NBA: Cleveland at Boston (7:00E – ESPN)

NBA: Cleveland at Boston (7:00E – ESPN)

2010-05-07

Lost in all of the talk about the elbow injury to LeBron James has been the fact that the Boston Celtics have thoroughly outplayed the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first two games of their second round NBA Eastern Conference playoff series. Game 3 is set for Friday evening and oddsmakers at Sportsbook.com seem to be missing the point as well, positioning the Cavaliers as 1-point road favorites.

It was just two years ago; General Manager Danny Ainge formed his version of VH1’s “super group”, bringing together Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to play with Paul Pierce. This was matched by immediate success as the trio blended skills perfectly on the way to a NBA championship.

But that was then. Now KG cannot play a full season as his once youthful legs are betraying him. Allen can still run an opponent crazy going thru a maze of screens, but the quick-triggered jumper is not as reliable as the old days. Pierce was main force in the championship season and he was “the man” whenever Boston needed a clutch basket. Today he is more of a role player, an additional scorer, not someone who can be counted on regularly.

Its new era in Bean-Town and Rajon Rondo is the new leader. The Celtics now go where Rondo takes them.

After a disappointing regular season that left Boston as the fourth seed, The Three Amigos are trying to keep up with the speedy Rondo and are 5-2 SU and ATS in the postseason. The Celtics have been playing tremendous basketball, really only having the equivalent of four less than desirable quarters of hoops among its seven games that accounted for both losses.

Rondo is not about numbers, he’s about results. His outside shooting is below average, he still goes “Road Runner” fast and commits more turnovers than necessary, but he’s smarter player today.

Rondo finds the open man sooner, he will make a steal and be gone two steps before his opponent even reacts and runs down a rebound like he knew the angle of the miss just as the shooter released the ball.

After earning split in Cleveland, Rondo and his teammates truly believe they are better than the Cavaliers and he will look to abuse more Cavs defenders this weekend in front of the home folks.

Sportsbook.com has Boston as single point home underdogs and the Celtics are 8-2-1 ATS when catching 4.5-point or fewer points at TD Garden and will try to keep lethargic Cleveland squad playing the same way.

When Cleveland fans hear about elbow problems, baseball is what usually comes to mind. It’s quite evident however that LeBron James is laboring with this issue. Still, this doesn’t mean the rest of the team can’t make shots and play defense. The Cavs have been outplayed for 6 ½ quarters in this series and everyone will find out a lot in Game 3 about a team that is 7-3 ATS off a double digit home loss.

The StatFox Powerline for this game shows that Boston should be favored by 4 points.

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