Lotta ups and downs in this one. The Lakers don't at all look to me like a team that's poised to win two in Boston, but plenty of weird stuff has happened so far. Consider this your game five thread.
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Game 5 Thread
16 Jun 2008 12:27 am
Comments (41)
That second point sounds right. He's been weird this series-- and I thought he could make the difference (of course, it ain't ovah yet).
Weirdly, the two Laker victories have been the two ugliest games (right?). You'd think the opposite might happen, given the respective styles of play.
Imagine if KG had a clutch bone in his body? Pierce is legacy building right now.
I'm obviously grasping at straws here. Given how inconsistently the Lakers have played all series, I'm surprised we're still alive. But the inconsistency itself gives me hope as a fan. The Lakers haven't been leaving it all on the floor by any measure. The defense is consistently embarrassing. Kobe hits five shots and then doesn't score for an age. In other words, the Lakers can perform a lot better, and they have for much of the playoffs. So if Phil Jackson puts a little fire in their bellies, we ought to be able to make history.
Or maybe I've had a few too many beers on a sunday night.
Except for Kobe and Fisher, all other Lakers are young so they get caught making frequent mistakes whereas Celtics are experienced vets, willing to take the hits, and play as a team. Bynum with Lakers will make them contenders for years to come but Celtics win this Tuesday.
Let's win it in beantown southpaw!!!!! Just grab a few offensive rebounds and this series gets a whole lot easier-show us your heart, go Lakers!!!!!!!!
Let's win it in beantown southpaw!!!!! Just grab a few offensive rebounds and this series gets a whole lot easier-show us your heart, go Lakers!!!!!!!!
A frustrating night for the C's. Garnett has yet to have a really solid game. Still, it was close without Perkins suiting up or Rondo even playing well. And Allen was subpar from the 3 pt. area. I still can't figure out Rivers' substitution pattern. Ray Ray sits for like seven minutes so that Tony Allen can contribute? Powe plays five minutes and then disappears for the rest of the game. It's weird. Lucky the refs are so biased in favor of Boston or they might have called that last reach-in by Kobe.
Let's win it in beantown southpaw!!!!! Just grab a few offensive rebounds and this series gets a whole lot easier-show us your heart, go Lakers!!!!!!!!
"Imagine if KG had a clutch bone in his body"
Imagine if Rondo could hit the wide open jump shot.
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One of the reasons I think this is on PJ is how long it took him to have KB defend Rondo.
I assumed prior to the series that Bryant would be on Rondo for all the obvious reasons.
Jackson had Bryant chasing Ray-Ray around screens instead in Game 1. Fine. He's got nine rings, and he's allowed to try stuff. But after it wasn't working in Game 1, he turned around in Game 2 and did the same fucking thing.
It took him until Game 3 to put Kobe on Rondo, which I find difficult to explain any other way than creeping senility.
I still can't figure out Rivers' substitution pattern.
That's a diplomatic way of putting it. The most bizarre part of the Finals for me has been listening to Mark Jackson praise Doc Rivers' substitutions, or Jeff Van Gundy blame his erratic decisions on the players themselves.
Can people stop saying Garnett is struggling? Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol haven't done a damn thing in the series. The Lakers have had the best offense in the league since they got Gasol, and they're not scoring in the finals. Garnett was the defensive player of the year. Why are people acting like this all isn't connecting. He's destroying the Lakers defensively, allowing his guards to get up in the face of Kobe because he helps defensively. Garnett is having a damn fine series, even if he hasn't been amazing offensively.
I thought this was going to be an easy series for the Lakers because I thought the key was that the Celtics had no way to defend Bryant.
I think this series has proven that Pierce and Allen are significantly underrated defenders.
What I can't figure out is why no one realized what an incredibly soft interior this team has. Just no interior D or muscle.
I agree Garnett is great defensively but he should be scoring more inside. Of course, tonight he got saddled with early fouls but, as has been mentioned already in earlier posts, KG is too unselfish and needs to assert himself more. And those two missed free throws were killer. Still, I don't see them losing Tuesday night at home. The Lakers were practically giving it away as in game 3. Perhaps the Lakers have a couple of perfect performances in them, but I haven't seen any evidence of that yet.
I was in attendance for Game 2 in Boston. Celts were lucky to escape with that one; in fact, in the last minute when the Lakers were down 2, I bet my friend that the Lakers would pull it out (and I lost a significant chunk of change). Celts were also lucky to get Game 4.
I wouldn't say Phil has been outcoached. A couple lucky breaks, and the Lakers could have won the series by now. Amazing how perception turns on minutiae.
Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol haven't done a damn thing in the series.
I thought Gasol played pretty well tonight. Had some key rebounds, and even got a few blocks in. Of course, a lot of his performance is due to the Celtics' being forced small w/ Perkins' injury and Powe catching an early flight back to Boston, but still, credit where it's due.
Celtics in 7 sounded good before the series started, and I think it still sounds good today.
...but I haven't seen any evidence of that yet.
[bites tongue]
nbt, lemme get this straight:
G2: Celtics build 24-point lead, almost blow it. Lucky win for Boston.
G4: Lakers build 24-point lead, actually blow it.
Lucky win for Boston.
For real? It's basketball, dude. The ball's made of rubber and bounces in unpredictable ways. It's a game of luck. But credit where it's due.
Yeah, seriously, scythia. Apparently, the Celtics were lucky to win by margins of 10, 6, and 6, while the Lakers 2 victories by 6 and 5 were pure skill.
Celtics and Lakers are pretty evenly matched, so home court will determine the series. Why is this a surprise?
I think I undersestimated my disinterest in this series.
I'm pretty excited about the Seattle vs Sonics (and NBA) trial starting tomorrow, though. I'm pretty confident that the city and Shultz can find a way to keep the team until the lease runs out. Whether that means a transfer to local ownership is still up in the air (depends how deep the Okies' pockets are).
Can people stop saying Garnett is struggling? Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol haven't done a damn thing in the series. The Lakers have had the best offense in the league since they got Gasol, and they're not scoring in the finals. Garnett was the defensive player of the year. Why are people acting like this all isn't connecting. He's destroying the Lakers defensively, allowing his guards to get up in the face of Kobe because he helps defensively. Garnett is having a damn fine series, even if he hasn't been amazing offensively.
Because he's Kevin Garnett not Ben Wallace or Anderson Varejo. He's the highest paid player in the league for crying out loud. If you want a defensive stopper you can pay a quarter of the price. Apparently you missed last night when Pau and Lamar combined for 39 points and 24 boards. If the Celtics don't get Perkins back, the Lakers might steal this series in 7 and make history.
Am I the only one that was struck by the atrociousness of the officiating? I expected as much with Bavetta on the court, but I expected the bad reffing to favor the Lakers (to send it to 6). Imagine my shock when it was the Celtics getting most of the calls.
Josh and scythia,
Yeah and considering every game has been in doubt in the last 5 minutes and all but one has come down to the last minute, it's obvious that the Celtics are a far, far superior team.
A couple bounces either way and this series could be over (for either team) or it could be 3-2 Lakers. These are two, evenly matched squads.
I thought the game was yet another example of how you just need to watch the last two minutes. Why Matthew thinks otherwise is beyond me.
The officiating favored the Celtics? Jesus F. Christ, dude. How is Garnett supposed to shut down Gasol and/or Odom when he's on the bench for most of the first half thanks to a godawful call to pick up his third early in the second quarter. How are the C's supposed to defend down the stretch when Pierce and Garnett pick up their fifth fouls within ten seconds of each other late in the fourth on off-the-ball calls. When Kobe fouls Pierce with 35 seconds to go in a 2 point game and gets away with it, leading to the essentially game clinching dunk, be grateful and stop fucking whining.
This is not to say game 5 turned in either direction because of the officiating. The Lakers big men benefited from Perkins' absence. Garnett missed two huge free throws. Etc, etc.
But do the math, please. LA has had home court advantage through five and yet they trail 3-2. The C's may not be overwhelmingly superior, but they've clearly been the better team here. Barring more Celtic injuries, they should close it out on Tuesday night.
Methinks Phil Jackson has gotten a bit too old for the job.
I've had the same feeling. He really seems out of it.
Lucky the refs are so biased in favor of Boston or they might have called that last reach-in by Kobe.
That was a clean poke.
As a Celtics fan, I'm still worried. Injuries and fatigue might start catching up to them. I think the Celtics are better, but not much better. LA still has a legitimate shot. The biggest difference is that the Celtics seem to have better defensive coaching.
I thought the game was yet another example of how you just need to watch the last two minutes. Why Matthew thinks otherwise is beyond me.
If that's all your interested in fine, but there happens to be a huge correlation between leading with 2 minutes left and winning. So the rest of the game kinda matters. This series has been a little unusual in the big leads -> comebacks, but a lot of that has to do with slow starts by the Celtics, followed by them dominating 3rd quarters.
