Wednesday night this week at the TD Garden, the Boston Celtics will slug it out with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Green Team fans know the epic meet with the Cavs crew headlined by the King James (LeBron) was due largely to the feats of one man - the unlikely hero that is Kelly Olynyk.
Olynyk becoming the man of the hour when the Celtics tussled with the Washington Wizard for the rubber match that is Game 7 was totally unexpected. According to Yahoo! News, the towering center was hardly dominant during the hard-fought series. Game 3 he only managed a pitiful single point and Game 6, when the Celtics had the chance to finish off the Cavs, Olynyk only scored four points.
The spotlight then was on the Baby-Faced Assassin and Isaiah Thomas did not disappoint. His 29 points indeed made a dent when the Celts trashed the visitors from Washington last Monday. But when the Boston Garden scoreboard read 115-105, a stirring win for Boston, all eyes were set on Olynyk.
The man chalked up 26 big points but 12 of which were etched in the collective memory of Boston fans as the most crucial. Olynyk buried 12 points during the last six minutes of Game 7, when Bradley Beal took charge of the Wizards and brought his team just four clicks behind. At that point, it was anybody's game.
Olynyk, however, claimed Game 7 for himself and spoiled the game-high 38 points that Beal had registered. A 14-point run by Boston under four minutes during the game, 12 were scored by the Celtic big man. The scoring spurt allowed the Green Team to again widen the lead by 10, and they never looked back.
In fact, the game was already on the bag at the end of the third quarter when even Boston's bench delivered quite a spectacle, the sixth men sniping from behind the arc for a couple of treys that closed the period at 85-79. In a report, the Boston Globe said going to the fourth canto Monday night LeBron James knew he will have to deal with Thomas, Olynyk and the rest of Boston come Wednesday night.
"A flurry of treys by Thomas and Marcus Smart at the end of the third quarter gave the Green an 85-79 lead after three. Perhaps that's when LeBron started packing for Boston," the publication reported.
Now what are the odds of the Celtics getting past the defending NBA champion and earn the ticket to meet the winner of the ongoing series between the Golden State Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs?
To be clear, the Boston crew will need to neutralize a formidable foe that is the King James, and not to mention the obviously bruised Celtics will be hard-pressed to tackle the Cavs, which Yahoo! News will surely benefit from well-earned rest.
Yet as observed by the Boston Globe, the win over the Wizards and an already amazing season run certainly made the Celtics a solid winner by any account. "Anything good that happens now is just gravy," the report said.
But the publication likewise noted that from this point on, "anything's possible." And that could include hurdling past the Cavaliers and perhaps Kelly Olynyk getting an NBA championship ring.
