Boston Celtics: Remembering the NBA Finals and the Season that Was

Boston held the best record in the NBA by the end of the season and were eight games ahead of the next best team, Detroit, which ended up with a 58-24 record. Garnett was given the defensive player of the year award and finished fourth in the voting for the league’s MVP award, behind Lakers shooting guard Kobe Bryant, New Orleans point guard Chris Paul, and Clevelandforward Lebron James.

Going into the playoffs, Boston was the prohibitive favorite to win the Eastern Conference and to win the NBA championship, and rightly so. The Celtics hit a speed bump early on in their hunt for a championship in the form of the eighth seeded Atlanta Hawks, who had won just 37 games during the regular season. The Hawks’ youth and athleticism proved to be difficult for the older Celtics team to contain, or at least that was the case in Atlanta. No road team won a game throughout the seven game series.

The Celtics blew out Atlanta whenever the teams played in Boston, where their smallest margin of victory was a more than healthy 19 points. Interestingly enough, Boston’s defense seemed to vanish on the road. Atlanta never scored more than 85 points in Boston, but managed to put up 102, 97, and 103 points respectively in their wins in games 3, 4, and 6. Game 7 served as a fitting indicator of the disparity in talent between the Hawks and the Celtics, as Boston obliterated the Hawks 99-65 to finish what was quite possibly the most lopsided seven game series in NBA playoff history.

Despite beating Atlanta so handily at home, most Celtics fans were concerned about Boston’s struggles on the road when the fourth seeded Cleveland Cavaliers (AKA Lebron and the Lebronettes) came to town for the second round of the playoffs. The Celtics played solid defense at home early on, smothering Lebron James and holding the Cavs to 76 and 73 points respectively in the first two games. James, who was without a doubt Cleveland’s best player, shot a combined 8-42 from the field and was unable to drive to the hoop in the face of Boston’s defensive wall.

Despite their typically impressive showing at home, Boston’s road woes continued as their defense seemed to fall apart at the seams despite the fact that Lebron James scored just 42 points during the two games and shot 12-36 from the field. The Celtics were embarrassed during game 3, 108-84. This 24 point beating proved to be the most one-sided loss that the Celtics would endure during the playoffs. Similarly to the Atlanta series, no road team won a game throughout the series, but unlike the Hawks, Cleveland put up a fight at the Garden, losing by a combined 32 in four road losses.

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