NBA Playoffs: 3-2 Celtics Lead "Absolutely No Surprise"

If I would have said to you on April 14—the last day of the 2009-10 NBA regular season—that the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers would meet in the Eastern Conference semifinals and through the first five games, (a) Boston would have a 3-2 series advantage, (b) the Celtics catapulted the Cavs into consternation in Game Five via a 32-point pounding at Quicken Loans Arena (where Cleveland held the league's best regular-season record), and (c) two of Boston's three wins have come on the Cavs home court by an average of 28 points, you would have probably asked me to take a drug test or insisted that I be checked into a mental institute.

Chances are I would have agreed to either arrangement, because at the time, Boston embodied an old and unquestionably inconsistent team that had just notched its seventh loss in the last 10 regular-season games. Even head coach Doc Rivers admitted he was unsure of what he was going to get from his team each game.

Meanwhile, Cleveland was in the midst of cementing its "Sure, the Los Angeles Lakers are the defending champions, but you might want to start considering us the favorites" campaign.

Sure, the Cavs dropped their final four games of the regular season, but that's because they all but suited up their cheerleaders after racking up the NBA's best record in early April.

Fast-forward five weeks to May 11 and suddenly, that Cleveland campaign is looking more and more like a colossal cloud of confusion.

Which should be absolutely no surprise to anyone who understands the game of basketball.

You don't have to be Doug Collins or Hubie Brown or any other former NBAer to know that basketball is a game of matchups. This notion is magnified even more in the "second season" because every possession is as critical as post-9/11 airport security.

Well, not quite, but you get the point.

With regard to the Cavs-Celtics clash, there is only one Cleveland player who presents an immediate and incessant mismatch to Boston. His name is LeBron James. He's won back-to-back MVPs.

You might know who he is.

Other than James, the Cavs are incredibly capricious. You don't know what his supporting cast is going to bring to the table.

It could be a five-course gourmet meal, but it could also be a bowl of rice and beans.

For example, Mo Williams can score 20 points on 8-for-14 shooting and dish out six assists, like he did in Cleveland's Game One win, but he can also combine to shoot 7-of-26, just as he did in the Cavs' three losses.

In any event, Boston presents many more matchup problems to Cleveland—and Game Five was a darn good indication of that.

First, it was Kevin Garnett, whose height and length was far too much for the smaller Antawn Jamison (who is shorter than James, by the way) to handle on the Celtics' offensive end. Garnett finished with 18 points and six rebounds, compared to Jamison's nine points on 10 shots.

Then, Paul Pierce finally prevailed for seemingly the first time this series. In Games One through Four, he shot just 32 percent from the field (22 percent from downtown) and averaged six points under his regular-season mark.

Why?

Because his primary defender—that "James" kid—is bigger, stronger, and quicker than Pierce, who was unable to shake the first-team all-defenseman during that four-game stretch.

But in Game Five, Pierce often found himself with favorable matchups, sometimes working against the less physically-fortunate Anthony Parker, other times finding himself freed from his defender via a screen.

Eventually, this enabled other Boston players—like Ray Allen, who led all scorers with 25 points—to become more involved and therefore have a profound impact on the game, largely because Cleveland was forced to focus their attentions on the upstart efforts of Garnett and Pierce.

Ultimately, the Celtics established a first-half tempo that carried over to quarters three and four, a tempo the Cavs simply could not match.

After the game, Garnett told TNT's David Aldridge that, if the Celtics are going to make their second conference finals appearance in three years, the team needs to treat Thursday's Game Six as if it is a do-or-die Game Seven.

If the Cavs hope to court King James back to Cleveland for at least another season, they better do the same.

You can contact Josh Hoffman at [e-mail].