What I Saw
Two games that I was excited by but walked away feeling like the Celtics got lucky wins. The fourth quarter of Game 2 was the Lakers' best stretch of basketball so far in the series, and they made a 24-point deficit evaporate like ... something wet evaporating someplace dry and hot.
There's been a lot of whining about the free-throw disparity in Game 2, and I fully admit that, especially in the first half, the Celtics were the recipients of some bogus calls. The idea that the game was fixed in any purposeful way is horseshit, though, as can easily be seen by some of the incredibly egregious calls that the Lakers got in the second half: Vladimir Radmanovic taking four or five steps on a breakaway dunk, Lamar Odom saving a possession by bouncing the ball off of P.J. Brown's face when Brown was already on the ground and halfway out of bounds. The Lakers have had the benefit of egregious officiating in previous series, and I'm sure some bogus calls will go their way in L.A. The other thing is that the "points in the paint" stat gets shown up as misleading, because even though the Lakers did well by that traditional mark of aggressiveness, it's only a proxy measurement, and three-foot jump shots and an array of hook shots != aggressive. The Celtics went to the basket harder, period.
Also, on some other occasion I'll need to write about why I really really like watching Paul Pierce when he's on. Someone over at FreeDarko has described his game as "slovenly," which is creative and sort of on point if you're going to be as ungenerous as possible; this year, as in past years, the playoffs go a long way to reminding me why I actually kind of hate that site and don't know why I keep reading it. And it has nothing to do with the fact that they threaten to become yet another bastion of Boston haterdom, which is the sort of thing I know I shouldn't even talk about because it's like feeding the bully the attention he wants, but it's really not funny. Boston has been incredibly lucky with its sports teams in this decade, any worthwhile fan of the city's teams acknowledges that with equal parts grace and glee tempered by the scars from how bad the city's teams were in the 90s (and how bad the Patriots were for their entire existence, and the whole Red Sox thing). Everyone else is an asshole, Just Like Everywhere Else. (NB: I wouldn't go to the Staples Center to watch the telecast of Game 2 in a Celtics jersey, but Stay Classy, Los Angeles!) Rather than saying more pointlessness in that vein, anyone who thinks Pierce is some sort of a drama queen or intentionally faked his "injury" is insane. The guy went down, heard a weird noise, felt pain in his knee, and was afraid to put weight on it, which he was already doing by the time he arrived at the locker room. I presume he got carried out (instead of one-leg-limping) because his teammates were feeling overprotective. He is guilty of the standard athlete's genuflection to the Almighty in thanking God for sending him an angel to make sure everything was ok - and, all right, I kind of wouldn't be surprised if Pierce was hamming it up a bit *there* - but the guy was afraid and overreacted, minutes later realized that his knee hurt but he could play, and he came bouncing back. He neither invited nor created Willis Reed comparisons (which would be completely inappropriate anyway), and if you think he's the sort of guy who would fake an injury just to get attention and glory, why would he do it in the middle of Game 1, when his team was playing well and the stakes weren't, at the moment, particularly high? And, really, I shouldn't read comments on sports blogs because they are the work of the Devil's dullwitted brother in law, but all the comments like "Pierce went down crying because of all the sand in his vagina" are pretty (offensive, but additionally) silly when directed towards a guy who started all 82 games of the 2000-2001 season, which began less than two months after he had LUNG SURGERY to SAVE HIS LIFE AND REPAIR DAMAGE after being STABBED IN THE FACE AND NECK AND BACK ELEVEN TIMES. (He's also played on after getting a tooth knocked out mid-game, but the stabbing is usually a good trump card.)
Well, there's enough of the defensiveness. I think the Lakers learned a lot about what can be effective against Boston in the fourth quarter last night, and they're going home for three straight games (BULLSHIT), but the primary reasons they're down 0-2 should be as much cause for concern to them as Boston should be concerned that they could have won both these games easily but didn't: their frontline gives away a ton to Boston in terms of bulk and aggression, they haven't figured out a way to get Kobe his points in an efficient manner*, and they haven't devised a scheme that can slow down both Pierce and Kevin Garnett, both of whom are lesser talents than Kobe but even more unguardable in this particular series** despite not pushing to capitalize on that.
