In the first six games of the series, the 90-point mark was eclipsed just once by each team. The Cavs did it in a 108-84 win in Game 3, and Boston did it in a 96-89 Game 5 victory.

It was a defense-dominated series. Yet it was the offense of two players – Boston’s Paul Pierce and Cleveland’s LeBron James – that was the story of Game 7. The two all-stars, who doubled as the other’s primary defender, delivered a classic duel. Pierce netted 41 points on 13-of-23 shooting. James put in 45 points on 14-of-29 shooting.

The two players accounted for more than 45 percent of the game’s scoring. Think about that. Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, and two guys scored almost half of the points in a 97-92 thriller. In the end, the Celtics – riding Pierce, home court and a relentless intensity – were too much for Cleveland to overcome.

In the end, keeping it close was not enough for the Cavs. They lost two of the three games decided by five points or less in the series, including the decisive Game 7.

It was the little things that did them in. With Boston clinging to a three-point lead and less than 3 minutes to play, veteran P.J. Brown secured an offensive rebound – Boston had 10 for a total of 18 second-chance points – and scored the put back for the Celtics. The little-used Brown would hit add a jumper with 1:21 to play after Cleveland cut the lead to one. Boston made the little plays to win; Cleveland did not.

Sasha Pavlovic stepped on the line for a would-be wide open three-pointer, which netted just two points. Delonte West missed a potential tying three with just more than a minute left. LeBron James failed to step in front of Paul Pierce to box out on a jump ball situation that the Cavs should have controlled. Pierce hustled to be first to the ball and got the timeout called, swiping a precious possession away from Cleveland.

There are so many instances Cavalier fans can point to and wonder “what if?” but while they’re left wondering, the Celtics move on a face another daunting opponent, the Detroit Pistons. Detroit is playing in the Eastern Conference Finals for the sixth straight season. Boston returns for the first time since 2002 when they lost in six games to the New Jersey Nets. Only Paul Pierce remains from that team. And if he can build upon his Game 7 performance in the next round, he may play in the NBA Finals for the first time in his career and end the Celtics’ drought that’s lasted more than 20 years.

Great Game 5 between the Lakers and Jazz last night. One of the key plays of the game – and hot topics of debate – is the Pau Gasol rebound and put-back late in the game that essentially sealed the game for L.A.

Mehmet Okur went flying toward the baseline as Gasol grabbed the ball and at first glance it appeared Gasol pushed off. I’m sure everyone in Utah thought so and Henry Abbott of ESPN.com’s TrueHoop thought similarly until he watched the replay several times.

In truth, it looks like Okur flopped. There was contact but not enough to send a 263-pound man to the ground. Okur should have boxed out better. My old high school coach taught me that. But that’s another story. The point is that the flop was Okur’s next best option. He figured he wasn’t getting the rebound anyway so he flopped.

The referee sees a player falling to the ground. In theory, a player doesn’t fall on his own. Some other force knocks him down there. That is the theory upon which the flop strategy is built. Flopping takes on the appearance of a reaction to an action that didn’t exist. The flopper’s goal is to perform the flop well enough that the faked reaction “must” have been caused by some original action. And that action, while unknown to the ref, “must” have come from the player who probably knocked down the flopper.

Thankfully the referee was not baited by Okur at the end of Game 5. But the bigger question is, why is flopping allowed? It’s designed specifically to draw a foul on a player who did not commit an infraction. With only six fouls to give, one successful flop moves the innocent player 17 percent closer to an unfair disqualification. But that’s not fair. Shouldn’t the flopper be the one who is punished for his shenanigans?

Of course he should. The question is how. The referee has enough to be concerned with. We can’t expect him to judge every collision and bump and decide who’s really being knocked down and who’s falling on their own. It’s hard enough to know a block from a charge sometimes. Adding a flop foul call to the ref’s repertoire doesn’t seem feasible.

But there should be a penalty and it should start with the flagrant flops. There are some plays when (almost) everyone is in agreement on a flop. I’m pretty sure the NBA officials already review every game after it is played to go over calls. If not, they should. So why not make it someone’s job to look specifically at flop situations? If he sees something that is a flagrant flop, the flopping player gets assessed a penalty. And set up a system to hold players accountable.

First flop is a fine. The fine increases with each successive flop. After a certain number of flops (5? 10? 15?), the player earns a suspension. Losing cash and missing games would make players stand their ground more firmly. This needs to happen and the sooner the better.

Home court advantage is supposed to be just that – an advantage for the home team. Through one and a half rounds of this year’s playoffs, however, the advantage has been nearly impossible to overcome.

To say that road teams are struggling would be an understatement. After winning just 32 percent of their first round games, road teams are just 1-15 in round two. The lone win was a 90-89 nail biter for Detroit over Orlando.

In fact, the Pistons are the only team with a winning record on the road in this postseason. Detroit went 2-1 at Philadelphia and split its first two games at Orlando. With a 2-2 road record, the Los Angeles Lakers actually have the second best road winning percentage in the playoffs. The other six teams left playing are sub-.500 on the road in the playoffs.

