{"id":11933,"date":"2017-12-26T19:08:58","date_gmt":"2017-12-27T00:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=11933"},"modified":"2017-12-26T19:08:58","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T00:08:58","slug":"admit-cleveland-obviously-better-boston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2017\/12\/26\/admit-cleveland-obviously-better-boston\/","title":{"rendered":"Admit It: Cleveland is OBVIOUSLY Better Than Boston"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alright, everyone, let\u2019s have a heart to heart here. The Boston Celtics<\/strong><\/a> are nowhere near as good as the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/strong><\/a>, with or without Gordon Hayward<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Now that the elephant in the room has been addressed, let\u2019s talk why.<\/p>\n

LeBron James<\/a><\/h2>\n

LeBron James<\/a><\/strong> is the best player in the world. Period. James gets the Michael Jordan<\/a><\/strong> treatment and is constantly overlooked for the MVP award every year. He\u2019s OBVIOUSLY the most important player on any team that he\u2019s on. Boston has nobody that can stop LeBron James<\/a>. Slow him down to 22 points, 6 rebounds and 9 assists, maybe. But James\u2019 influence on the court is much more than a stat line. It\u2019s about the attention he demands. The resources he takes from a team opens up for big nights for the other stars on his team.<\/p>\n

LeBron James system > Brad Stephens system<\/h2>\n

When talking about the Celtics and their success, Brad Stephens<\/strong> and his system comes up. \u201cIt\u2019s all about the system!\u201d people say. Stephens is a great coach. He\u2019s earned the top spot in the east last year for a reason. He wins games. But LeBron James has a system too. LeBron James rests and doesn\u2019t over-exhaust himself during the season so he can play like he\u2019s a member of Space Jam\u2019s \u201cMonStars\u201d in the playoffs. There\u2019s a reason James has been to the Finals seven straight years. It\u2019s a long season and he paces himself. There\u2019s a reason James Harden<\/a><\/strong> crashed against the Spurs in game seven last year. He killed himself all season. Stephens is a fantastic coach. LeBron is a better coach.<\/p>\n

The rest of the talent doesn\u2019t line up…<\/h2>\n

The Celtics have great players! Kyrie Irving<\/a><\/strong> is top 5 in the league for sure. But who else is there? Even with Hayward not there, the talent level isn\u2019t there for the Celtics to beat Cleveland in a seven-game series. Kevin Love<\/a>, J.R. Smith<\/a>, Jae Crowder<\/a>, Tristan Thompson<\/a><\/strong> all demand a lot of attention. But the bench is where Cleveland really excels. Here\u2019s a few names: Dwyane Wade<\/a><\/strong> (future hall of famer), Kyle Korver<\/a>, Iman Shumpert<\/a><\/strong>. While you got your bench guys on the court, Cleveland has a bench team that would finish in 6th in the East. Boston has a bunch of great role players. But they\u2019re also missing one important oversight…<\/p>\n

Isaiah Thomas<\/a> is coming<\/h2>\n

And he has a massive chip on his shoulder. After giving this team all that he gave them, Boston gave up on him. Putting Isaiah Thomas<\/a><\/strong> on the floor with the best player in the world will put Boston in between a rock and a hard place. Who to stop? With the amount of emotion Thomas will have, it\u2019s going to be hard for Irving to slow him down, much less stop him. Thomas coming back also makes Cleveland that much deeper. They\u2019re a nightmare for the East.<\/p>\n

Despite Cleveland\u2019s slow start, it\u2019s pretty obvious that Boston really doesn\u2019t stand a chance against Cleveland in seven games. Even if Cleveland loses the one seed again, it doesn\u2019t matter. At the end of the day, LeBron and the Cleveland MonStars will take the Celtics in five games in the Eastern Conference Finals. Buckle up, guys, Cleveland-Golden State 4 is going to be a ride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alright, everyone, let\u2019s have a heart to heart here. The Boston Celtics are nowhere near as good as the Cleveland Cavaliers, with or without Gordon Hayward. Now that the elephant in the room has been addressed, let\u2019s talk why. LeBron James LeBron James is the best player in the world. Period. James gets the Michael […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2272,"featured_media":7357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,2],"tags":[302,39,171,406,38],"class_list":["post-11933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celtics","category-cavaliers","category-featured","tag-boston-celtics","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-isaiah-thomas","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-lebron-james"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}