The Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics participated in arguably the most anticipated opening regular season game in NBA history back on Oct. 26 2010, and will be playing against each other in another highly anticipated match up in the Eastern Conference semifinals this year with the first game of the series starting this weekend.
On Sunday, Boston will travel to South Beach in attempt to steal a Game 1 road win against the "Heatles". This match up will be a tough one for both teams, and the key factor to why Miami will win this series in six games is simply No. 6, LeBron James. Many may think that Chris Bosh will be the x-factor to if this concoction of superstars can get to the NBA Finals and possibly win a championship in June, but I do not believe that is the case for them to get past Boston and into the Conference Finals.
Bosh will struggle in some games because he's going up against one of the most intimidating and tough defensive players in Kevin Garnett, so the slack provided by Bosh will be picked up by the reigning NBA MVP, James.
James averaged 24.2 points, 10.6 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game so far in the playoffs, and will only increase those numbers in the next round against Boston. In this conference semifinals series James will not be swarmed and manhandled by the Celtics defense like he was in last year's conference semifinals playoff series defeat to these same Celtics when he was a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Due to split attention being paid to James, Dwayne Wade and Bosh by the Celtics defense, James will be primarily guarded one-on-one by a good defender in Paul Pierce. Pierce has gotten the best of James in previous years, but James will prevail in these playoffs and scorch Pierce and Boston's defense for a few 30, maybe even 40-point efforts along with at least 10 dimes and 10 grown-man rebounds.
Yes, this is Wade's team, and teams do win championships, but James will undoubtedly be the x-factor to the Heat's playoff series victory against the Celtics.
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