Utah was the only team to win a series without home court advantage in the postseason so far. In a year when the West’s top six teams were separated by just two games, it’s amazing how much home court has factored into postseason success.

Of course, no one is enjoying home cooking more than the Jekyll and Hyde Celtics right now. Boston is 6-0 at home and 0-5 on the road. The good news for the Celtics, though, is that if they take care of business in Beantown, their road woes won’t better. Boston’s league-high 66 wins means they have home court advantage throughout the playoffs. And that seems to mean a lot this year.

If the current pace holds, it will be the highest winning percentage since 1990, when home teams went 54-18.

With both Western semifinals series tied 2-2, it’s anyone’s guess who will meet in the Western Finals. It may or may not be the best series of the playoffs. Boston, Detroit or Cleveland will have something to say about that. But it will be a dynamite series no matter the match up.

Lakers-Spurs
This is the traditionalist pick (and mine, for what it’s worth). The Spurs have owned the West over the past few years, and the Lakers are a stories franchise that appears on the brink of greatness again. With the reigning MVP and a cast of young talent – not to mention injured Andrew Bynum and Trevor Ariza – the Lakers should be contending for the next several seasons. This also doubles as a “team of the decade” battle. Only once since 1998 has a Western Final been played without either the Lakers or Spurs involved.

Hornets-Jazz
For the love of point guards, who wouldn’t love to see Chris Paul and Deron Williams go at it in a best-of-seven series with a trip to the championship on the line? The third year wonders were picked back-to-back in the 2005 draft are arguably the best point guards playing. But while Paul finished second in the MVP vote, Williams hasn’t even been voted to an all-star team. That figures to change as soon as next season, but he’d first like to add a ring to his résumé.

Lakers-Hornets
Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul were first and second, respectively, for the MVP. Why not settle it the old fashioned way? The top two seeds in the West have the home court edge to advance, though both are currently riding two-game losing streaks. Hornets coach Byron Scott won three titles playing with the Lakers in the 80s.

Spurs-Jazz
A rematch of last year’s Western Conference Finals would be a great series, but it’s not a network favorite. San Antonio and Utah are not flashy cities, and the Spurs and Jazz are not flashy teams, which is indicative of their head coaches. San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich has been coaching the Spurs since the 1996-97 season. That would be the longest tenure in the league if not for Utah’s Jerry Sloan, who has been coaching the Jazz since the 1988-89 campaign. No other active coach has been with his team for more than five straight years. (Phil Jackson took a year off between stints as the Lakers head coach.

There’s a subplot to this year’s NBA playoffs. Eight teams are left vying for the NBA title but two of them – the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs – can also gain a leg up in the race for team of the decade.

The Lakers (Minneapolis back in those days) owned the 50s, winning four titles during the first full decade the league was in existence. The Boston Celtics dominated the 60s, winning an unbelievable nine titles in 10 years. There was no clear-cut team of the 70s as the New York Knicks and the Celtics each won a pair of titles. But the Lakers claimed the 80s by winning five more championships. And the 90s belonged to the Chicago Bulls, who won six titles in the decade.

The present decade – the 00s? – is still up for grabs. The Lakers won the first three championships of the decade, but the Spurs have won three titles since then. If either team wins it this season, they’ll clearly be in the driver’s seat to become team of the decade.

Here’s how Los Angeles and San Antonio stack up over the past nine seasons.

The Celtics have been exposed thanks to the Atlanta Hawks. The same Hawks that won 37 games in the regular season – that would’ve been good for 12th place in the Western Conference – pushed the 66-win Boston Celtics to the brink of elimination in round one of the 2008 NBA playoffs. In doing so, they exposed what could prove to be a fatal flaw for Boston – the inability to win close games.

The Celtics had a dominant regular season, posting a league-high average scoring margin of +10.3. Second place Detroit had a scoring margin of just +7.4. So what does that scoring margin tell us about Boston? Essentially it means the Celtics won a lot of blowouts, and they did.

Only 20 of their regular season games were decided by five points or less. But they struggled in those games. In fact, after losing two close ones to Atlanta in the first round, Boston is just 11-11 this season in games decided by five points or less, including a mark of 5-8 against playoff teams.

All of this is music to the ears of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The defending Eastern Conference Champions and second round opponent of Boston is much more comfortable in crunch time. Cleveland’s regular season games were decided by five points or less 41 percent of the time. The Cavs had a record of 22-12 in those games. That’s much better than their mark of 23-25 when the game was decided by six or more.

Throughout the course of the year, the Cavs beat a total of16 teams in a close game, and they went 13-6 in games decided by five or less versus playoff competition.

The good news for Boston is that they won each home game against Atlanta by at least 19 points, including a 99-65 drubbing in Game 7. And the Celtics have home court advantage again against Cleveland. Boston won both home games versus Cleveland in the regular season.

The bad news for Boston is that they lost all three road games against Atlanta. They also dropped both games on the road at Cleveland this year.

Worse for the Celtics, the average margin of victory in the four regular season games was just 5.25 points. The Celtics won by 10 and five. The Cavs won by five and one.

