Why the Celtics will win…

 

• Their front court is far more physical than the Lakers’. Kendrick Perkins is a freak who is starting to really see his potential. He really was the unsung star in the two games against the Lakers this year as he ####ed guys around in the paint and gobbled up rebounds. And that was before the Lakers got a little softer by losing Bynum and getting Gasol. Odom and Garnett are about equally prone to #### down low. But Pierce can eat up Radmonovic on the block and on the glass. Posey is a hard-nosed guy, as is PJ Brown. Save for Ronny Turiaf, the Lakers primarily bring skill guys off the bench.
• They have home court advantage in a 2-3-2 setup. I can’t emphasize the last part of that enough. I really feel the 2-3-2 setup is stupid (why change it for the last round?) and that it gives a clear advantage to the favorite. As the underdog, it’s tough enough to split the first two games, but even if you do, winning the middle three straight is nearly impossible. Don’t get me wrong, it can be done. The Pistons, notably, did it against the Lakers in 2004, winning game 1 in LA and coming home to finish them off in 5. But in the 2-2-1-1-1 format, the underdog can take game 6 at home. Here, if the Lakers split in Boston and lose one of the 3 games at home, they need to win either the game 6 or the game 7 in Boston, and that seems like a tall order.

   

• Paul Pierce loves to play the Lakers. For some reason, Paul Pierce relishes playing his hometown Lakers. It’s not just his scoring that sees a bump, but his defense is noticeably more focused and he makes a concerted effort to make aggressive moves to the basket. He and Kobe have essentially cancelled each other out in most games head to head. Not too many guys can say that.

   

• Kobe Bryant plays terribly (for his standards) against the Celtics. Sure, Kobe’s put up big numbers against them, but look at his shooting percentages. One game in particular sticks out to me. Kobe set his personal record for FGA in a game with 47 (!) against the Celtics in 2002, but only scored 40 points on those 47 shot attempts. In two games this year, Kobe again shot terribly and seemed to be forcing shots. Kobe’s personal feuds with PP and Ray Allen seem to get him to lock in on shooting and forgetting what has made the Lakers successful this season and that’s him spreading the wealth. And in all the games I’ve ever watched Kobe play, he only seems to have problems guarding and being guarded by 2 players: one is LeBron James, the other is Paul Pierce.

   

• Fisher has problems with quick point guards, and Rondo is about as quick as they come. I will admit Fisher did a pretty good job on Iverson and on Tony Parker, two pretty quick guys. But I was truly confounded that Iverson and Parker settled for as many jumpers as they did when Fisher notoriously has problems staying in front of quick guards all the way to the hoop. Rondo, because he simply can’t shoot, is unlikely to make the same mistake.

   

• The Lakers’ sole backup at the 4 and 5 spot is Ronny Turiaf. Ouch. Not to say Ronny isn’t useful; he is very useful and is a huge burst of energy off the bench. But against a team with a physical rebounding frontcourt like the Celtics, this may be an issue if Pau and WHEN Lamar gets into foul trouble. I guarantee at least 2 games where Lamar has to sit early in the 2nd after picking up an early 3rd foul.

   

• The Celtics slow it down and play terrific help defense. Saying “Defense wins championships” is so cliché that it’s cliché to SAY that it’s cliché. But dig deeper and it’s not just defense wins championships but slower paced defensive teams win championships. Fast break, high scoring offenses don’t often succeed this deep in the playoffs. Ask the Suns and the Warriors. Granted, the Lakers play better defense than these two clubs and run a pretty efficient half-court offense, but they love to get out in the break and run it. The Celtics, I have a feeling, won’t let them run very much. This is a defensive minded team with defensive genius Tom Thibideau as a key assistant coach. They were the top defensive team in the league this season, and the Lakers will have to grind it out much like they did against the Spurs.

   

• The Boston Three Party are looking for their first ‘chip. These guys will be going at it hard as they are hungry and can smell it now. All three are at the apex or just past the apex of their careers and this might be their best shot to win it all.

   

• Ray Allen woke up at the right time. Just as people were starting to write him off, he comes through with a huge game 5 in Boston to make people remember that he’s still got something left in the tank.

   

• Boston has settled down as the competition has gotten stiffer. After flailing through two 7 game series against two huge underdogs, they finally tuned things up against the Pistons, by far their best opponent to that point. That’s good news for the Green Machine as they head to the NBA Finals against a Lakers team that is better yet.

   

• The Lakers have to start off on the road. How will the young group respond to a challenge they have not yet seen?

   

 

Why the Lakers will win…

 

• Phil Jackson can coach. In case you haven’t noticed, this man can run a basketball squad. He brings the most out of every member of his team and his confidence carries over into his players. He gets them mentally and physically ready, and he can do the X’s and O’s with the best of them. He’s won 9 rings and lost once in the Finals. Only Gregg Popovich is on Phil’s level in all facets of coaching.

   

• Doc Rivers is a questionable coach. Whereas Phil Jackson is likely to put shiny new objects on his fingers at the end of seasons, Doc seems like the kind of guy who would get distracted by shiny objects. The biggest mistake Doc has made this season has come here in the playoffs, as he’s totally #### around with his rotation. Guys don’t know if they’re playing or not or what kind of minutes they will or will not see. Poor Leon Powe is looking over his shoulder constantly for fear of being yanked for a tiny mistake, despite the fact that he is probably the Celtics most effective bench player except maybe James Posey. Doc has put too much faith in the old guys (Cassell, Brown) and not enough in the young ones (Powe, Glen Davis, Eddie House) and has said some questionable things in the media about his team and his players.

   

• The Lakers are young but have grown together and have leaders who have been here. This Lakers squad, save for Pau Gasol and Derek Fisher, has been through 3 tough years together, growing closer as a unit and growing as individuals and as a team. Fisher and Kobe have been to the promised land along with Phil and his staff, and Luke Walton has played in the Finals as a rookie. These guys know their roles, they feel comfortable doing what they’re asked to do and they know how to eek out tough games. Plus, these guys really like each other. As in, they’re actually good friends. The chemistry of this team might be unparalleled in the league.

   

• The Lakers have proven they can win against all manners of opponents. Along the way, they’ve defeated the run-’n-gun Denver Nuggets, the physical and precise Utah Jazz, and the slow, grind-it-out, defensive-minded, former NBA Champion Spurs. They just figure out ways to win. Credit the coaching staff for this one.

   

• Kevin Garnett might just pass out in the 4th quarter of a close game. I love KG. Love him. But he’s wound so tightly and is so intense throughout the season, he can’t turn it up to another level if he’s always at max intensity. Unlike Spinal Tap’s amp, he can’t go to 11. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s going to blow it big time at the end of one game during the Finals.

   

• The Lakers now have Pau Gasol. And Lakers fans are quick to remind Celtic fans of this point. Pau may not be the most rugged guy in the league but he brings so much to the table. Everyone knows what he brings to the offensive end: terrific court vision, passing, a solid post game and an excellent face-up game from 15 feet in. His defense on Tim Duncan went mostly unnoticed because he’s quickly dismissed as a poor defender, but he did quite a job against the Big Fundamental. It’s easy to see Timmy’s series averages of 22, 17 and 5 and think that Pau got destroyed, but Pau made him work for those points and Gasol’s length bothered TD into shooting a very un-Duncan like 42.6% for the series. In fact, Duncan never shot above 50% in any of the 5 games. That’s borderline miraculous. This isn’t to say Pau is better than Tim, or KG for that matter, but he’s certainly a LOT closer to their level than Kwame. Pau will make KG work for his.