* The theory is that a player like Kobe is getting his 24-30 points, no matter what, but you're better off when he scores 30 points on 30 shots than when he scores 24 points on 14 shots. (Then there are the nights when he scores 40 points on 20 shots, but.)
** Kobe is the best two way player in the league and still in my opinion a hair better than LeBron, but the Celtics scheme has been able to handle him even though he's primarily being guarded by Ray Allen, which is not the matchup most people anticipated going into the series (I, and others, presumed the Cs would tag team him with Pierce and Posey); on the other hand, Kobe is always attacking, always looking, always making an aggressive decision. KG is massively disinclined to trade on his physical prowess for more than five minutes at a time, and settles for his (very pretty and quite effective) 18 foot jump shot far too often; even when it's falling, it's the kind of passive concession he shouldn't make. because nobody on the Lakers has the strength OR the agility to keep him from powering his way to the basket. Gasol comes closest, but he's best as a weakside defender coming over to block shots, not remotely suited to the challenge of slowing down a force like Garnett. Pierce, similarly, is just an impossible physical matchup for the Lakers, because in this series he classically falls into a niche: nobody fast enough is strong enough, and nobody strong enough is fast enough. He's not greased lightning by any means, not nearly as agile as Kobe, but his array of stutters and speed changes is more than enough to embarrass the Lakers' bigger defenders, and Kobe - the most logical matchup, and one I saw more of as the series has progressed - simply isn't big enough. They're about the same height, but PIerce is listed at 25 pounds heavier and whatever the truth of the listings it's obvious from looking at them that he's simply heavier and, in the way the matters for basketball, stronger. That his mini-rivalry with LeBron has seen some of his best work is the more impressive because LeBron's much better suited to slowing down Pierce's "big butt and free throws" style of dominance; Kobe's pretty much helpless trying to stop a Paul Pierce postup by himself.
There's been a lot of whining about the free-throw disparity in Game 2, and I fully admit that, especially in the first half, the Celtics were the recipients of some bogus calls. The idea that the game was fixed in any purposeful way is horseshit, though, as can easily be seen by some of the incredibly egregious calls that the Lakers got in the second half: Vladimir Radmanovic taking four or five steps on a breakaway dunk, Lamar Odom saving a possession by bouncing the ball off of P.J. Brown's face when Brown was already on the ground and halfway out of bounds. The Lakers have had the benefit of egregious officiating in previous series, and I'm sure some bogus calls will go their way in L.A. The other thing is that the "points in the paint" stat gets shown up as misleading, because even though the Lakers did well by that traditional mark of aggressiveness, it's only a proxy measurement, and three-foot jump shots and an array of hook shots != aggressive. The Celtics went to the basket harder, period.
