardwood after missing last season’s final 25 games and all of the postseason, with a 13 point, 10 rebound, 3 block performance. The “Big Ticket” showed almost no ill affects of the knee injury which shortened his ’08-’09 season. To be picky, he could not convert on a dunk attempt in which a teammate threw him a lob to the basket, while his defender was fronting him. He pulled the ball back down, and sank a 5 foot fade away jumper on a play in which we all have grown accustomed to the former league MVP throwing down with authority.
The Celtics were led by Ray Allen’s 16 points, Rondo’s 10 assists, and Paul Pierce’s team high 23 points, many of which coming in the final minutes as the Cavaliers made a run to get within 4 points with just over a minute to play. It appears that Cleveland hasn’t fixed their issues from last season, since they were forced to rely on the tremendous skills of the reigning MVP, Lebron James, as the rest of his supporting cast was not a factor. It’s only one game, but the Cavs have some work to do, while the Celtics looked good on step one of their quest to win another NBA Championship.
Check out Lebron’s amazing block of Rondo:
