LeBron: C's 'like no other team'

MIAMI -- The two biggest stars of the victorious Miami Heat heaped all kinds of praise on the Celtics after their 101-88 win in Game 7 at Amercian Airlines Arena Saturday night. Both LeBron James and Dwyane Wade extended their respect to Doc Rivers and the stars of the Celtics, singling out Kevin Garnett for leading his team to cusp of another NBA finals appearance. 

"Competitors. They're great," James said. "You can never relax at all on the court when you're competing against those guys. You can never feel comfortable. You always feel on edge when you go against them. This is the chemistry that they built over the years. It's like no other team that I've ever faced in the postseason. They're great. They're great."

Wade, who had his run-ins with Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett during the series, had nothing but respect for them afterward. Wade said the Celtics are the standard for how team's with high profile trios - like Miami's Wade, James and Chris Bosh - should play.

"I think one thing we take away from looking at the Boston Celtics is you want to talk about throwing dirt, they get dirt thrown on them all the time," Wade said. "They said too old, they can't do it again. They been saying that three years now. They continue to come out and prove they're going to be there. Kevin Garnett is 36 years old, [and] you can't tell. He looked amazing. He had an amazing series. All of those guys. 

"So, we look at them as a team and say, 'look what they deal with, look what they go through on a yearly basis.' That's something that hopefully one day we strive to be, because that would mean we're successful and that means we're still together. They are great champions. It was tough to beat them the last two years. We're thankful we were able to."

For more, visit the Celtics team page at weei.com/celtics [1] and the Green Street [2] blog.