Tuesday matchup:

BOSTON   vs  CLEVELAND 

Surely nobody was expecting this series to start so late, well it could have happened because of the close series between Cleveland and Washington, but nobody thought the reason for this series to start so late would be a Game 7 in the series between Boston and Atlanta. I don't know how a Boston supporter felt his team's performances on the road, knowing that his team will now face one of the best clutch players in the league. I'm sure they must be worried. The bookmakers are expecting an easy win for Boston in this series, as they are at 1.10 (-700) to win the series, which doesn't match the potential of these two teams, but if we see the way Boston won their home games and knowing the Cleveland will need to win a game at Boston to get to the conference finals, then the series price for Boston isn't that weird.

These two teams went 2-2 in the regular season and all four games between them ended with the home team getting the win, however the only important game to understand this series was the last one played in Boston, as the Cavs were already with their actual roster. Boston won the game by 92-87, even though they didn't cover the spread, which was -9,5 just like today. In that game I saw a factor that it will be decisive for this series, unless Mike Brown changes this quickly. Lebron finished that game with 26 points, but he just shot 7-24, so he needed 24 shots to score 26 points. At first sight, we might think this was just a bad day for Lebron and things will be better tonight. However that's not 100% true. Look: Garnett had a matchup with Ben Wallace, who in that game actually shot 3-6 FG, which shows that he shot well because he had free space to do it. That happened because Garnett was more concerned in helping Pierce in double teaming Lebron. As Big Ben isn't an offensive threat to Boston and Garnett was more concerned in defending Lebron than Wallace, that's the main reason why Lebron only shot 7-24 FG in that game and that's why Boston will have an huge edge in this series.

It will also be curious to see what the guards of Cleveland will do in this series, as they are ex-Celtics. West and Wally will have a duel against Rondo and Allen and the edge in this matchup is clearly on Boston's side and if the Cavs with Lebron being well defended want to have some chances to win the series, then they will need their guards to have wonderful shooting nights game after game. The bench of both games is good and capable of helping in the crucial moments of the games. Cassell and Gibson seem to be the most capable players of each other in this task, but I don't think the difference in this series will be made in the bench, as both teams have good options and at the end of the series we won't say that one team eliminated the other because they had a better bench. I believe Boston will win this series and if the Cavs want to take this series to the level Atlanta took it in the 1st round, then they will need more options to cause offensive pressure on Garnett.