NBA on Five : Week 1

Each week we preview the upcoming NBA game available to British viewers on Channel Five. Tonight's show starts at 1am and will see the defending champions Boston Celtics receive their rings before they take on LeBron James' Cleveland Cavaliers.

Season so far

It is opening night but both teams impressed in pre-season. Boston won four of their last five while Cleveland were winners in three of their last four games. In recent history the two teams battled in a thrilling playoff series in the second round of the 2008 playoffs. The result - Paul Pierce led Boston in a thrilling Game Seven and his team went on to take the NBA title.

Key players

LeBron James: Cleveland: SF: The best player in the league steps on the court against his rival Paul Pierce. LeBron offers a combination of power, speed, agility and skill like no other in the league. He is exciting to watch and a handful to guard. He may have a bit more support around him this year to make his team even more dangerous than the one that nearly ended the Celtics' title dreams last year.

Paul Pierce: Boston: SF: The MVP of last year's NBA Finals will have a tough time handling LeBron but the veteran contributes all over the court on both the offensive and defensive end.

Watch out for

- Mo Williams will be making his Cleveland debut so keep an eye out to see how the shoot-first point guard copes with the scoring machine that is LeBron on his team

- Pierce vs. LeBron - The two have history and talked trash to one another in last year's playoffs, will their beef continue tonight?

- Big Baby - Glen Davis is always fun to watch and immediately grabs the viewers' attention. You just can't help but cheer on the chubby power forward

Team news

Former Celtic Delonte West is out for Cleveland but apart from that they should be at full strength, while the Celtics have no major injury worries.

Predictions

Each week we will be posting up our predictions on Five's game and keeping a tally of the results. Myself and fellow Posting Up founder Michael are the experts and each week we will also ask Dickman, a work collegue who has no clue about the NBA. By the end of the season we'll see who the real expert is.

Tom: Boston in front of a home crowd will come out snarling and win in a close game (Boston win)

Michael: Beantown to win. KG ain't losing no home opener (Boston win)

Dickman: The Celtics a good aren't they, I'll go for them (Boston win)

Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LeBron_James_2.jpg