Almost a month ago, I posted my thoughts on the Lakers’ small forward situation. Last night, the problem reared its ugly head again.
In that post, I wrote the following:
I saw first-hand how [Vladimir] Radmanovic can shoot. He hit five or six straight threes in a playoff game when he was with the Clippers. But he is just lost defensively, and he doesn’t seem to be getting any better on that end of the court.
Radmanovic was 2-5 on the night, scoring five points and committing five fouls. He couldn’t keep up with Paul Pierce, especially at the beginning of the third quarter, when he allowed Pierce to score eight straight points (including an inexplicable four-point play), effectively squandering the Lakers’ five-point halftime lead.
The truth is that Radmanovic is in way over his head. He has no business starting in a NBA Finals or guarding Paul Pierce for any extended period of time. But his play is just a symptom of a bigger problem for the Lakers. Who can they trust to play alongside Derek Fisher, Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol?
They were outrebounded by 13 last night, so they could go big and bring in Ronny Turiaf, sliding Odom to small forward. But then you have three guys who can’t shoot from the perimeter (Gasol, Odom and Turiaf), which will effectively clog the lane and hinder Kobe’s penetration. Lately, they’ve been going with Kobe at the three and Sasha Vujacic at off guard, but he was pretty bad last night (2-7 from the field, 1-3 from long range), and if he’s not knocking down jumpers, there’s no reason to have him on the court.
It was pretty obvious that the Celtics’ bench looked a lot more comfortable last night. Playing at home helps, but I think it has to do more with the relative seasoning; James Posey has already won a ring with the Heat, while P.J. Brown and Sam Cassell are a combined 97 years old. As for the Lakers, Jordan Farmar and Luke Walton seem to have lost a ton of confidence (or Phil Jackson has lost confidence in them). The duo played a combined 21 minutes last night and took a total of three shots.
There has been a lot of talk about how Kobe is able to singlehandedly lift his team out of an offensive slump, but it didn’t happen last night. He was 9-26 on the night, and was 1-5 (for four points) in the fourth quarter. Boston did a nice job of throwing help at him all night, forcing him to pass or to take tough, contested shots. And when he did find a teammate for an open jumper, they didn’t make the Celtics pay.
