2010 NBA Eastern Conference Finals: Magic (#2) Vs. Celtics (#4)

I'm starting to think NBA fans are going to be really spoiled by a Lakers-Celtics finals. That will be fun as hell to watch and well worth suffering through all these lopsided series.

 

Is that a joke?

When healthy, Nelson is much better than Rafer, as is the case this season.

The Celtics would pwn the Magic just as bad, and probably worse, if you replace Nelson with him.

 

The combo of him and Rafer led to a much smoother running Orlando offense against good defenses. They got into their sets a lot faster and had more options. Jameer is more deliberate and Vince a bigger ball-stopper than I expected.

 

The Celtics have such an offensive (the good kind) Defense.

 

*edit* him and Hedo.

 

It's the Rondo Show, ESPN even put a montage of his plays this game thus far.

The guy is controlling the game like CP3 and DWill (not saying he's in their league yet, but dude has been a puppet master just like them).

 

I'm going to respectfully disagree.

The Celtics make everybody look bad.

Nelson was getting a lot of deserved credit for playing well coming into this series.

This is about the Celtics just thoroughly outexecuting opponents. They did it to LeBron and the Cavs as well. Rafer wouldn't have changed a thing. It might have been even worse.

 

Breen: The Celtics' defense just takes the fight out of you..

JVG: Give me a break! No one can take your Heart unless you let them..

Orlando should be ashamed.

 

Taken out of context, this particular sentence could be quite strange.

 

The Celtics have taken the Magic's confidence, chewed it up, spit it out and taken a leak on it.

 

The Magic beat the Celtics in 7 last season. Not saying they would beat them this year too with KG being back, but if you go back and look at that series, observe just how much faster Rafer got the ball up, got them into their sets, and kept the rock moving against this same defensive scheme.

Also note how infinitely more effective Hedo was at running the PnR than anyone on this current squad. Jameer can't run a halfway decent PnR to save his life (neither can Rafer, honestly, but he didn't have to with hedo around, and like I said, he got the offens going faster). Rafer and Hedo were also both much better at passing to Howard in the post.

 

^^^

I hear you. I'd suggest that it was more about Hedo's impact than anything else.

If Rafer had a positive effect, it was because he had minimal effect. He did almost nothing. Hedo was largely playing the role of pioint guard from what I recall.

Rafer wasn't an impact player like the good point guards. If anything, it seems like you're arguing that his lack of impact allowed Hedo to do his thing.

I don't recall Rafer doing anything more than making basic perimeter passes after bringing the ball up the court 98% of the time.

I see Rafer as roughly a Jason Williams equivalent. I think that Williams does an even better job of creating at times.

 

Is there any quality link available?

Thanks in advance.

 

And I'd also suggest that the Celtics look much improved this season over last.

Not trying to bag on Rafer but if he replaces Nelson in this series and plays with Carter and all else is the same, the Magic are still down 0-2 and getting blown out in Game 3 against this version of the Celtics.

 

That's my point. The combination of the two made them effective. now the Magic are looking for the best qualities Hedo and Rafer brought (getting the ball up the court asap, getting them into their sets early, running the PnR effectively) almost exclusively from Jameer, and they simply are NOT his strong points. As you can see, good playoff defenses make this weakness particularly glaring.

 

Even Rasheed is having his way now.

Yikes.

 

Man the Celtics played possum this year, they basically rested there players and got the 4th seed just to get healthy in the playoffs. Its obvious because this is not the same celtic team