There was a Sheed citing Cleveland yesterday. Rasheed Wallace, who Columnist Bill Simmons recently said, "showed up for training camp wearing a fat suit," had 17 points and played above his usually horrid defensive standard as the Boston Celtics dominated the Cleveland Cavaliers 104-86, and even the series at 1-1.
After being called out by Celtics Head Coach Doc Rivers for essentially doing paycheck work Sheed responded to being called out like a true North Philadelphian.
The real story of the game was Celtics guard Rajon Rondo. Rondo scored 13 points and demonstrated extraordinary control of a game with 19 assists. Rondo's defense was not shabby either; Cleveland's Mo Williams was held to 1-9 shooting. Rondo was a Nor'easter if you will.
To say that Rondo has improved his game substantially since the Celtics title run '08 title is a gross understatement. The point-guard match-up already looked like a mismatch before the series began and now it is evident.
Lebron James' elbow was not the Cavaliers problem as much as the 40 percent they shot as a team. It appears as though James' march to his coronation is fraught with treacherous obstacles. Now that his team has lost home-court advantage he will have to rally his subjects to surmount the supposedly brittle Celtics. And after that, Orlando will likely be waiting; And that is just to get to The Finals. Orlando must first get past the Atlanta Hawks in a series that starts tonight.
So far it does not appear that the third time will be the charm for the Utah Jazz. In Sunday's series opener the L.A. Lakers used their size advantage to control the game when they needed to. Utah is on its way to losing to L.A. for the third consecutive year in the playoffs.
L.A. obviously learned the perils of not exploiting their height in their first-round series with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Basketball is after all, a big man's game and these guys are long. Having the basketball equivalent to Yankee's closer Mariano Rivera in Kobe Bryant doesn't hurt the cause either!
The Phoenix Suns, as said before on The D-train, is going to run circles around the San Antonio Spurs. Well it was not quite that bad for the Spurs in their Game 1 defeat. The Suns did jump out ahead at the start holding a nine-point lead after the first period. Phoenix then held serve the rest of the way winning 111-102.
Soon the Spurs will get a taste of what they have done to so many TV audiences over the years, and be put to sleep.
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