Sports Commentary

BOSTON - Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers has said time and time again that he likes the midseason trades that the Cleveland Cavaliers made. Considering how those moves made it easier for the Celtics to deal with LeBron James and the Cavs, how can you blame Rivers for liking them?

Prior to trading away six players, Cleveland was 2-1 against the Celtics this season and the one loss was with superstar LeBron James sidelined. But since the midseason deals went down, Cleveland is now 1-2 against Boston, including two crucial losses in the second round of a best-of-seven playoffs series. With their season in jeopardy, the still gelling Cavaliers hope to figure out the Celtics back home with Game 4 in Cleveland on Saturday night.

"Being down 0-2, that's a tough hole to dig yourself out of," James said. "But we're going to have to do it if we want to move on."

In Larry Hughes, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Drew Gooden, LeBron had three teammates capable of scoring 20 points on any given night to ease the scoring stress and defense on James. In fact, Hughes scored 40 points in a tough 118-111 road win at Orlando on Feb. 11, just days before being moved.

The then offensively solid Cavs beat the Celtics twice at home by scoring an average of 111.5 points per game. Boston's only win over Cleveland before the trades was an 80-70 victory on Dec. 2 when James didn't play.

James yearned for a big name player to aid his Cavaliers against tough Eastern Conference foes like Boston, Detroit and Orlando. He dreamed of a deal bringing Jason Kidd from New Jersey. Basically, James wanted some help at point guard to make the Cavaliers even more formidable offensively.

The Cavs didn't get Kidd, but they did make some eyebrow-raising moves.

On Feb. 21, Cleveland acquired defensive specialist Ben Wallace, forward Joe Smith and guard Adrian Griffin from Chicago and declining sharpshooter Wally Szczerbiak and unproven point guard Delonte West from Seattle. Cleveland sent Hughes, Gooden, Cedric Simmons and Shannon Brown to Chicago, and Ira Newble and 3-point threat Donyell Marshall to Seattle. While Szczerbiak and Smith could score, Cleveland lost a lot of scoring, and athleticism too, by dealing Hughes, Gooden and Marshall.

Celtics center Scot Pollard, who played for Cleveland last season, strongly disagreed with his old team's moves.

"I'm a huge Drew Gooden fan," Pollard said. "When you get a guy that can get a double-double every night and not run one play for ... He's underpaid, first of all. He's quirky, no question about it. True, he's quirky and he's a different cat. Sometimes there are clashes with him and the coaching staff. But God, I'd live with it. I'd live with the double-double without having to run plays for the guy and deal with the other stuff. He's a great teammate."

"I know Ben Wallace, I know what he does," Pollard continued. "And to me, I wouldn't have given up Drew Gooden for what Ben Wallace does. It's so much more money (with Wallace) and you're locked into a $60 million contract and they are the last three more years of it. I just think they gave up too much to get Ben Wallace. Nothing against Ben Wallace, but knowing Cleveland, the team was working well enough."

The Celtics defeated Cleveland 92-87 in Boston in the only post-trade regular-season meeting between the teams on Feb. 27. While James had 28 points, Cleveland never could overcome an early 25-16 deficit and shot 38.3 percent from the field for the game.

The Celtics won Game 1 of this second round Cleveland series, 76-72, Tuesday after holding James to 12 points on 2-of-18 shooting. And during Boston's 89-73 win in Game 2 on Thursday, the all-NBA first team selection scored 24 points, but missed 18 of 24 shots. James' field goal percentage of .190 against Boston in the second round is the lowest in the shot clock era for a player in a playoff series who has taken at least 30 shots.

"Defensively, they're very, very aggressive," James said. "They're very good. I'm just missing shots I normally make. They haven't fallen in this building the last two games."

Only Ilgauskas has added some steady offensive help for James. With a stifling defense that includes double- and triple-teams, Boston is not allowing James to breath. And somewhere Gooden and Hughes have to be smiling and wondering, "What if?"

"LeBron is what makes them go and if we somehow control him, then we control their team," Celtics forward Paul Pierce said.

Marc J. Spears writes a weekly NBA column for AOL Sports and covers the NBA and the Boston Celtics for The Boston Globe.