We are now 18 games into the 2008 NBA Playoffs and our Boston Celtics have taken us on an emotional roller coaster. Nearly flawless at the friendly confines on Causeway Street, mostly frustrating when playing outside of the 617 area code. As consistent as the team was for 8 preseason games and 82 regular season games, for whatever reason, that consistency has not translated to the postseason. I guess they have been consistently head-scratching, but we aren’t going to count that.

Going into the Eastern Conference Finals, we all knew that we were going to see something we had yet to see from the C’s. I for one had a strong feeling that they would lose for the first time at home this postseason, and that they would finally be able to come through on the road. Both have happened. So why do I have such a bitter taste in my mouth after Game 4? It can’t be from the many pounds of barbecue I inhaled this weekend. It can’t be from the peanut butter brownies my friend’s wife made on Sunday. What is it?

After losing Game 2 at the Garden, it was a given that Boston had to figure out a way to win one on the road. A split in Detroit was a must. So on Saturday night, Detroit failed to show up and the Celtics looked like the team that won 31 games on the road this season. The chest pumping had begun and all were trying to figure out how many days off Boston would have to prepare for Kobe and the Lakers.

Thoughts while waiting for Rodney Stuckey to miss a jump shot…

Accident Waiting To Happen of the Week: Eddie House’s son.

We talked about this a little bit on this week’s podcast, but has anyone seen Eddie House’s son on the sidelines during the last couple Celtics’ home games? The kid is all over the place! He slaps all the starters five during the pre-game introductions, he’s up jumping around with Tony Allen on the bench after a big dunk, hell, he’s basically in the huddle during time outs. I love that the kid is getting to enjoy that kind of access to the team and bond a little with his Dad, but the whole scene is bad news for at least two reasons:

1. There’s no way Eddie can completely concentrate on the game when his son is bouncing around—like Mike Myers in the old SNL skit where he’s tethered to the jungle gym—the entire time. Now its one thing if this were the Atlanta series and Eddie never saw the floor, but now that he’s our back up point guard, a guy who’s going to be relied on to deliver 10-12 solid minutes every game, I don’t want his kid on the bench. He can pretend it doesn’t take away from his focus but that’s impossible. If I were an NBA player, I’d be distracted by any little kid playing around by the bench; if it was my son, I’d instinctively have an eye on him all game. How do you just shut that off?

Wicked Good Sports blogger and columnist for The Improper Bostonian Rich Levine delivers another installment of his Celtics Podcast, The Dino Radja Experience. This week, Rich recaps Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals with fellow Improper columnist Nick Altschuler, and looks ahead to the rest of the series.

With the looming contest between the Boston Celtics and the Detroit Pistons hovering like a mid-summer storm cloud, I can’t help but wonder how this will all end. But one thing is for sure, Celtics forward Paul Pierce will forever be remembered for his efforts in Game 7 against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The reality of it though is that he’ll have to do it again and again to bring the Pistons to their knees.

Pierce brought down the house Sunday, May 18 against LeBron James and the Cavs. It was an epic battle similar to that of Bird against Wilkins. It was a 41-point highlight real of hustle, grit and pure determination. Something that the 30-year-old All-Star will have to do eight more times, because that’s how many wins the C’s need in order to hoist No. 17 to the rafters.

Over his career, he has been lambasted by his critics. Entering Game 7, he was on the verge of lifelong turmoil and near exile in this town if he threw up another brick of a game. But like so many other superstar athletes in this town, he stepped up, took his bow and played like the gods of Celtics past. The pleasure I took in watching Game 7 was immense, the smile on my face was electric and the gratitude I have for Pierce is unreal. From myself and the fans of Boston, thank you. It’s time to dismantle the Pistons like an old Chevrolet behind the shed, and if he plays like he did on Sunday, it will be no problem at all.

After the better part of two weeks focusing on one man - Lebron - the Celtics now shift their defensive thoughts to the multi-pronged attack of the Pistons. Chauncey - Rip- Rasheed - Tayshaun - all average between 14-21 ppg. The backcourt of Billups and Hamilton is the best duo still alive in the playoffs. When you think of the Celtics-Pistons you think DEFENSE. However my guess is that there will be more points scored in this series than one may think. The Pistons did not look like their old defensive selves against the Magic. The Celtics are in the midst of a long stretch of playing pressure packed playoff games every other day. No matter how hard the coaches try, in stretches like this it is the defense that ultimately rests. That’s not to say possessions won’t be hotly contested, it’s just that where in the Cavs series games were played in the 70’s and 80’s, this time around I think you will see games in the 90’s and maybe even the 100’s. Prediction : Celtics in 7 (why buck the trend)

Some of the greatest performances in NBA history have come in elimination games. A player’s team is up against the wall, and he reaches down for that extra something; that push that will put his team over the top. In the spirit of the first elimination game of this Celtics/Cavs series, I took a similar route. I dug deep and scored an interview that was only possible thanks to the greatness of the NBA Playoffs. I sat down with Adam Cole-Kelly of VH-1’s Best Week Ever (and Cavs fan extraordinaire) to get his thoughts on the impending Game 6

Rich Levine: Adam, now that Doc seems dedicated to playing Rondo without Cassell-related interruptions, I feel like the Celtics chances are better than ever. As a Clevelander, where do you stand?

