Rajon Rondo takes control

Little One’s big

By Ron Borges | Monday, May 10, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com |

The Big Three owe The Little One big time because yesterday he was Big Time.

Were it not for the peerless four quarters played by Rajon Rondo [stats] at the Garden, the Cleveland Cavaliers might well be at home tomorrow night holding a 3-1 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinal playoffs. They are not because the smallest man on the floor was the biggest man in the game, a fact the biggest man in the league grudgingly acknowledged after Rondo finished off his Cavs.

“He does everything for them,” LeBron James said after Rondo had 29 points, a playoff career-high 18 rebounds and 13 assists in a 97-87 Celtics [team stats] victory that evened the series at 2-2. “They may be one of the oldest teams but Rondo is one of the youngest players in the playoffs. His quickness and his speed get them out on the break and he creates for himself and creates for others. It doesn’t matter if those guys are running with him or not, I think it starts with Rondo. He’s kind of their energy.

“His performance was unbelievable. Rondo was definitely the difference maker. He plays much bigger than what he looks.”

Yesterday he looked like Magic Johnson and played like Oscar Robertson. He scored like LeBron James and rebounded like Wilt Chamberlain. He passed like Bob Cousy and ran the team like Gen. Patton.

Rondo was like a shot of adrenalin to a failing heart. He lifted his team after it fell behind by seven in the game’s opening minutes, directing them back out to a nine-point lead by halftime. He then took over the floor in the fourth after the Cavs got within two, scoring or assisting on six of the next seven baskets.

By the time he was finished, Rondo had done something accomplished by only Robertson and Chamberlain - scoring at least 29 points, hauling down at least 18 boards and having 13 assists in a playoff game. The last time it was done was 43 years ago, which may help you understand what really went on yesterday.

“He did impose his will on the game,” Cavaliers coach Mike Brown said.

Much of the reason he was able to was that the Celtics defense cooled off Cleveland’s shooting. The Cavaliers were held to 40 percent on the day. That allowed Rondo to use his quickness, not only to push the ball up the floor but to get into open space where he has an uncanny knack of grabbing rebounds while men twice his size stand around looking like elephants petrified at the sight of a mouse.

“Obviously what he’s doing is absolutely unbelievable,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said after playing Rondo for all but one minute and 12 seconds and watching him grab 14 defensive rebounds. “The rebounding, the energy he’s playing with. But the stat that doesn’t show was his ball pressure. Unfortunately for Rondo that’s his job. I thought that was the biggest difference because they didn’t get into their stuff as quickly as they did in Game 3 and it allowed us to help and do other things and that was Rondo. Then to go out and do the rebounding and the passing and the scoring. It was just an amazing effort.”

It was an offense in which Rondo was slashing to the middle, not only getting him to the foul line 16 times but creating the kind of space that allowed him to make a series of sensational passes, the highlight a bomb that hit Glen Davis in stride three quarters of the way down the floor as if Tom Brady [stats] was passing to Randy Moss.

“When a guy has a game like that, you have to tip your hat to him,” said Cleveland point guard Mo Williams. “It was major.”

If the Celtics hope to survive this series, they will need The Big Three, to be sure. But more than anything, they need The Little One to come up big again and again - because, Toto, it’s not 2008 anymore.

“He’s a point guard now that runs our team and has complete control of our team,” Rivers said. “When we won it, he was still learning how to be a point guard. He was still trying to figure out how to help a team win. Now we rely on him to win.”

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