The officiating favored the Celtics? Jesus F. Christ, dude. How is Garnett supposed to shut down Gasol and/or Odom when he's on the bench for most of the first half thanks to a godawful call to pick up his third early in the second quarter. How are the C's supposed to defend down the stretch when Pierce and Garnett pick up their fifth fouls within ten seconds of each other late in the fourth on off-the-ball calls. When Kobe fouls Pierce with 35 seconds to go in a 2 point game and gets away with it, leading to the essentially game clinching dunk, be grateful and stop fucking whining.
This is not to say game 5 turned in either direction because of the officiating. The Lakers big men benefited from Perkins' absence. Garnett missed two huge free throws. Etc, etc.
But do the math, please. LA has had home court advantage through five and yet they trail 3-2. The C's may not be overwhelmingly superior, but they've clearly been the better team here. Barring more Celtic injuries, they should close it out on Tuesday night.
The officiating favored the Celtics? Jesus F. Christ, dude. How is Garnett supposed to shut down Gasol and/or Odom when he's on the bench for most of the first half thanks to a godawful call to pick up his third early in the second quarter. How are the C's supposed to defend down the stretch when Pierce and Garnett pick up their fifth fouls within ten seconds of each other late in the fourth on off-the-ball calls. When Kobe fouls Pierce with 35 seconds to go in a 2 point game and gets away with it, leading to the essentially game clinching dunk, be grateful and stop fucking whining.
This is not to say game 5 turned in either direction because of the officiating. The Lakers big men benefited from Perkins' absence. Garnett missed two huge free throws. Etc, etc.
But do the math, please. LA has had home court advantage through five and yet they trail 3-2. The C's may not be overwhelmingly superior, but they've clearly been the better team here. Barring more Celtic injuries, they should close it out on Tuesday night.
Celtics offensive execution was awful down the stretch, with House picking up his dribble too early on every possession (why not have Ray Allen initiate the offense?) and Rondo being de facto useless. However, the non call on the Kobe reacharound (double entendre intended) was a huge one. Otherwise, officiating was fine.
Celtics offensive execution was awful down the stretch, with House picking up his dribble too early on every possession (why not have Ray Allen initiate the offense?) and Rondo being de facto useless. However, the non call on the Kobe reacharound (double entendre intended) was a huge one. Otherwise, officiating was fine.
Celtics offensive execution was awful down the stretch, with House picking up his dribble too early on every possession (why not have Ray Allen initiate the offense?) and Rondo being de facto useless.
This, IMO, has been Jackson's biggest weakness in the series. Detroit exposed Boston's biggest weakness, which is ball handling. If you pressure their point guards full court, you can cause them to pick up their dribble and disrupt their offense. He finally started doing it at the end of game 2 and during game 3. Then he inexplicably stopped during game 4 and reintroduced it this game. Not only are Farmar and Vujacic good full court pressers, they're young enough to have the energy to pull it off.
How is Garnett supposed to shut down Gasol and/or Odom when he's on the bench for most of the first half thanks to a godawful call to pick up his third early in the second quarter
That was a bad call, but there were a dozen other no calls. Especially if you include the numerous moving picks by KG. He's worse than Yao was in that Mavs-Rockets series a couple years back. The poke on the steal was clean.
Number seventeen will be hoisted tomorrow night.
Posted by Jasper | June 16, 2008 10:28 AM
Number seventeen will be hoisted tomorrow night.
It won't because they don't hang the championship banner until the following season. That said, Game 6 is the Celtics best opportunity to close the series out, and I fully expect them to do so. It's a monumental challenge for the LAkers to win 2 in Boston. That said, the LAkers have to at least like their chances after winning a game where their defense was spotty and Kobe stunk. The C's will probably get more of an all-around effort which will enable then to win. Pierce has emerged as the real deal. Apparently, no matter how great a player you are, if you're surrounded by mediocrity, you can't single-handedly lead your team to greatness. On the other hand, KG has been exposed as a complete fraud. He got was too much credit for the turn around. Ultimately, he may go down as one of the greatest role players in NBA history, but that's all he is, a role player. He's a defensive stud, and he can hit an open J, but he's not a go to guy and not a star player.
Kobe poke was definitely clean. The endless over-the-back moves by Odom and Gasol are not. They could get called for a foul nearly every single rebounding play. It's astounding how bad the refereeing is, and it's almost always in favor of the home team. NBA officials are gutless. My favorite sequence so far (I think Game 4): Kobe rakes up and down KG's arms, knocking the ball free, dribbles down the court and loses it to Pierce, then trips Pierce to get the ball back, all with no foul. Unbelievable.
As has been the whining by Lakers and fans. Radmanovic got a T on a play where Odom shoved Pierce in the back to get a rebound. I still don't see what he was complaining about.
