Bill Burt
The Boston Celtics could lose every road game the rest of this month and early June and still be crowned NBA champions.
But we know better.
As great a homecourt advantage the Boston Garden is, and it appears to be the best in the NBA, you can't bank on playoff-gritty teams like Detroit or San Antonio, to name two, buckling like the Hawks and Cavaliers have so far.
It is time, tonight, to put an end to this mind-boggling development, one we hadn't even sniffed in the regular season when they had an NBA-best 31-10 road record.
But this is a new season, as we've been told often, and the Celtics' defense has been like Jell-O.
Why? It's anybody's guess. There is one rebuttal.
A win.
Tonight.
The Celtics need to win Game 4 tonight in Cleveland. They then need to win on Wednesday and prepare for the Detroit-Orlando winner, which will probably be the Pistons, who lead the series 3-1.
If this were the Pistons or Spurs, tonight would be a bonus game. You win and you are sitting pretty.
But we aren't there yet. The Celtics are facing a vastly inferior team. The Cavaliers have one incredible player, in LeBron James, one good player in center Zydrunas Ilgauskas and a few average players in Joe Smith, Ben Wallace and Delonte West.
The Celtics have The Big Three and at least five other players who would rate the same or better than the Cavs' "average three."
There are no more excuses. It's too early in this playoff season to be protecting homecourt. The eighth-seeded Hawks were young and athletic and this Celtics team needed and got a wake-up call.
The Cavs, while winners of 45 games, rely solely on James. He shoots and drives when he wants. While a great passer, he often times is going one against five. And a 66-win team with three potential Hall of Famers should beat him every time.
Their manhood is in question. While that might seem immature to some, it is important beyond belief in the world of professional sports.
The Celtics could afford to lose tonight and come back and win in Game 5 before losing in Game 6 and then winning it all in seven games.
But then they would go play the Pistons and lose in six games.
The Pistons have been there and done that. So would the eventual Western Conference team in the finals, probably San Antonio or the L.A. Lakers.
The Celtics, for their own mental health need to win tonight.
If they were to beat the Cavs in Cleveland, it says here we are favorites, again, to win it all.
If they lose, well, then they are a very good team but just not good enough.
It is rare that a team leading 2-1 in a best-of-7 series is playing a must-win game, but that's just what the Celtics have tonight.
They need to prove to themselves that they can actually pull off this incredible worst-to-first achievement.
E-mail Bill Burt at bburt@eagletribune.com.
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