   

• The Celtics have struggled against all 3 playoff opponents. Yes, they performed better against the Pistons. But the hobbled Pistons have been in need of an infusion of life and youth for a while and just looked tired and old against the Celtics. Struggling against those Pistons and against LeBron and the Pips is bad enough, but struggling against the sub-.500 Hawks is just inexcusable. The Celtics have looked dominant at times and like a bunch of scared rookies at others. At this point, it’s tough to call which team comes out to play in the Finals.

   

• 20 and 15. That’s the number of playoff games the Celtics and Lakers have played respectively this postseason. The Lakers are younger to begin with, and should be plenty fresh. Because of 3 quick series, having that extra rest during a long, arduous season could be just the boost they need and just the boost the Celtics might be wishing they could have had.

   

• Benches. The Celtics bench isn’t shabby – Posey, Powe, Davis, House, Brown and Cassell form a pretty good second unit. But the Lakers is better and more in tune with each other. Farmar, Vujacic, Walton, and Turiaf. At this point, it’s not the depth of the bench, it’s the quality of it. All teams go to 8, maybe 9 man rotations in the playoffs, and the Lakers 6-9 guys are better than that of the Celtics. And as I mentioned before, Phil Jackson actually knows how to use his bench.

   

• Tony Allen is not 100%. I know people don’t think this matters, but it does. He was key in slowing down Bryant earlier this year and would have been a big lift for them should Ray or Paul struggle to contain Kobe.

 

My prediction: Celtics in a nail-biting 7th game. The glaring lack of bodies down low for the Lakers will kill them on the backboards and for the first time in months, they’ll really miss Andrew Bynum. Paul Pierce will be the MVP of the series, averaging 27, 7, and 4 and knocking down a killer three in one of the Celtic wins. Phil Jackson will make adjustments and Kobe will win a game for them but it’s not going to quite be enough as Pierce simply cannot be stopped. I also predict James Posey will have a huge series.

 

This is my gut feeling. If I’m right, I’m right. But I’d love to be wrong! Go Lakers! Make us proud!

Kobe’s maturation and leadership. Pau’s interior presence. Lamar’s rediscovered confidence. Fisher’s calming influence. The unity and energy of the Lakers’ bench. Mitch Kupchak’s shrewd moves. Heck, Chris Wallace’s stupid moves. I’ve read a lot of stories explaining the reason for the Lakers’ success this season, all of them correct to a degree. They, of course, make the Lakers who they are. But it’s so easy to overlook the biggest reason for the Lakers success because he’s only doing what’s always been expected of him. He’s used to all this – and we’re used to him being used to it. We even forget he’s there. We forget about Phil Jackson.

 

 

 

People love to hate Phil, almost as much as they love to hate Kobe. But just like Kobe, they secretly wish he was working for their franchise. Everyone knows the rap against him – he only wins because he always has great players. He’s handed ready made teams. The growing up happens before he gets there. He just sits there and does nothing during games. It’s incredible that a man who has coached 9 championship teams, owns the most playoff wins in NBA history and the greatest winning percentage of all time would need to prove himself, but there he stands, still unproven to many. Not that he cares. Phil’s motivation is his own. But the questions and doubts linger, unfair as they may be.

 

 

 

Phil’s 1:9 ratio of Coach of the Year awards to championship rings has to be the worst ever – a dubious distinction that he’ll probably always own. For historical perspective, Don Nelson’s ratio is 3:0. (Math nerds: please don’t correct me on the impossibility of zero as a denominator, thank you very much). The point is Phil’s consistent excellence is overshadowed by the exciting coaches whose surprise teams overachieve (Doc Rivers, Sam Mitchell) or shoot their load in the regular season (Mike D’Antoni, Avery Johnson, Del Harris). And perhaps that’s the greatest compliment Phil can receive – we just expect greatness from him. But it doesn’t do historical justice to a man that has deserved more recognition than has been sent his way.

