Green expect to see the real King James
LeBron James often talks about feeling out a series — about coming back in a Game 2 with something entirely different.
And that’s what the Celtics expect in Game 2 tonight. According to basketballreference.com’s game score metric, Sunday’s 25-point loss to the Celtics was the worst Game 1 performance by a James team since the Game 1 of the 2008 conference semifinals, also against the Celtics.
Individually, James was equally bad when his 15-point, seven-turnover, 5-for-16 Sunday performance is compared to his 12-point, 10-turnover, 2-for-18 showing 10 years ago.
Though he was only marginally better (21 points, seven turnovers, 6-for-24) on the second night in 2008, he was relatively young at the time. Now, as the best player in the game, James is the master of adjustments.
“Yeah, he’s definitely shown that he’s not the same player gameto-game in terms of (how) he always steps it up,” Aron Baynes, a member of the Spurs team that beat James’ Heat in the 2014 NBA Finals, said after yesterday’s practice. “He always finds another gear to go into. He always finds another level. That’s what makes him one of the greatest of all time. It’s about us trying to answer that challenge and finding a new level defensively as well.”
Brad Stevens’ message to his team, then, is simple. Watch out.
“I mean, he almost had a tripledouble, so he was pretty darned good,” the Celtics coach said of James’ Sunday performance. “He missed a few shots, but at the end of the day, he’s an unbelievable player who can get others involved and get himself involved. He’s special.
“Again, you’re only going to be able to do so much against him,” said Stevens. “We try to do it with as many bodies as possible, and then we’ve got to guard the other guys. Like that’s the thing, like (Kevin) Love, and (Kyle) Korver and (J.R.) Smith, (Tristan) Thompson’s rebounds and everything else. We’ve got to be much better at making sure we’re there on all their catches.”
Lottery luck?
Michael Zarren, the Celtics assistant general manager, has worn the same green satin Celtics jacket since his youth, and still puts it on for game night. But now, as the team representative in the war room at tonight’s NBA Lottery in New York, he’s put an important question to his Twitter followers.
Should he wear the jacket? As of yesterday the results weren’t definitive.
“The majority of the voting is in favor of wearing the jacket, but there’s a significant minority that has said if you weren’t wearing it during the lottery last year, then don’t wear it this year,” he said. “I’ll have to figure out what to do (tonight).”
Zarren, both amused and slightly exasperated about the topic in the midst of the Eastern Conference finals, added, “This is so ridiculous a topic.”
Team president Rich Gotham will represent the team on the actual podium, and likely be sporting more traditional garb. The Celtics, holding a protected Lakers pick that will become theirs in the unlikely event the selection lands at No. 2 or 3, have a 2.9 percent chance of that result. And though Zarren heads the team’s analytics department, that research doesn’t extend to the random bounces of ping-pong balls. If they do not end up at 2 or 3, the Celtics will receive Sacramento’s No. 1 protected pick next year.
“I’m very superstitious about Celtics games, but it’s very difficult to affect the ping-pong balls, so we’ll see what happens,” he said.
But what about the ping-pong history?
“Some people have gone and looked at that, but I haven’t because I don’t believe this year’s ping-pong balls know anything about what last year’s ping-pong balls or any previous year’s pingpong balls have done.”
On deaf ears
Stevens remains a bit embarrassed by the praise he has received nationally for getting the Celtics to their second straight conference finals.
“Yeah, it’s silly,” he said. “The praise is uncomfortable, and it’s just something that (the players) should be getting it all. We all have a role to play, and we all need to play that role as well as we can.”