Adam Cole-Kelly: You know, it was intimidating enough going up against the Big Three, but i don’t know how we’re going to handle it now that Rondo has made it the… Bigger Four? Or is it the Four Leaf Scorers? Or maybe Rayjon Piernett? Whatever we call them, we’re going to have as much trouble containing them as I did coming up with a suitable nickname, and that’s a real double whammy. Rajon’s teardrops are so pretty and painful that they bring tear drops to my eyes.

RL: How would you rate your confidence level going into Game 6?

Best Week Ever’s Adam Cole-Kelly and I are continuing our cutting edge coverage of the Celtics-Cavs series with a Game 5 preview. Well, I guess it’s probably more of a Game 5 review. You know what? I’ll just let Adam explain.

Adam Cole-Kelly: I don’t know if you guys ever buy stuff on ebay but I just scored a pretty sweet item recently: A fully functioning time machine. Amazingly my last minute bid of $45 did the trick. I guess most people were skeptical of its legitimacy. Suckers! Anyway, I just got it up and running this morning and my first order of business was clearly heading straight to tonight’s post-game press conference. When I got there I was saddened to discover that the Celtics had won Game 5 (being a foolish Cavs fan and all) so I returned to present day then went back to the press conference for a second time and lo and behold the Cavs had triumphed! Lucky for you all I captured excerpts from each press conference visit and would like to share them with you now. Also, I brought your faithful columnist Rich Levine along with me because I wanted to focus on Coach Brown’s comments and I figured he would be interested in what Doc had to say.

And don’t worry great-great-uncle Wilkes Booth- I’ll be setting the dial to 1865 and helping you cover your tracks better in no time! What?

Now to recap what we learned thanks to our ability to time travel!

There are lots of theories floating around out there as to why the Celtics are not winning on the road. From where I sit it comes down to one thing : aggression. When the Celtics play with passion and abandon on the defensive end it translates to their offense. When they shoot threes and settle for jump shots they become passive on the defensive end. In game three they still did a nice job of making Lebron’s life miserable, but forgot about everybody else. And the reason Boston didn’t have any free throw attempts with half of the second qtr gone was simply that they hadn’t done anything to make the officials blow the whistle. Refs in the playoffs tend to let teams play. You have to be extra aggressive to get a call, any call. The C’s have been that way at home not on the road. If they don’t get their defensive passion/aggression back tonite, we are in for another long series.

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Dr. Jon Niednagel-better known as Danny Ainge’s brain doctor. But with the second round of the playoffs in full swing I decided to reach out to Niednagel to see if he could help me get into the psyche of various Celtics and Cavs. He obliged and what follows are the inner monologues of various players in the hours after Saturday’s Game 3.

Underneath my own findings, our old friend Adam Cole-Kelly chimes in with some discoveries of his own. Turns out Ben Wallace’s dizzy spell and “inner ear infection” was actually caused by a chip ACK had placed in Wallace’s ear to relay his inner thoughts. Luckily said chip was contagious and it spread to all the other players granting him unprecedented access to their thoughts through the first three games of the series.

Rich Levine (Celtics fan):

Cleveland Cavaliers

Wally Szczerbiak: I have been shooting the lights out baby! I can’t wait to get home and watch how great I looked doing it on SportsCenter. You know, sometimes the shots just… ooh, look! I can kind of see my own reflection in that window. I look sharp.

Delonte West: The thing about Game 3 was, I wonder how long it would take me to ride my bike to that Popeye’s chicken we used to eat at back at St. Joe’s? Lemme call Jameer and see if he remembers how to get there. (Talking into his TV remote) Hey, yo, Jameer! Do you remember what I called you for?

Rosalie
Waltham

Mike - I know it took a while to knock off Atlanta, but, why is it so easy for the press and broadcasters (not you or Tommy!), to
jump off the bandwagon of a team that has been so successful all year. Kevin Garnett is taking it on the chin from alot of these guys, and it just doesn’t seem fair. Nor does it seem right that PP has had such bad press also. I guess I take it personally when someone attacks the team they way they have this last week. Written by a die hard, long time
Celtic fan who watched Tommy play!!

