Ladies and Gentleman, we have a Game 7. And here is the kicker: this will be the first for Phil Jackson to coach a Game 7 in an NBA Finals series. That’s right. The guy, who has won 10 NBA titles as a coach, never had to go to a Game 7 to win the Championship. In fact, he has never been part of a Finals Game 7 in his coaching or playing career.
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Tag: Boston Celtics
History repeats itself. In this case, over and over again. The 2010 NBA Finals will be a renewal of the age-old rivalry between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics. It marks the 12th time the two teams have met on the NBA’s biggest stage.
Are the Celtics in trouble?
I think it’s too early to say that, but the injuries – especially the ones to their big men – will certainly be a problem. In our Game 5 preview I predicted the Magic to win at home and pull within a game of tying the series. They did. And I am still expecting the Celtics to close out the series at home Friday night.
The Orlando Magic are trying to take a step toward making NBA history Wednesday night. They are trying to become the first team to come back from a 3-0 series deficit.
The Magic beat the Celtics 96-92 in overtime Monday to stay alive in the series. They are trying to repeat the feat that the Philadelphia Flyers pulled off in their Conference Semifinal series against another team from Boston – the Bruins.
The Celtics continued their winning streak by beating the Magic 94-71 in Game Three last Saturday. Boston has now won six games in a row and is up 3-0 on the Magic. Game Four of the Eastern Conference Finals tips off Monday at 8:30 ET at the Boston Garden.
Either you are at least a little bit surprised by what the Boston Celtics have accomplished so far in the playoffs or you weren’t paying attention during the regular season. They won 50 games to finish fourth in the Eastern Conference, but they didn’t earn a lot of style points doing it. Their older players looked really old, the team wasn’t playing with cohesion, and only Rajon Rondo seemed to have taken a step forward from the previous year. Yet here they are. They beat a pretty good Miami team easily, dominated what was widely seen as the best team in the league, and are now in very good shape against the Magic after two games. They’ve faced the toughest path of any team in the playoffs, and come out of it looking brilliant. They have been like a whole new team for bettors as well – they burned bettors’ money by going 33-47-2 ATS during the regular season, but have been a fantastic 10-3 ATS in the playoffs.
The NBA playoffs have bee full of great stories. The Celtics have gone back in time by a couple of years. The Suns finally got the Spurs’ monkey off their backs. The Lakers are looking like the Lakers. Performance the most impressive showing so far, though, is by the Orlando Magic. Not only have they swept both of their opponents, but they won their four second round games by a stunning combined total of 101 points. That shouldn’t be possible in the playoffs, and certainly not in the second round. The Magic are now riding a 14 game winning streak, and the only time they didn’t cover the spread over that stretch was in the first game of the playoffs, and they only missed by one point. Oddsmakers haven’t been shy with setting numbers, but Orlando just doesn’t care.
Game seven in this semi-final series will be played on Sunday, May 17, 2009. What should you look for and what will it take to turn the tide either way? Well, here are five key points for each team that could be the difference between victory and defeat.
In the Eastern Conference Semifinals, the second seed Boston Celtics will meet the third seed Orlando Magic. Boston went the full run against the Chicago Bulls, the seventh seed, finally beating them in the seventh game. The Magic met and were victorious over the Philadelphia 76ers, taking their series four games to two.
It’s not particularly surprising that LeBron James was named MVP today – he certainly deserved it. What was surprising, though, is the margin by which he won it. There are 121 first place votes cast, and James picked up 109 of them. He’s the youngest player since Moses Malone in 1979 to win the award, and the third youngest ever. Cleveland coach Mike Brown was also named coach of the year last month, and that raises a surprising stat – this is just the fourth time that a team has had the MVP, top coach and the best record in the league in the same year. Just one of those teams, the 1996 Bulls, has gone on to win the title.
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