Also, on some other occasion I'll need to write about why I really really like watching Paul Pierce when he's on. Someone over at FreeDarko has described his game as "slovenly," which is creative and sort of on point if you're going to be as ungenerous as possible; this year, as in past years, the playoffs go a long way to reminding me why I actually kind of hate that site and don't know why I keep reading it. And it has nothing to do with the fact that they threaten to become yet another bastion of Boston haterdom, which is the sort of thing I know I shouldn't even talk about because it's like feeding the bully the attention he wants, but it's really not funny. Boston has been incredibly lucky with its sports teams in this decade, any worthwhile fan of the city's teams acknowledges that with equal parts grace and glee tempered by the scars from how bad the city's teams were in the 90s (and how bad the Patriots were for their entire existence, and the whole Red Sox thing). Everyone else is an asshole, Just Like Everywhere Else. (NB: I wouldn't go to the Staples Center to watch the telecast of Game 2 in a Celtics jersey, but Stay Classy, Los Angeles!) Rather than saying more pointlessness in that vein, anyone who thinks Pierce is some sort of a drama queen or intentionally faked his "injury" is insane. The guy went down, heard a weird noise, felt pain in his knee, and was afraid to put weight on it, which he was already doing by the time he arrived at the locker room. I presume he got carried out (instead of one-leg-limping) because his teammates were feeling overprotective. He is guilty of the standard athlete's genuflection to the Almighty in thanking God for sending him an angel to make sure everything was ok - and, all right, I kind of wouldn't be surprised if Pierce was hamming it up a bit *there* - but the guy was afraid and overreacted, minutes later realized that his knee hurt but he could play, and he came bouncing back. He neither invited nor created Willis Reed comparisons (which would be completely inappropriate anyway), and if you think he's the sort of guy who would fake an injury just to get attention and glory, why would he do it in the middle of Game 1, when his team was playing well and the stakes weren't, at the moment, particularly high? And, really, I shouldn't read comments on sports blogs because they are the work of the Devil's dullwitted brother in law, but all the comments like "Pierce went down crying because of all the sand in his vagina" are pretty (offensive, but additionally) silly when directed towards a guy who started all 82 games of the 2000-2001 season, which began less than two months after he had LUNG SURGERY to SAVE HIS LIFE AND REPAIR DAMAGE after being STABBED IN THE FACE AND NECK AND BACK ELEVEN TIMES. (He's also played on after getting a tooth knocked out mid-game, but the stabbing is usually a good trump card.)
Well, there's enough of the defensiveness. I think the Lakers learned a lot about what can be effective against Boston in the fourth quarter last night, and they're going home for three straight games (BULLSHIT), but the primary reasons they're down 0-2 should be as much cause for concern to them as Boston should be concerned that they could have won both these games easily but didn't: their frontline gives away a ton to Boston in terms of bulk and aggression, they haven't figured out a way to get Kobe his points in an efficient manner*, and they haven't devised a scheme that can slow down both Pierce and Kevin Garnett, both of whom are lesser talents than Kobe but even more unguardable in this particular series** despite not pushing to capitalize on that.
* The theory is that a player like Kobe is getting his 24-30 points, no matter what, but you're better off when he scores 30 points on 30 shots than when he scores 24 points on 14 shots. (Then there are the nights when he scores 40 points on 20 shots, but.)
** Kobe is the best two way player in the league and still in my opinion a hair better than LeBron, but the Celtics scheme has been able to handle him even though he's primarily being guarded by Ray Allen, which is not the matchup most people anticipated going into the series (I, and others, presumed the Cs would tag team him with Pierce and Posey); on the other hand, Kobe is always attacking, always looking, always making an aggressive decision. KG is massively disinclined to trade on his physical prowess for more than five minutes at a time, and settles for his (very pretty and quite effective) 18 foot jump shot far too often; even when it's falling, it's the kind of passive concession he shouldn't make. because nobody on the Lakers has the strength OR the agility to keep him from powering his way to the basket. Gasol comes closest, but he's best as a weakside defender coming over to block shots, not remotely suited to the challenge of slowing down a force like Garnett. Pierce, similarly, is just an impossible physical matchup for the Lakers, because in this series he classically falls into a niche: nobody fast enough is strong enough, and nobody strong enough is fast enough. He's not greased lightning by any means, not nearly as agile as Kobe, but his array of stutters and speed changes is more than enough to embarrass the Lakers' bigger defenders, and Kobe - the most logical matchup, and one I saw more of as the series has progressed - simply isn't big enough. They're about the same height, but PIerce is listed at 25 pounds heavier and whatever the truth of the listings it's obvious from looking at them that he's simply heavier and, in the way the matters for basketball, stronger. That his mini-rivalry with LeBron has seen some of his best work is the more impressive because LeBron's much better suited to slowing down Pierce's "big butt and free throws" style of dominance; Kobe's pretty much helpless trying to stop a Paul Pierce postup by himself.
Labels: Basketball
posted by medrawt at
22:03
<< Home