 

 

 

So here Phil is, once again, in the NBA Finals, for the 11th time as a coach. But, as even he has admitted, this one feels different. For all his greatness and for all his rings, this current 3 year stint with the Lakers may be his greatest coaching achievement yet, simply because it’s been unexpected and he’s done all the things people said he couldn’t do. In short, he’s answered the critics.

 

 

 

Only wins with ready-made teams? He took 2004-2005’s 34-48 Lakers (who proceeded to make the team WORSE by trading their second best player, Caron Butler, for Stone-Hands Stone-Brains Kwame right before Jackson’s arrival) and led them to the playoffs right away, and within 3 years turned them into 2007-2008’s Western Conference NBA Finals representative. Check.

 

 

 

Can’t develop young players? I present to you Luke Walton (2003 Draft), Sasha Vujacic (2004), Andrew Bynum (2005), Ronny Turiaf (2005), and Jordan Farmar (2006). Besides Andrew Bynum, a raw teenage project, all these picks were in the 20s or later and two of these picks, Walton and Turiaf, were second rounders. Huge check. (And a pat on the back of the scouting team).

 

 

 

Can’t stretch an overmatched and under-talented team to play beyond people’s expectations? Does taking an Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion and 2-time MVP Steve Nash led team to 7 games with Kwame Brown, Smush Parker and Luke Walton as 3 of the 5 starters count? I’d say that’s a check.

 

 

 

It’s hard for him to do more, but I can’t shake the feeling that the detractors will still be there, doubting, hating. Should the Lakers win, the “He only wins championships because he has great players” argument will inevitably arise, despite the sheer idiocy of the statement. It’s the price you pay for being on top. Phil might never win the minds of his critics, but at least he continues to win where it counts.

I knew the Pau Gasol trade caused ripples throughout the NBA, but I did not foresee it scaring the bejeezus out of teams as it apparently has done to the Suns. As rumor has it, Shaq is going to Phoenix for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this.

As far as the Suns front office goes, I can understand why they think they'd need to do this on the surface. But for every seemingly valid reason, I can't help but doubt it in the end.

1) Nash is 34 (as of tomorrow) and his window is closing.
     Yes, Nash is getting older and his back is some reason for concern. However, his output would seem to indicate otherwise. His PER almost identical to the last three years, two of which he won the MVP. If you look at the overall picture, he's actually IMPROVED with age. His window seems to still be wide open.
2) Amare isn't a center and getting a true center will save him the fouls he gets at the C position.
    Maybe. But I'm not sure. I think the logic is good, but the player is wrong. Shaq is a foul machine himself (1 foul every 7 minutes). If anything, I wonder if Amare will have to not only make up for Shaq's defensive limitations to come over to block shots, but also recover for whoever Shawn Marion would have been guarding. Marion is an overrated defender, but he's still better than Grant Hill and Boris Diaw. Shaq has always been susceptible to the pick and roll, and teams know this. Getting Shaq out top fully defeats the purpose of acquiring him to plug up the lane. If they got him to counter Bynum, good luck. Bynum's most effective rolling hard and quick to the cup - exactly what Shaq is not. If they got him to counter Duncan, frankly, Timmy has owned Amare AND Shaq in the post. Shaq's just not the defensive presence he used to be and I don't see him helping Amare that much. Instead, now they're below average defensively at 4 of the 5 positions (only Raja is above average and he's replaced by Barbosa, who, as a 1 on 1 defender is average at best). This will have to be a gambling team, hoping to create turnovers off of steals. Those kinds of teams don't generally make it far in the playoffs.
3) The playoffs are a halfcourt style game, where the game slows down and big men are a premium. Thus as currently constructed, a title is out of reach so the risk is worth it.
    So, the system that has made you so successful is going to be abandoned? This team won 60+ games the last two years, is on pace for another 60(ish), and made the Western Conference finals two of the last 3 years, and probably should have been in the finals last year (ahem, Robert Horry). I've heard it argued that Shaq will be the inbounder and you don't need 5 guys to run a break. Ok, well, first I find it amusing that it's automatically assumed they'll be INBOUNDING the ball and not REBOUNDING the ball. Anyway, Marion was the best guy on the team besides Amare for finishing those breaks. He fit the system perfectly and the system was working. Traditionally, teams keep their core intact and build towards a championship after several years of failure. If this crew couldn't do it this year, I could understand the move, but right now, it just doesn't seem to be worth the risk.
4) Shaq will be rejuvenated by his return to contender status.
    This is probably true. For a short while. But all reports show he's still not recovered from his injury. The safe bet is, he'll be injured again. Even in his prime, injuries were constant concern. All the rejuvenation in the world doesn't heal old and creaky, and Shaq is only getting older and creakier.
5) Financially, this is better because Marion doesn't have to be extended.
    Well, Marion didn't have to be extended anyway and his contract ends in 2009. Shaq's goes to 2010, by which time you're almost guaranteed he'll be a huge albatross around the team's neck, whereas Marion would at least still be young and spry.
6) Shaq helps match up with the big Western Conference teams.
    True. But they also now match up better with you. Your biggest advantage - quickness, speed and athleticism - is diminished. I think Marion is a better fit.
7) Marion is a malcontent and a cancer who needs to be traded.
    Malcontent, yes. But he's always been that way. He's never felt like he got his due. But it never affected his play on the court. An pouting Marion is still better than a happy yet creaky Shaq (who will, inevitably, become a pouting and creakier Shaq).

