Category: Fantasy Basketball (Page 96 of 274)

Kobe’s excellent third quarter goes to waste

June 14, 2010 / John Paulsen

The third period in Game 5 was the best offensive quarter of the night, with the two teams combining for 54 of the game’s 178 points (~30% of the game’s points). The first half of the third quarter was particularly entertaining, as Kobe scored an astounding 17 points in six minutes. He added two free throws with 4:52 to play, so until Pau Gasol’s bucket with 2:15 to play in the period, Kobe was the only Laker to score.

While this tremendous run kept the Lakers in the game, it took Kobe’s teammates out of the flow of the offense. It’s tough for a team to find an offensive rhythm when one guy shoots every time down the floor.

For their part, the Celtics withstood Bryant’s onslaught by scoring 19 points of their own in the first six minutes of the period. Here’s how the scoring broke down: Paul Pierce (9), Kevin Garnett (4), Ray Allen (2), Rajon Rondo (2) and Kendrick Perkins (2).

So in total, there were 36 points scored in the first half of the third quarter. To put this into perspective, if the two teams had played at that pace the entire game, the final score would have been 152-136.

Kobe was en fuego, but he was visibly frustrated about the fact that the Lakers couldn’t get a stop. It doesn’t do much good to be on fire if the other team is on fire as well.

The series moves back to L.A. for Game 6 on Tuesday, which is a quick turnaround for the older Celtics. How will the 30+ crowd react to the cross country flight and just one day’s rest? The last time the two teams traveled like this, the Lakers looked fresher and won Game 3 in Boston.

My prediction? I think the younger Lakers regroup in Game 6 and even the series at 3-3. In a deciding Game 7 in L.A., I have to go with the Lakers, even though I’m (grudgingly) rooting for the C’s.

The key is Ray Allen — since hitting eight of his first nine threes in Game 2, he has gone 0-for-18 from 3PT. For a career 39.6% three-point shooter, that streak is pretty astounding. The Celtics are going to need him to find his touch if they hope to close out the series in L.A.

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The Finals, Game 5: Celtics up 3-2 heading back to L.A.

June 13, 2010 / John Paulsen

Here’s where the 2-3-2 format in The Finals gets really interesting. With a 92-86 win in Game 5 behind a big 27-point effort from Paul Pierce, the Celtics are in position to close out the Lakers, but they’ll have to do it at the Staples Center.

Pierce was amazing offensively, hitting 12-of-21 shots from the field, which mostly offset Kobe Bryant’s 38 points. The Lakers only had one other player in double figures (Pau Gasol, 12-12), and Kobe grew visibly frustrated as the fourth quarter wore on.

Along with Pierce, Rajon Rondo (18-8-5) controlled this game for Boston. He made four huge plays late in the game, including two steals (though curiously, he was only credited for one in the game), a timely tip-in on an offensive rebound and a very nice catch and layup on a late pass from Pierce. Kevin Garnett (18-10-3) and Ray Allen (12-3-2) also played well for the Celtics.

Heading back to L.A. it will be interesting to see if the Lakers can turn things around. So much momentum swings with one game, and now that the Celtics have won three of the last four, the Lakers will be feeling the pressure. If they can rally together and win Game 6, they’ll regain control of the series.

A couple of other random thoughts from the game:

– Jeff Van Gundy had a great line about Derek Fisher’s propensity to flop. Mike Breen said that Fisher did a nice job of selling the call. Van Gundy responded, “If I never hear ‘selling’ and ‘basketball game’ together again, I’ll be happy.”

Breen: “Veterans know how to sell.”

Van Gundy: “How do you fool…these guys have all refereed this guy for 14 years. They know every time he goes up it looks like there’s sniper fire in the building.”

Classic.

– There was a weird sequence between Pierce and Rondo at the end of the first half. The Celtics were running the clock down and Pierce felt that Rondo “looked him off.” As Rondo started to penetrate into the lane (and looked to pass the ball to Pierce again), Pierce was already walking towards the Celtics’ bench in frustration, wiping his hand away at Rondo in dismissal. When asked about it moments later by Doris Burke, Pierce said he wasn’t upset when it was very obvious that he was.

That play was the opposite of ubuntu. What if the Celtics had lost by one point and that play could have made the difference between Boston winning and losing? Why is Pierce pouting about not getting the ball on a play like that?

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Fact-checking Tim Donaghy

June 12, 2010 / John Paulsen

Tim Donaghy is still around, mostly because he’s in financial trouble and is trying to find a way to parlay his history of gambling on (or fixing?) NBA games into some semblance of a post-officiating career. Henry Abbott put together a nice post about Donaghy that seems to debunk much of what he has said.

* Donaghy recalls a conversation he had on the court with Phil Jackson that Jackson tells ESPN’s J.A. Adande never happened.
* He describes relationships between Allen Iverson and referees Steve Javie (who he says hated Iverson) and Joe Crawford (who was allegedly a fan) that biased their calls, and made picking Iverson games easy ways to make money. But those betting rules, in fact, would not have led to winners.
* He told a stirring tale of locker room run-in with Charles Barkley, but Barkley told ESPN’s Mark Schwarz no such thing occurred.
* The three palming violations Donaghy remembers in some detail that were really two.
* He wrote that he won bets relying on Dick Bavetta’s habit of keeping games close, but looking at scores proved betting like that would not win you money.
* He described in some detail the friendship between referee Joe Forte and then-Grizzlies coach Mike Fratello, which inspired him to pick Fratello’s team to beat the spread when Forte reffed. But in that period, Fratello’s teams beat the spread less than half the time.

Even Donaghy’s publisher has severed ties with him.

Generally speaking, I don’t think there is a lot of game-fixing going on. To err is to be human, and NBA referees make a LOT of bad calls. It doesn’t mean they’re doing it on purpose. It’s an impossible job to do perfectly.

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Glen Davis and Nate Robinson’s funny postgame interview [video]

June 12, 2010 / John Paulsen

Want to know how it feels when you’re a reserve and you have a direct impact on the outcome of Game 4 of the NBA Finals? Watch this video of Nate Robinson and Glen Davis. They don’t hold anything back…

There is definitely a different mindset as a starter versus a reserve. As a starter, you expect to be in the game at crunch time and are prepared to play with the game on the line. There will be games where you decide the outcome.

As a reserve, you go in and do your thing, but you’re usually pulled with five or six minutes remaining (or earlier) because the coach wants to get his starters back in. Doc Rivers made the decision to let a unit that featured four bench players continue to play deep into the fourth quarter because they were performing so well. Both Davis and Robinson admitted that they kept looking at the clock wondering when they were going to get pulled.

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