Mike: Positive news unfortunately doesn’t sell newspapers or increase talk show ratings. Hopefully fans like yourself will have the last laugh.

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Scott Tomassetti
Rajon vs. Delonte

Back in seattle I can remember that Delonte kind of got the better of Rajon. How do you think that match up will go this series?
Personally, I think Rajon has grown so much since then that he might overwhelm delonte with his D. Delonte still needs to stay close to Delonte to keep him honest at the 3 pt line.

Mike: I’ve always felt that Delonte could be a contributing player on a good team. He showed that last nite and in his time with the Cavs. That said, I like Rondo to ultimately get the edge in the series. Rajon just does more things and has superior quickness.

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I trust Celtics general manager Danny Ainge, and I trust Celtics coach Doc Rivers. Still to this day, it amazes me how people were jumping down Ainge’s throat while he was in the midst of constructing a foundation for this team to be built on. You have to admit, when he came here, he was given a 100-year-old foundation that was destroyed by a one-man wrecking crew (Rick Pitino).

I know that Danny has made some unpopular moves in the past, especially when he traded forward Antoine Walker and guard Tony Delk to the Dallas Mavericks for center Raef LaFrentz, guard Jiri Welsch and forward Chris Mills during his inaugural 2003 campaign. But if you look back at it, he did what he needed to do; the combo of Walker and forward Paul Pierce was done, extinguished and downright tiresome. He also made a draft day trade in 2003 to get center Kendrick Perkins and point guard Marcus Banks from the Memphis Grizzlies.

In 2003, the trade of forwards Eric Williams and Kedrick Brown and center Tony Battie to the Cleveland Cavaliers for center Chris Mihm, guard Ricky Davis and salary dump Michael Stewart was deemed a fairly brilliant move. Davis at the time was a true scorer and still is, just not for us.

In 2004, he drafted forward Al Jefferson and guards Tony Allen and Delonte West. He eventually traded for Gary Payton, and then used Payton in the reacquisition of Antoine in 2005.

The following is a break down of the matchups between starters for Cleveland and Boston based on what we have seen during the regular season and the first two games of round 2.

  Rondo/ West

Cleveland has left Rondo open on the perimeter to take jump shots, but Rondo has not taken the bait. West does a better job staying front of Rondo, but when West has to work around a pick he can get swallowed up by a bigger defender. At times Rondo will get in the air without a plan and it can lead to a turnover, but it is important that Doc let him be aggressive, because when the offense breaks down Rondo can create an opportunity about as well as anyone not named Kevin Garnett. It also makes an opponents defense pay more attention to him. West can be a good player, but he excels at secondary skills and is inconsistent with primary skills. West has done nothing against Boston in first two games, hitting a shot would be nice but there are too many possessions where West is just handing the ball off to Lebron and watching.

Advantage Heading into the Series - Rondo
Playoffs - Rondo

Allen/Szczerbiak

WickedGoodSports.com & The Improper Bostonian’s Rich Levine brings you another installment of “The Dino Radja Experience.” On this week’s podcast, Rich is joined by Nick Altschuller, also of The Improper, and by special guest Adam Cole-Kelly, a writer for VH-1’s “The Best Week Ever”…and a delusional Cavs fan (sorry Adam, this is a Boston sports blog.) You can also check out Rich and Adam’s series preview.

I got back in touch with Cavs-loving, Luke Ridnour look-a-liking Adam Cole-Kelly to get his thoughts on Game 2. Below, we each give a quick synopsis of Game 1, followed by two possible scenarios for tonight’s showdown. Also, like the cheap-shot taking Clevelander he is, Cole-Kelly used this arena to rip apart the moniker of Boston’s bloated prince: Glen “Big Baby” Davis.

Enjoy, and go C’s!

Rich Levine:

I suck at pool. But luckily for me, most of friends suck as well. Most of our games consist of drunken miscues, table scratches, the random behind the back attempt and someone, at some point, spilling their beverage onto the felt. It goes on forever until one of us accidentally knocks in the eight ball, putting myself, my opponent, the game, and anyone unlucky enough to be waiting for a table and watching the game out of their collective misery. Ladies and Gentleman, Game 1 of the Celtics-Cavs series.

Lucky for us, and by us I mean the Celtics, the Cavs knocked in the eight ball Tuesday night and we can all have a drunken laugh about it. That is, until tonight. The Cavs win tonight and home court is gone; momentum is gone; the $100 I just bet on the Celtics is gone. The outcome of tonight’s game will shape the series far more than Game 1 did. It’s a contest the C’s NEED to win.

Why the Celtics will win: