Cavs Force Game 7 & Lakers Advance

The Boston Celtics are now officially 0-6 on the road in the 2008 playoffs, as they lost again to the Cavs in Cleveland Friday night. King James had put the Cavs up by as much as 9, and Boston narrowed it to 3 with less than a minute to go. But Wally Sczerbiak hit a huge 3 pointer and Joe Smith hit crucial free throws to help seal the game, 74-69. Lebron led the way with 32 points. The Celtics will now head back to Boston for a 3:30PM EST game on Sunday. So we have another Game 7 to decide the next round of the playoffs. Will King James have another heroic performance like last year against the Pistons? This could be a classic game in Boston.

In the nightcap, Kobe and his Lakers invaded Utah to try to knock the Jazz out. The Lakers took control early in the game and continued it through the 3rd quarter up by double digits. Utah seemed frustrated by foul calls as they played to try to save their playoff lives. Down the stretch Utah charged back and behind several threes from Kirilenko were able to get back into this one. It was just a 3 point game after Fisher missed a free throw with under 20 seconds to go. However, the Jazz were unable to hit a tying 3 pointer with two tries at it. Lakers win 108-105 on the road and advance to the next round. Now they get 4 days of rest before meeting either New Orleans or San Antonio. Kobe scored 34 in the win to lead the way. Gotta give credit to Utah who definitely played the Lakers tough throughout this series, while we've been seeing blowouts in the Spurs vs. Hornets series. Derron Williams will definitely be fun to watch in the future, and it would have been great to see him versus Chris Paul next round.

So the two teams who didn't go 7 games in this round, Pistons and Lakers, also are capable of getting road wins in the playoffs. These could be the two teams meeting in this years Finals as they seem to have the ingredients to win games as needed.

Game 7 of the Spurs vs Hornets will be shown Monday night on TNT.