NBA Finals: Game 3
What do I know?
Based on everything I’ve said in this space and on NewsOK.com podcasts and videos not much when it comes to the NBA Finals. Almost every single prediction/bit of analysis I’ve made (tried to make) has been wrong in these first three games between the Celtics and Lakers. The latest example came in Tuesday night’s 87-81 Lakers win that finally turned these Finals into a series, one that Boston now leads 2-1.
On our weekly NBA in OKC podcast, recorded Tuesday morning, I said the Lakers had no answer for Paul Pierce, and he, more than anything, spells trouble for L.A. Boston’s All-Star forward then is held to six points on 2-for-14 shooting in 32 foul-plagued minutes, adding only six rebounds and three assists while committing three turnovers.
Before the series started I also said Lamar Odom was the player who would have the biggest impact on the series outside of Garnett and Kobe. As he goes, I figured, so go the Lakers. Wrong again. Odom has been 6-feet-11 inches of disappointment. You would think after Phil Jackson called him out for being “confused” in Game 2 he would step up — Not so much. Odom’s stat line in Game 3: Four points, 2 of 9 from the field, nine rebounds, four assists, five fouls and five turnovers. He’s now scored 28 points in three games. By comparison, Kobe Bryant had 36 in Game 3 alone. I can’t see the Lakers winning this series if Odom continues to have little to no impact on the offensive end.
When Sasha Vujacic is your second leading scorer (20 points) you’ve got a problem. The Lakers still need someone other than Kobe to step up offensively on a consistent basis. I thought that would happen when the series shifted coasts, but Odom and Pau Gasol (nine points) combined to score 13 points and commit eight of the Lakers’ 12 turnovers. Until someone other than Bryant breaks out for L.A., the Lakers will struggle to beat Boston because neither of these teams is that much better than the other.
Speaking of Vujacic, though, he’s the only thing I’ve been right about this entire series. I thought L.A.’s role players would make shots at home that they didn’t make on the road while the Celtics’ role players would miss looks they made in Boston. Vujacic was the only one to step up. Radmanovic, Fisher, Turiaf, Farmar, Walton and Ariza combined to miss 15 of 21 shots. On the other hand, Boston’s role players were less effective on the road just like I thought they’d be. The Celtics’ bench, which had played so well in Games 1 and 2, went just 5 of 22 from the field. Rondo was held in check even before the injury, and, with the exception of a few hustle plays early, Kendrick Perkins was invisible.
Give the Lakers credit for playing a much better defensive game. After allowing Boston to shoot 53 percent in Game 2, L.A. finally buckled down and held the Celtics to 35 percent shooting and did a better job of keeping them off the foul line. Boston had 22 free throw attempts Tuesday compared with 38 on Sunday. It’s not the prettiest style of play, which makes fans grumble, but if the Lakers have to make it ugly to focus on defense and secure a victory, so be it. I’m a believer that defense wins in the playoffs, when that fast-paced, up-and-down style disappears and it becomes a slow-down, grind-it-out type of game.
The good news for Boston is that seems to be a style they’re better suited for than L.A. While the Lakers play good team defense, they don’t have any quality man defenders in the regular rotation outside of Kobe and Fisher. Phil Jackson has to find a way to speed up the game and get the score in triple digits. L.A. was the fourth highest scoring team in the regular season at 108.5 points per game, and that’s when they become much more dangerous as a team. More often than not, when L.A. is playing games in the 80s and 90s their offense generally has stalled, leading the Lakers to defer to Kobe too much and that’s when we see those Kobe vs. the opponent type of games.
The good news for L.A. is they got a win. Sometimes all it takes is one to change the course of a series, and that first one can be awfully difficult to get. I’m not a big believer in momentum, but confidence can do wonders. The Lakers are now confident they can beat Boston. They might have thought they could beat the Celtics before Tuesday night, but thinking it and doing it are two totally different things.
Now is when I think the chess match really picks up between Doc Rivers and Phil Jackson. Look for adjustments, some subtle and some obvious, to determine which direction this series goes from here.
-DM-
NBA Finals: Game 2
If you didn’t know Leon Powe before Sunday night, I’m pretty sure you know him now. Boston’s second-year forward from Cal destroyed the Lakers in last night’s 108-102 Celtics’ Game 2 win. Powe scored 21 points on 6-for-7 shooting in just 15 minutes. At one point the guy had 18 points on 5-for-5 shooting in 12 minutes. Good thing ABC chose Powe for that heart wrenching halftime story about him once being homeless.
Powe’s game characterized the kind of night the Lakers had. Powe and the Celtics outhustled and outworked the Lakers on both ends for 3 1/2 quarters. Every time I looked up the Celtics were beating the Lakers to loose balls and offensive rebounds. The final rebound numbers (Boston 37 , L.A. 36) don’t begin to tell the story of how Boston came up with one offensive rebound after another during pivotal stretches of the game and used those second chances to keep the Lakers at bay.
What I took away from Game 2 is that the Lakers let another winnable road game slip away, and Boston showed again that they aren’t very good in closing out games the way they should. There is no excuse for Boston blowing a 22-point, fourth-quarter lead. As I wrote in my last post, I still think that ineffectiveness will hurt them in the end and Boston is extremely lucky L.A. couldn’t finish off that comeback last night. Instead of L.A. in six as I originally predicted, however, I’m now leaning toward L.A. in seven. I highly doubt the Lakers will win four straight games to take it in six, although it’s not unprecedented. The Heat did just that against Dallas in 2006.
