If The Celtics And Heat Were Chess Pieces

Ray Allen on Paul Pierce and LeBron James fouling out in overtime, from Brian Windhorst (via Tom Haberstroh):

“It was like chess. They took our queen and we took their queen, so to speak.”

A chess analogy? Let’s do this.

I actually disagree that Pierce is the Celtics’ queen: in this series, at least, I’d give the nod to Rajon Rondo. Pierce and Kevin Garnett are the queen’s knights: critical to any offensive assault, vital for the defense of the king. (The king, of course, being a powerful man with no range: Greg Stiemsma. As Andrew Sharp notes, Eddy Curry is his Miami Heat counterpart.)

Note: I’m sympathetic to the idea that Rondo’s idiosyncratic game is more akin to a knight than a queen, who (like LeBron) is more all-encompassing than odd. But in this series, Rondo has really been the driver of narrative for the Celtics. He has been at the center of it all. In this series, he is absolutely the queen.

LeBron is certainly Miami’s queen, Dwyane Wade is a knight and Chris Bosh is the kingside knight who committed seppuku on a technical disqualification. Mario Chalmers and ... uh, Mike Miller are bishops. No. No. I take it back. Chalmers, Miller and everyone else on the roster outside of the Big Three and Curry are pawns. Udonis Haslem was promoted to knight in Game 2.

Ray Allen is a Boston rook, and Avery Bradley is his long-lost companion. We’ll call Mickael Pietrus a suicidal pawn who drives straight into the teeth of the opposition. Sometimes, it works and he can catch the queen with her gown in a knot (as Pietrus did to LeBron in overtime). Marquis Daniels is noble, and as such is a bishop. Sasha Pavlovic is a checker. Keyon Dooling is a pawn who hasn’t promoted in roughly 2,000 games, but came close in Game 4!

The San Antonio Spurs are backgammon. The Sacramento Kings are Yahtzee.