Far from Wade: C's motivated to stop James and Co.

By Marc D'Amico
April 29, 2010
Celtics.com

WALTHAM, MA - News came down today in Cleveland that there is ligament damage in LeBron James' elbow, causing numbness in his arm, and that he will not play in the Eastern Conference Semifinals series against the Boston Celtics.

Just kidding, folks; the man is playing.

The official -- and truthful -- word out of the Cavaliers' camp is that James has a strained right elbow and a bone bruise of his olecranon. Words like 'olecranon' don't mean a whole lot to the Celtics. All they know is that James is going to play, and they expect him to play at the MVP-caliber level he exuded during the regular season.

"No," said Rivers, while bursting into laugher after being asked if James' elbow would change the series at all. "He's fine. I tell you what, if he goes three or four games and shoots left-handed only, then I'll believe that it's hurting. Other than that, we're going to be ready for the LeBron that we've seen all through the playoffs."

That LeBron who we've seen through the playoffs is a man who is nearly averaging a triple-double, and no one has been able to stop him. The Celtics were lucky enough to just overcome an opponent that almost no one in the league can defend -- Dwyane Wade -- and that has caused many media members to query them about the similarities between the two.

Although there are parallels between James and Wade, Kevin Garnett is firm in his belief that defending James and Wade are completely different situations.

"LeBron is a different beast, though," said Garnett. "He's obviously with a better cast than D-Wade. I think D-Wade is one of the best one-on-one players in our game, as to is LeBron, but I think LeBron probably defers a little more to his teammates a little bit, with his supporting cast, than D-Wade. So in that he can turn around and he has 35 (points), eight boards and nine assists, so that means he's all around."

Paul Pierce is in the same boat as Garnett and realizes that defending James is hard enough, but the teammates who surround him make this series unique.

"They're not close at all, truthfully. I'm just being honest with you," Pierce said of playing against James versus Wade. "They've got better supporting players (in Cleveland). LeBron's playing with two, three other guys who've been on the All-Star team. I can't say that for Wade."

"(LeBron and Wade are) two different players. They're definitely focal points, but other guys (in Cleveland), you definitely have to worry about them. They're more consistent players, I think, on Cleveland, and those guys can beat you also."

Although there was plenty of chatter about James, you could tell that Boston is concerned with his teammates going off, too. Four names that continually rolled off the Celtics' tongues this afternoon were Antawn Jamison, Mo Williams, Shaquille O'Neal and Anderson Varejao.

Jamison was picked up at the trading deadline from the Washington Wizards and he has become the "stretch-four" that the Cavaliers have been trying to pair with James for years. He averaged 15.8 PPG and 7.7 RPG in 25 regular season games with Cleveland and has bumped his scoring up to 19.4 PPG in the playoffs.

O'Neal's final regular season game came against these Celtics way back on Feb. 25. He had surgery on his right thumb, which was injured in that game, on Feb. 29 and did not return to the lineup until Game 1 of the playoffs against Chicago.

He seems to be much thinner than he was during the regular season, but Kendrick Perkins isn't seeing any noticeable difference in O'Neal's game, and he sure isn't looking to back down from the future Hall-of-Famer.

"No," he said definitively after being asked if he noticed any difference from O'Neal on film. "I [saw] guys that [were] scared to guard him, that's what I [saw]. I mean, we're not scared to bang with Shaq, from myself to, [Glen Davis] to [Rasheed Wallace]. We're not scared to go down there and get dirty."

Perkins did go on to call O'Neal a "great player," a "Hall-of-Famer," and "arguably the best center of all time," and he even noted that he was, and still is, a big fan of the big fella. But he did say that his O'Neal fandom will be missing in action during this series.

Said Perkins: "I can't be a fan right now, because I've got to go against him."

Jamison and O'Neal are big pieces of the puzzle for Cleveland, but Williams and Varejao may wind up being the two x-factors.

Williams' 3-point shooting has hurt the Celtics this season and it provides a huge boost to the Cavs offensively. Rivers believes that defending the 3-point line will be one of the most critical factors in this series, and that starts with slowing down Williams from the perimeter.

But most of all, Boston knows that they have to match Varejao's energy and hustle. James will be target No. 1 for Boston's defense, but Varejao will be second Cavs player who the Celtics need to keep a body on every second he's on the floor.

"We need somebody to match Varejao's energy," said Rivers. "The two games that they won (against us), he was their best player in those two games. He dominated those games with his energy and his effort, and we need somebody to shut him down."

James... Jamison... Williams... O'Neal... Varejao. There is a lot of firepower on that Cavaliers roster, which will make this an undoubtedly difficult series for the Celtics to win. Cleveland finished the regular season with the NBA's best record and is the odds-on favorite to win it all, and all of that means that the C's will enter this series as the underdog. But as Perkins noted, he thinks the Celtics enjoy that title.

"They're the No. 1 seed and we're the No. 4 seed, so we're supposed to be the underdogs, they're supposed to be picked to win," he said. "You know, honestly I think we like it. I think we like people counting us out and telling us we don't have a chance against them. You can just tell guys are motivated."

The Celtics have been saying all season long that their motivation is the playoffs -- the goal of winning that Larry O'Brien Trophy.

Now they've got anther motivating factor: the title of underdog.