All Hail The Celtics
If it is at all possible to have a six game sweep in the NBA Finals it happened last night. The only two games the Lakers won the Celtics were god awful in and they still nearly blew both games.
All playoffs long I was waiting for Gasol (who I don't like at all) and Odom (who I like a lot and was pulling for) to shit the bed and they certainly did this series. Not even Kobe could make up for the play of those two guys. Kobe just looked confused the past few games as if he wasn't sure who to pass the ball to. Which was entirely fair given nobody on the Lakers could hit an open jumper.
Not that Kobe escapes blame here. He should have been better, especially defensively on Pierce. But he also knew he was the only viable scoring threat his team had so he had to conserve energy on the defensive end. But enough with the Jordan comparisons. Jordan never would have blown a 24 point lead on his home court in the Finals and never would have allowed his team to get waxed by 39 in a decisive game. He also never would have admitted his team "wet the bed" in a press conference. He would have just given his team the "I'm going to kill you if you come within 30 feet of me" look and won the next two games.
The real breakthrough in this series was for Paul Pierce who was fantastic. He was involved in every big play and even defended Kobe well. He was the best player on a team whose best player was supposed to be Kevin Garnett. Garnett can thank Pierce for winning this thing because KG looked bad in this series and if they lost his reputation as a lousy playoff performer would have been impossible to shake.
Finally as I said before the best news of the Finals is that Boston, the best basketball town in the world, is once again relevant and excited about their team.
posted by Skeelo @ 1:01 PM
2 Comments:
Personally I didn't watch a lot of the playoffs. Once the Suns were out of it I lost interest in all but the finals. But the Euros on the Lakers have been trashed all over the media for their softness and overall lack of guts.
Is that a fair criticism or a case of Don Cherry Syndrome taking over the American sports media?
Interesting question. The main guy they would be talking about is Pau Gasol. As I have often said before I have never liked Gasol. I am always skeptical of a guy who is the best player on a consistently lousy team and has an 0-12 career playoff record (which Gasol did going into this year). Spain also won Gold when he was injured. I expected him to choke and he did. I'm not convinced that's because he's European because Lamar Odom always shrinks from the pressure too and did in this series (I really like the guy but can't defend him anymore).
Radmanovic didn't play any better or worse than he usually does so I can't say he choked and he is the number 7 or 8 option anyway so it doesn't matter if he did or didn't. Vujacic played really inconsistently but showed he at least cared by throwing tantrums and crying on the bench. Turiaf is technically French but he played hard, he's just not really a huge difference maker.
At the end of the day you have to point at Gasol and Odom. Without them playing well Kobe had to expend too much energy himself and he looked really worn down from Game 3 on. Like I said this was basically a 6 game sweep.
I think if anyone is saying Euros lack guts I would just point to Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili (South American but he would get lumped in) and a few years ago Toni Kukoc and Hakeeem Olajuown as guys who I would want on my team for a Game 7. Then I would point to guys like Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing and Chris Webber as American guys who were consistently terrible with big games on the line.
Post a Comment
<< Home