The most important thing to take away from these first two games is the Lakers’ bench is awful. I said going into the series that I thought L.A. had the better bench. Boston’s bench, I figured, was too old and too one-dimensional. But Powe, P.J. Brown and James Posey have been fantastic and are proving they’re they better unit. Their one dimensions are proving to be perfect complements to the skills of Boston’s big three. The one guy who hasn’t shown up in the series yet is Sam Cassell. He played only six minutes last night and was essentially a non-factor. I think he’ll have a breakout game at some point. He always does.
The other significant thing I’ve noticed is L.A. doesn’t have an answer for Paul Pierce. Kobe Bryant is the best defender the Lakers can throw at him, but Bryant can’t dedicate too much energy on Pierce because of what the Lakers need him to do offensively. We did a podcast last week before the start of the series and one of the questions was, outside of Kobe and Kevin Garnett, who would have the biggest impact on the outcome of the Finals? I said Lamar Odom. I was wrong. Odom’s been held in check and Pierce has emerged as the Finals MVP through two games. The guy scores from anywhere on the court and is a matchup nightmare. No matter what happens the rest of the way, the Lakers have found out their biggest off-season need is a defensive stopper such as Tayshaun Prince, Bruce Bowen or Ron Artest. Not saying they’ll get any of those guys, but someone in that mold would be a great fit in L.A.
But it wasn’t just Pierce for Boston, KG, Ray Allen, Powe and Rajon Rondo all did whatever they wanted to do. The Lakers need to play better team defense. That’s the bottom line. Boston shot 53 percent! The free throw discrepancy was bad, 19-2 at the half and 38-10 for the game. But the Lakers first need to look themselves in the mirror and shore up their rickety defense before pointing to the officiating.
Lastly, I’m expecting a completely different series in L.A. The Lakers were 30-11 at home in the regular season, and we’ve seen the impact playing at home has had on these playoffs. The Celtics have also struggled on the road in the playoffs. That, coupled with the fact that role players typically play better at home than on the road, makes me think L.A. is fully capable of winning the next three games.
-DM-
NBA Finals: Game 1
A cousin text messaged me at the end of the third quarter of Game 1 of the NBA Finals and said it was the best game he’s ever seen. A stretch, no doubt, but still a very entertaining first game, especially when compared to the four stinkers the NBA offered up in last year’s championship series.
Boston 98, Lakers 88.
Considering all the history surrounding this series, and the hype that followed because of it, Game 1 definitely met expectations. I expect to see a very entertaining series the rest of the way.
I’m on record of predicting the Lakers in 6, and last night’s game only made me believe that prediction is closer to becoming a reality. Give Boston credit for doing what they had to do. But what stands out most to me was how the Celtics struggled to put away the Lakers, not the first time in the playoffs Boston has had difficulty sealing a win at home. The difference to me is the Lakers are the best team the Celtics have played thus far and that ineffectiveness will catch up to them in Game 2 or Game 6.
I thought the Lakers hurt themselves more than anything Boston did defensively. L.A. missed easy shots and committed costly unforced turnovers. The Lakers had only eight turnovers, but four of them came in the game’s final 16 1/2 minutes and three of those were the result of sloppy passes.
Kobe Bryant went 9 of 26 from the field, but he never appeared to be as aggressive as perhaps he should have been with his teammates struggling to make shots. He tried to make the smart play throughout most of the game but he could only do so much as long as his teammates weren’t hitting shots.
Which leads me to Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. They’ve got to have more of an impact on the game offensively. They both went 6 of 11 from the field, a good percentage, but Gasol had only three points after halftime and Odom had only seven after the break. Derek Fisher had 15 points, but only two of those came after halftime. And Vladimir Radmanovic was a waste of space last night, scoring five points with five rebounds and five fouls. Someone needs to step up and be a threat offensively for the Lakers other than Bryant. And I expect to see a much smoother offense from L.A. come Sunday.
On the other hand, Boston’s big three delivered, combining for 65 of the Celtics’ point total. It was good to see Paul Pierce come through the way he did in the third quarter following that injury. Pierce is a player who has gotten a bad rap for not winning much — he’s Boston teams have had a losing record in six of his 10 seasons – but I’ve always thought he was one of the most talented players in the league and really underrated and unheralded.
Meanwhile, Boston’s role players did enough to keep the Lakers from stealing a game they probably should have won. Going in, we knew bench play would be a key to the series and it’s a big reason why the Celtics won. L.A.’s Sasha Vujacic, Jordan Farmar, Luke Walton and Ronnie Turiaf scored a combined 15 points with seven rebounds, two assists and 11 fouls. Farmar and Walton, perhaps L.A.’s best two bench players, scored just two of those points with three rebounds, one assist and four fouls in a combined 20 minutes. They’re better than that.
Boston’s bench of P.J. Brown, James Posey, Sam Cassell and Leon Powe combined for 17 points, 12 rebounds, three assists and three steals. Brown and Posey didn’t shoot it well, combining to go 2 of 10, but they came up with all the hustle plays Boston needed to win this game.
I’d give L.A. the advantage in Game 2 simply because of coaching. I expect Phil Jackson to make better adjustments than Doc Rivers come Sunday and find a way to get the Lakers’ offense flowing. That happens and my prediction will be a step closer to becoming a reality.
-DM-