The Celtics don’t know who their go-to guy is down the stretch. Kevin Garnett is their MVP. Ray Allen is their best shooter. And Paul Pierce is the career Celtic and most versatile scorer. Yet none stepped up in the close games with the Hawks.

The Celtics also had no crunch time answer defensively for Joe Johnson. Now they square off against one of the top closers in the league in LeBron James. That spells danger for the Celtics, and that’s why I’m taking the Cavaliers to win the series and score the upset in seven games.

Check out the rest of my round two picks

Dirk Nowitski and Tony Parker both received MVP awards last season from the NBA yet neither of them had as much to do with the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs’ run through the playoffs as Tim Duncan. Unfortunately, the NBA only gives out MVP awards for regular season (Nowitski) and Finals (Parker) performances, neglecting the other playoff games a team must play and win to earn a championship.

Teams have only played a game or two in the 2008 NBA playoffs, but a number of players have already made waves. Some good and some not so good. Here’s a quick tracker of player trends through games played April 21.

Of the five players going up, the average age is 23. Of the five players going down, the average age is 28. Basketball is a young man’s game. Just don’t tell that to the San Antonio Spurs.

Going up

• Pau Gasol, 27, Los Angeles Lakers
  After enjoying zero playoff wins in Memphis, Gasol wasted no time erasing his playoff demons in L.A. The 36-point, 16-rebound, eight-assist stat line was impressive, but it was the little things Gasol did, including three blocks and a perfect 8-for-8 from the free throw line that have Laker fans wondering if Shaq and Kobe was only an appetizer.

• Dwight Howard, 22, Orlando Magic
  As Orlando tries to win its first playoff series since Shaquille O’Neal was in town, the Magic is relying heavily on its fourth-year center. In each of the first two games, Howard had 20-20 vision – 20 or more points, 20 or more rebounds – against Toronto. Only four other players have recorded 20 and 20 in four straight games.

• LeBron James, 23, Cleveland Cavaliers
  The King made the leap to an elite level last season with his 2007 Eastern Conference Finals performance. If his first two playoff games this season are any indication, LeBron is going to give Boston all they can handle in round two. LeBron is asked to do more with less than any other NBA superstar. And in just his fifth NBA season, he is already a don’t-you-dare-bet-against-me-in-crunch-time player.

• Chris Paul, 22, New Orleans Hornets
  In his first two playoff game, all Chris Paul did was lead his team back from a 12-point halftime deficit against a playoff-tested, veteran bunch from Dallas in game 1 and then scorch them for a 24-point win in game 2. Paul scored 67 points, dished out 27 assists and added seven steals in the two impressive victories.

• Deron Williams, 23, Utah Jazz
  Chris Paul’s MVP campaign buzz has overshadowed Deron Williams’ own candidacy as the best young point guard in the league. He beat Paul to the postseason by a year – leading the Jazz to the Western Conference Finals last season – and has Utah up 2-0 in its first round series with Houston this year after netting 42 points and 15 assists in the Jazz’s two wins on the road.

Going down

• Gilbert Arenas, 26, Washington Wizards
  He was considered a top-20 star early last season. After missing the end of last year and much of this year with injuries, however, Arenas has likely cost himself a lot of money. He’s now no better than the third best Wizard player and some critics have made the case that his insertion into the lineup actually hurts the team.

• Andrea Bargnani, 22, Toronto Raptors
  Last year’s number one overall selection, Bargnani scored just five points in 28 minutes of action in game 1 against Orlando. Perhaps even less impressively, the 6’10” power forward managed to grab just three rebounds. Among the players who have already had better performances in this year’s playoffs are ’06 draft classmates Rajon Rondo (21st selection), Jordan Farmar (26th) and Daniel Gibson (42nd).

• Mike Bibby, 29, Atlanta Hawks
  Remember 2002? It was Bibby’s first trip to the playoffs, and playing for the Sacramento Kings, Bibby averaged more than 20 points and five assists per game, while shooting 42 percent from long distance and nearly 83 percent from the line. Six years later, Bibby’s teams have never made it as far as that Kings team, which lost in game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. Now in Atlanta, Bibby was outplayed by a next generation playoff newbie, Boston’s Rajon Rondo, who tripled Bibby in points (15-5), doubled him in rebounds (6-3) and torched him (8-1) in assists.

• Jason Kidd, 35, Dallas Mavericks
  Once a top defensive point guard, Kidd has no answer for Chris Paul. And Kidd’s offensive production from two games – 18 points, 17 assists – is not equal to what Paul did in game 2 alone (32 points, 17 assists). He was brought in to lead the Mavericks in the playoffs. It’s not working.

• Tracy McGrady, 28, Houston Rockets
  It’s not his fault that Yao Ming went down mid-season, but the Rockets’ 22-game winning streak gave the Houston fans hope that this team could finally win a playoff series with McGrady as the catalyst. After two straight home losses to open the series against Utah, McGrady is in serious danger of going 0-7 for his career in playoff series.