In the end, I could be very wrong about all of this. Maybe the frontline of Shaq, Amare and Hill is big enough to match up with Odom, Gasol and Bynum. Maybe Shaq, now motivated, has his ailments suddenly disappear and he works himself frantically to get in better shape. Maybe Nash can get Shaq the ball in positions where he can be effective again. Yes, maybe. I just have my doubts.

As poet and philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” No fan base should be more cognizant of this than that of the Lakers. After the acquisition of Pau Gasol, the automatic assumption on the part of so many Lakers fans that the title is on its way to Tinseltown is ignorant at best, and arrogant at worst. If anything, Lakers fans should know better than any fanbase that games aren't won on paper. Or need I bring up the names of 4 future hall of famers who played for a certain 03-04 Lakers squad?

If Lakers fans have blocked out the memory of that humiliation, then how about a more recent case? Does the 2008 New England Patriots ring loud enough? Was there a surer thing than that team? For months, the fans of other cities had to endure the incessant squaking of Bostonites, as they assumed that the destiny of the Lombardi trophy was to rest in Brady's Midas-like hands.

As a Lakers fan myself, I'm not saying we shouldn't be excited about this trade. We should be. The buzz in Los Angeles is something unfelt since the Lakers were building up towards their first championship run in 2000, when 45-year-old soccer moms, 18-year-old punk-rockers and 30-year-old trade-brokers were all flying Lakers flags on their car windows. Hell, even if we didn't get Gasol, trading Kwame for a drunken version of C3PO would have been cause for celebration. But I cringe when I read posts trashing the chances of other squads which range from the good (Golden State, Cavs, Houston, Denver) to the very good (Jazz, New Orleans, Mavericks) to the excellent (Spurs, Suns, Celts, Pistons). If you noticed, I named 8 Western Conference teams there. If you throw in Portland (who I still believe is overachieving somewhat) and the Lakers (and it's still unclear which category they'll fall into), something has got to give and NOTHING is a given.

I don't mean to be Debbie Downer here, but let's, as Lakers fans, show some humility and class and let the season play out. This should be one of the greatest finishes to a regular season in NBA history, and we should be grateful the Lakers are right in the mix. We're a city that prides itself on its championship banners, as we should be. But it's the excitement of the challenging matchups along the way that makes the season memorable and the victories sweet. Let's not demean the quality of our rival cities' teams, as it, in the end, only diminishes the quality of our own.