Really though, complaining aside, it hasn't made the difference in the series. The Celtics have been the better team, clearly. They got Posey and House and PJ Brown for their bench in anticipation of this moment, and the Lakers filled their bench with young, active guys who aren't ready to provide the needed toughness in the Finals (perhaps because when they were building their team last summer, they didn't expect to be here). I actually don't blame Gasol that much; I think he's out of position playing center against bigger guys like Perkins and Brown.
Oh, and Radmanovic has been completely exposed this series. He's been awful.
Still, the loss of two starters to the Celtics (Perkins to injury, Rondo to the fact he can't shoot a lick) is being felt. It's not over, but if the Celtics can play their D in Boston, they'll be fine. But I think they need to close it out on Tuesday. I'm not sure their shortened team can hold out for a full seven. Fatigue is beginning to be a problem at the end of games.
The officiating was bad last night, but not biased. Just bad, both ways. In one stretch of about 2 game-time minutes, they missed these three calls: Posey drew a charge on Turiaf that wasn't a charge. PJ Brown poked it out of bounds and they said it was off of Kobe. And KG blocked Gasol's shot cleanly and they called a foul on KG. One right after the other.
RE: substitution patterns and senility; when Jackson put in Mihm I thought the coaches had actually switched teams at the end of the first quarter, that was a pure Doc move.
Starting Powe, and thus enabling KG to get into early foul trouble guarding Gasol, was a really stupid move. And then the genius decides to banish Powe for the rest of the game, immediately after deciding he should be starting.
That said, I don't think tomorrow will be close. The crowd is going to be crazy/insane/heavily intoxicated, and I expect the Lakers to take their beatdown and go home
So then maybe Rondo isn't a first ballot HOFer then afterall?
Paul Pierce set a Finals record for most FT's made in the fourth quarter. I thought that kind of record is supposed to be unattainable for a road team?
I didn't mind giving Mihm a shot as Ronny hasn't been doing much all season. But it backfired bigtime.
Radmonovic was exposed as nearly worthless a long time ago. It didn't take this series for anyone to figure that out.
As for the officiating, I thought last night was about as good as it is going to get. Free throw totals were exactly the same, but when you consider the last 6 Laker FT's were off intentional fouls, I thought Boston got as good a deal from the refs as they could have hoped for on the road. The fact of the matter is that the game moves too fast for the human eye, so the refs are always going to miss a bunch each game.
The perspectivist nature of human perception is funny. From the Laker viewpoint, they should have stolen game 2 even though they only played half a quarter; they gutted out two wins; and they blew an enormous lead in a game they should have won had they played marginally better in the second half. Lakers in five. From a Celtic viewpoint, they dominate the first two games despite the defensive lapse in game 2; they win game 3 with average performances from Pierce and Garnett; the comeback in game 4 caps the sweep. If the C's can't win another one at home, obviously they don't deserve it. Let's just hope an atrocious call doesn't affect the final outcome.
Bum, to set a finals record for FTs in the 4th quarter, you need two things: a.) a team whose interior defense is as piss-poor as that of the lakers; b.) an offensive player who can beat the man guarding him off the dribble and take it strong to the hole.
the result is a bunch of fouls; any road team can do it that meets those circumstances.
it's just that it's very rare - especially in the finals - for a team whose interior defense is as piss-poor as that of the lakers to still be playing....
When Bryant got into foul trouble, the Lakers had to put one of their inferior defenders (Radmanovic) on Pierce. Pretty much a layup line at that point. That's why he got to the charity stripe so often.
P.J. Brown probably starts tomorrow and Glen Davis might even see minutes.
Lakers are primed to steal Game 6 with the short layover. The best of all possible conditions going into a very tough road elimination game. If we get through it successfully, Game 7 is up for grabs, and we have more championship experience than the Celtics (player and coaching wise).
Every situation is different, every historical 3-1, every historical 3-2, you have to take in all the available and relevant information, not just rely on statistics and history, because we've seen pretty recently in the Boston-New York baseball series that stats and history alone are not necessarily a solid predictor.
Lakers are primed to steal Game 6 with the short layover. The best of all possible conditions going into a very tough road elimination game. If we get through it successfully, Game 7 is up for grabs, and we have more championship experience than the Celtics (player and coaching wise).
How'd that work out for you?
Comments closed June 30, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
I thought this was going to be an easy series for the Lakers because I thought the key was that the Celtics had no way to defend Bryant.
It turns out that the key is that the Lakers have no way to defend Pierce.
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Methinks Phil Jackson has gotten a bit too old for the job.
Posted by Petey | June 16, 2008 12:39 AM