Last season, the Cleveland Cavaliers swept through the first two rounds of the playoffs with ease, only to lose home-court advantage after a game one loss to the Orlando Magic. They went on to lose the series, and it’s clear looking back that they may have underestimated the eventual Eastern Conference Champions. A year later, it’s the Magic who swept through the first two rounds, only to be suffer an upset loss to the Boston Celtics in game one of the conference finals.
Matt Barnes wasn’t on the Magic team that beat the Cavaliers, but he had some ideas about what caused them to lose to the Celtics on the Magic’s home floor. Speaking with the Orlando Sentinel’s Tania Ganguli, the straight-talking Barnes gave a frank diagnosis of why the Magic find themselves down 0-1 in the series:
“Being 8-0 in the playoffs - I can’t speak for everyone - but we may have been feeling ourselves too much,” Matt Barnes said. “They kicked our (butts) last night, and now we have to get back to work.’'
For whatever reason, the Magic seem to have failed to learn the lesson they taught Cleveland in last year’s playoffs. We’ll see how they respond in game two.
