Will Boston End the Reign of King James in Cleveland?

Presumably, if the Cavaliers don't win a championship, LeBron James will head to a large market city (okay, DBSF will say it, New York) where his stardom (and wealth) will be magnified to the point that NASA astronomers will begin tracking his movements.

Perhaps more shockingly the fourth seeded Boston Celtics have an opportunity to knock out James and the Cavaliers in Game 6 in Boston on Thursday night. After a 32 point drubbing last night, skeptics (aka haters) are calling for the Celtics to take it in six, and some are already haranguing James with the 'Dan Marino-he can't win the big one' attack.

Hold your horses. With the exception of Dwight Howard, and perhaps a half dozen Brazilian soccer players, James is so anatomically superior to the rest of us that the fact that he doesn't shoot lasers from his eyes still comes as a surprise to DBSF. Grant it Bron Bron had a bad game last night (3-14 FGs), but for all the talk he's still averaging 29 pts, 8 boards, and 7 assists in the playoffs. If any other player averaged those numbers in playoff games in just one of those three areas, he'd be called a star.

In game 6, DBSF expects LeBron to assume dominance and lead the Cavs to an 8-10 point victory. But, does that mean the Cavs will win the series? DBSF doesn't believe so, and Game 5 illustrates just why.

As expressed in a prior man-crush post, DBSF believes Rondo is an elite PG in the league. Teams must pay attention to him on defense, and he stifles other guards offense with his quickness and strength. (Do you remember that guy Mo Williams? Yeah neither do the Cavaliers.) The Celtics also have three other decent players named Garnett, Allen, and Pierce. When they're all on they win by 30 (i.e., game 5).

Unfortunately, for Celtics fans the big three (Garnett, Allen, and Pierce) are too old to do that night in night out. However, all the Celtics really need is for one or two of the big three to step up along with one or two role players, like Big Baby "Don't call me Big Baby" Glen Davis or Tony Allen, and have Rondo be Rondo and the Celtics are an elite team.

Perhaps, more troubling to the Cavs is that their role players and quasi-stars have yet to step up. Shaq is an all time great player but age has caught up with him, Antawn Jamison isn't the same player if he can't take 25 shots against the Timberwolves (and have Nick Young as a teammate to make Jameson look that much better), Mo Williams has been getting D'd up so bad he is praying for an injury to his ankle with some sort of positive reading on an MRI so Delente West can go chase Rondo, and the rest of the Cavs lack the offensive power to help James against a quality opponent, like the Celtics.

So, DBSF predicts the Celtics in 7. Later this summer he also projects that most small towns in the US will pass legislation banning the song "New York" by Alicia Keys and Jay-Z after LeBron James's signing with the New York Knicks forces ESPN to put it on literally constant rotation with images of James in the foreground and New York's skyline in the background.