NBA teamThe Dream Matchup became a reality Friday when the NBA team Celtics won in Detroit to take the Eastern Conference finals, 4-2, sending them into an NBA team Finals rematch with the Lakers, 21 years later.
Happily for the Lakers, this is not the Celtics team that soundly beat them twice this season.
We don't really know who the NBA team Celtics are after 20 games (to the Lakers' 15) this postseason, but they're not the team that dominated the regular season, winning 66 games -- nine more than the Lakers.
All team sports information reports the Celtics are 12-8 in their marathon postseason after going seven games against 37-win Atlanta in the first round and seven more against Cleveland in the second.
As soon as the playoffs started, teams began dropping off the Celtics' 22-year-old point guard Rajon Rondo, daring him to beat them and jamming up Boston's offense. In the first round, the Celtics struggled against the younger, more athletic Hawks. In the second round, the NBA team Cavaliers slowed the pace and the Celtics' offense all but disappeared, averaging only 84 points. Ray Allen turned into someone else, averaging 9.3 points against NBA team Cleveland with his slump extending against the Pistons -- until he broke out with 46 points in Games 5 and 6. Happily for the NBA team Celtics, they have five days off after Coach Doc Rivers kept his starters on the floor for 398 of the 480 minutes in Games 5 and 6.
The NBA team Celtics will also have home-court advantage in the Finals' 2-3-2 format.
Unhappily for the Celtics, the Lakers are younger, deeper and better rested.
The Lakers won the 1987 Finals in six games.
Of course, that was the 10th time the teams had met in the Finals and, as NBA team Celtics owner Wycliffe Grousbeck said after Friday's win in Detroit, "We're 8-2."
So all team sports information reports it has already started.









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