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Referee Assignments
Sun. May 17
Orlando @ Boston: S. Javie, S. Foster, D. Stafford
Orlando at Boston Preview
Game info: 8:00 pm EDT Sun May 17, 2009
TV: TNT
By Howard Ulman
The Boston Celtics are exactly where they want to be for Game 7—home. Now they must keep Dwight Howard from getting to his favorite spots, right near the basket.
Defense will mean more than decibel level when the defending NBA champions try to control the Orlando Magic’s powerful center Sunday night.
The winner faces a huge challenge in the Eastern Conference finals—LeBron James and his playoff-perfect Cleveland Cavaliers, who swept their first two series.
The Celtics are in their second straight seven-gamer. They beat Chicago in the first series and bobbled themselves into the Game 7 against Orlando by blowing a 10-point, third-quarter lead and losing 83-75. Howard had 23 points and 22 rebounds Thursday night.
“Game 7 is the ultimate players’ game. I’ve always thought that,” said Boston coach Doc Rivers, who feels their will and execution mean more than coaching tips. “If you need a rah-rah speech for Game 7, your team’s probably in a little trouble.”
So he plans to forego any inspirational pre-game words. The fans will be loud enough.
But the Celtics don’t want to hear about home-court advantage.
“You can’t go into any situation thinking that you’re comfortable at home,” Ray Allen said. “You’ve got to play basketball and it starts with not getting too comfortable at home.”
The Celtics beat Atlanta and Cleveland at home in Game 7 of the first two rounds last year. They did it again against the Bulls, a series in which four games reached overtime.
They’re 17-3 in seventh games at home.
“You can’t think about the aura of Boston while you’re playing them,” Magic guard Rafer Alston said, “but the days before, leading up to it, you have a thought in your mind about it. There’s nothing bad about it. The history of that organization to me is fascinating, the fact that they consistently get it done in their building in decisive games.”
The Celtics did lose the opener there when Howard had 22 rebounds. He was even more dominating in Game 6 in Orlando after he complained that he didn’t get the ball enough.
So he got it himself with 10 offensive rebounds.
“His performance the other night was remarkable. His energy and intensity were off the charts,” Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy said. “His athleticism is so great when he’s playing that hard, it’s really, really difficult for people to keep up with him.”
The Celtics must keep trying without Kevin Garnett, their defensive mainstay in the middle whose knee injury has kept him out of the playoffs.
Rivers said he won’t change the way the Celtics defend Howard but they must do a better job of keeping dribblers from penetrating and drawing center Kendrick Perkins away from Howard to help out.
The key is “to be physical with him, try to get him off the block as much as possible,” Paul Pierce said. “Just limit his easy opportunities. You’ve got to keep him off the offensive rebound because he does a lot of damage there.”
Brian Scalabrine is the only big subs ute in Rivers’ rotation, so starters Perkins and Glen Davis must avoid foul trouble.
Howard is hungry for his first trip to the conference finals.
“Just being dominant is going to be key for my team. That’s the word of the week. Dominate!” he said with a laugh. “I woke up and ate some alphabet cereal and the first scoop I picked up was `dominate.’ So I stirred the bowl up, picked it up again, and it was `dominate.’ So I ate it.”
The word for Allen is “shooting.”
Against the Bulls, the veteran marksman hit a winning 3-pointer with 2 seconds left in Game 2 and scored 51 points in Game 6. But in four of the games against the Magic—three of them losses—he’s 10-for-47 from the field.
“Every shot that I put up there, it always looks good to me,” Allen said. “You see the ball rattling around the rim and then sometimes it toilet bowls and goes down and sometimes it pops out and you just never know until that ball goes all the way through.
“So I’ll be making sure that ball goes all the way through (Sunday).”
The Celtics say they’re comfortable playing in a Game 7. The Magic say they won’t feel added pressure.
“It doesn’t worry me at all,” Orlando’s Rashard Lewis said. “We were facing elimination the other night.”
It’s been close all season between the two Eastern Conference powers. The Magic and Celtics split four games in the regular season.
“Obviously, it’s the end of the road for one team, but … you can only do what you’re capable of doing,” Allen said. “You’ve seen a team 10 times already that year so there’s not too many surprises.”
