RealGM

Because Boston will have the incentives to make it a competitive game at least. Boston can clinch the second seed in the eastern conference with a win or a loss by Orlando in their next game I think. And stop Cleveland from tying the best home record at home during the regular season set by Boston in 1986. On the other hand, Cleveland still wants to finish with the league's best record. The Lakers continue to challenge them.

Garnett will be absent but national fans want to watch LeBron anyways. I say, the game on Sunday will come close to equaling or bettering the TV rating for the Boston at Los Angeles Lakers game of this season.

The Christmas Day game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics was the highest rated regular-season NBA game in four years.

The rematch of last season's NBA finals earned a 5.3 fast national rating on ABC, the network said.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3793939

This fact right here says it all. to anyone who believes that the NBA would rather have a LeBron-Kobe matchup in the finals..

To the extent that you believe TV stations and the NBA want certain things and influences the outcome accordingly, there's all the indication that the Celtics and Lakers will be in the finals.. so not to worry.

Then again, we don't know how well they regard the Cavs, and whether LeBron in the Finals would be a bigger draw. But to those who believe that the NBA could help the Cavs/Lebron overcome the Celtics, keep in mind that if the NBA influenced things that strongly, they would want to do it for a Celtics Lakers finals.

So basically, if the NBA did anything, (and assuming that LeBron against the Lakers isn't considered by the power players as a bigger draw), they would want to maintain the Celtics-Lakers finals rivalry as long as feasible

I definately think the refs are biased to star players but if the nba was fixed the Spurs would not have won 4 of the last nba titles. By the way Lebrons previous finals appearance was the lowest rated nba finals ever.