Referee Assignments
Sun. May 17
Orlando @ Boston: S. Javie, S. Foster, D. Stafford
This is probably good for Orlando. Javie is not intimidated by the home crowd. He's a "law and order" ref, though, so expect to see some techs or even ejections if/when things get chippy. The Celtics are an astounding 32-0 when having a 3-2 series lead at some point, and have NEVER LOST a Game 7 at home. Will tonight be the night that streak ends???
As expected, Celtics and Magic get to go all out regardless of refs while the Rockets-Lakers series on the other hand......
So the Rockets-Lakers game 7 probably has a better chance of being ed up by the refs than this game?
Most definitely...but judging from the score at halftime, the Lakers aren't going to need the refs' help.
Can Pierce, Allen carry weary Celtics through another Game 7?
Chris Mannix
WALTHAM, Mass. -- Another series, another Game 7 for the Boston Celtics. For the fourth time in their last six playoff series, the Celtics will play a win-or-go-home game on their home floor, a site where they were 35-6 in the regular season and where they are 17-3 in Game 7's all time. While there will be many factors that influence the outcome, the answers to these three questions will go a long way to determining Boston's fate in Sunday night's deciding game.
1. Will the rest help?
No team needed a day off more than Boston and for the first time in this semifinal series, they got one. With an extra day on the calendar and with four of the top six leaders in minutes played this postseason on the Celtics roster, coach Doc Rivers gave his team Friday off to recuperate.
Most of the team took advantage of the break. Paul Pierce (517 minutes) spent the day hanging out with his daughter, Prianna Lee, and watching Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. "I love those Underworld movies," said Pierce.
Ray Allen (524 minutes) hosted a party at his suburban Boston home to celebrate being named to the Joslin Diabetes Center Board of Trustees.
With Pierce and Allen's bodies (and shooting percentages) starting to show the effects of having to carry the team on their shoulders the last two months, the Celtics are banking on a day away from the game rejuvenating the tired legs of their top perimeter players.
2. Can Allen get going?
Both Rivers and Allen have acknowledged that the Magic have done a superior job defending Allen this series. Playing a hybrid box-and-one defense, the Magic have been shadowing Allen regardless of where he is on the floor and sent waves of different defenders in his direction. The results speak for themselves: Allen is averaging 11.5 points on 30.7 percent shooting.
While Allen has to make the open looks when they are there -- he spent 20 hard minutes after practice firing up jumpers from different spots on the floor -- the Celtics' big men need to do a better job of freeing him up with screens, a point Rivers has been hammering home in recent days. At their best, the wide-bodied Glen Davis and Kendrick Perkins are two of the most effective screeners in the league but they have looked lazy at times in this series. Setting hard screens will not only free Allen, it has the potential to frustrate the Magic: after picking up six fouls chasing Allen in Game 2, J.J. Re was ejected after cursing out referee Bennett Salvatore.
One way to get Allen going is to put him on the post more, which the Celtics experimented with in Game 6. Re (generously listed at 6-feet-4) doesn't have the size to match up with Allen in the paint and Allen is a sterling 18-18 from the free throw line this series.
3. Will the defense change?
Rivers said the Celtics' strategy defending Dwight Howard, which has consisted mainly of single coverage and late double teams from Rajon Rondo, won't change.
"We are who we are," said Rivers. "If we get in foul trouble, that's the way it is."
Despite a well-publicized 23-point, 22-rebound effort in Game 6, the Celtics did a fairly solid job containing Howard. Where they were hurt was on the offensive glass, where Howard pulled down 10 rebounds.
"You have to be physical with him, try to get him off the block as much as possible," Paul Pierce said. "Just limit his easy opportunities. You've got to keep him off the offensive [backboard] because he does a lot of damage there."
Pick-and-roll coverage will be critical. The Magic, like the Bulls before them, have decided that Boston is vulnerable to basketball's simplest play. Stan Van Gundy has ordered his players to run pick-and-roll action virtually every time down, even instructing them to go back and run the play again if there is time on the shot clock. The inability of Orlando's perimeter players to create their own shots has been well do ented but the pick-and-roll creates opportunities for the Magic's shooters either coming off it (Hedo Turkoglu's game-clinching three in the fourth quarter came off a screen) or on kick outs.
Does anyone know if Orlando got the bowl of pretzels I sent to their locker room?
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