Category: NBA Finals (Page 3 of 58)

      C’s in trouble without Perkins?

      June 17, 2010 /

      Neil Paine of Basketball Reference thinks so…

      We can really illustrate Perkins’ hidden importance by looking at the Plus/Minus numbers. When Perkins was on the court for Boston this season, the Celtics outscored their opponents by 7.2 points per 100 possessions; when he wasn’t playing, that number was only +0.2, a difference of -7 pts/100 poss.

      Meanwhile, Perkins’ Game 7 replacements, Rasheed Wallace and Glen Davis, don’t fare nearly as well by the WOWOY metrics. Despite Davis’ heroics in Game 4, he and Wallace have been Boston’s two worst players by net on/off rating during the playoffs. Wallace has been particularly toxic for the Celtics all season — the team played 5 pts/100 poss. worse when he was on the floor, as evidenced by his recurring appearance in the Celts’ worst lineup combinations. Davis & Wallace look better by the 4-year WOWOY regression (Davis is +1.36, Wallace is +0.47), but neither has the ability to positively impact the game the way Perkins does. Without his presence, and playing on the road (home teams win Game 7 80% of the time), the Celtics appear to be in dire straits tonight.

      Numbers aside, I tend to agree with Paine from a qualitative point of view. Kendrick Perkins is a really good post defender, better than Rasheed Wallace and much better than Glenn Davis. He is not the offensive player that either of those guys are, but when you’re part of a unit that includes the Big 3 and Rajon Rondo, you don’t have to be.

      Wallace has played some good post defense in these playoffs, but he tends to get into foul trouble, and that’s bad news for tonight, when the Celtics are so painfully thin on the front line. His three point range can stretch the defense, but he’s shooting 26% in the Finals and 35% in the postseason, so it’s not like his defender can’t help off of him. The Celtics need a 15/10 kind of a night from ‘Sheed if they hope to win Game 7.

      If he gets into early foul trouble and Boston is forced to play Shelden Williams major minutes, the Celtics will be in major trouble.


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      The pundits preview Game 7

      June 17, 2010 /

      Dr. Jack Ramsay, ESPN: If the Celtics are going to win Game 7, Rajon Rondo has to have a big game. He hasn’t shot the ball well the past two games. He needs to get all the way to the basket and finish. He has to penetrate, generate the transition offense and find the open receivers. Even when the Lakers are scoring, the Celtics have to find a way to run. Those opportunities are there if you are aware of them, and Rondo is a one-man fast break. Lately, Rondo has been too concerned with scoring instead of creating plays. He is Boston’s playmaker. His first objective should be to find open players. He has to find the wingmen — Paul Pierce and Ray Allen — so they can get open looks before the Lakers’ defense gets set.

      Bill Plaschke, LA Times: If the Lakers defeat the Boston Celtics in Game 7 of the NBA Finals at Staples Center, their second consecutive championship would give real life to the possibility that this group could stay together long enough to win two more and certify the Lakers as the greatest franchise in NBA history. If they lose, that hope dies here. If the Lakers win, Phil Jackson is paid, Derek Fisher is remembered, Lamar Odom and Ron Artest are forgiven, and everyone returns with a legitimate shot to win it again for each of the remaining four years on the core group’s contracts. If they lose, everyone runs for cover, and not everyone finds it.

      Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe: Take a good look at your Celtics when they break from their huddle and walk on the Staples Center court for Game 7 against the Lakers tonight. This will never happen again. Not with this group. Ray Allen might be gone next year. Paul Pierce could opt to leave this summer. Coach Doc Rivers says he’s not sure he’s coming back. Rasheed Wallace and Glen Davis are the only Celtic substitutes under contract for 2010-11. Even if by some chance they all return, they will never get to another Game 7 in the Finals. Allen and Kevin Garnett are 34, and their rookie-issue NBA tires are almost as bald as their heads. Pierce turns 33 this year. There are three other thirtysomethings on the bench. This is it. The last stand for the old guard.

      Jeff Miller, Orange County Register: Kobe Bryant doesn’t need to win this NBA championship. Not for any legacy, validation or argument about his greatness. Bryant’s legacy is as golden as the jersey he’ll be wearing in Game 7. He could retire during the national anthem Thursday and they’d still build him a statue outside Staples Center… His greatness cannot be questioned any more successfully than his fadeaway jumper still can be defended. Bryant has won four championships and, just for emphasis, done so with two distinctively different teams.

      Howard Bryant, ESPN: Game 7 will be what basketball is: a superstar’s game. There are two in this Finals series: Kobe Bryant and Paul Pierce. Whether it is directly by their star play or indirectly by facilitating the productivity of their teammates, by foul trouble or by an outright bad night, the NBA championship will be decided by which one of those two imposes his will longer and more effectively on the game.


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      The Finals, Game 6: A good ol’ fashioned ass-whuppin’

      June 15, 2010 /

      Ever since I saw the schedule for these Finals, I’ve been writing about how the aging Celtics would react to having to fly cross country and play on only one day’s rest. They looked sluggish in Game 3 after a quick turnaround from Game 2, and in Game 6, just two days after Game 5 in Boston, it looked like they never got out of the airport.

      This game isn’t quite over, but it has been decided. The Lakers’ defense showed up tonight and that helped their offense, which in turn kept the Celtics at a slower pace. Boston looked out of sync all night, and that was mainly due to the effort and positioning of the Laker defense.

      The Laker bench also played well — as of this post, the L.A. bench is outscoring the Boston bench 24-11.

      What else is there to say? Kobe needed someone else to step up and pretty much the entire team responded. Both teams are a man down — Kendrick Perkins played only seven minutes before suffering a knee injury, while Andrew Bynum only managed 12 minutes before the Lakers shut him down.

      Okay, now it’s a final: Lakers 89, Celtics 67.

      I would expect a much better effort from the Celtics in Game 7, mostly because they can’t play much worse. They’ll have a full 48 hours to read about how badly they played, while the Lakers will be riding high.

      It’s funny how the momentum in these seven-game series can change on a dime.


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      The state of the Lakers

      June 15, 2010 /

      Adrian Wojnarowski writes that Kobe Bryant was rightfully furious after the Lakers Game 5 loss Sunday evening.

      On his way into the losing locker room, the most angry man in the Garden was heard to bellow a spontaneous stream of curses into the ears of his Los Angeles Lakers. As the door slammed behind them, a witness heard Kobe Bryant(notes) screaming that he needed some-bleeping-one to make a stand with him.

      “We’ve regressed since Game 1,” Bryant confessed to Yahoo! Sports. “Our defense belongs on milk cartons in the last two games.”

      Everyone wonders how Bryant goes about these next hours until Game 6 at the Staples Center. On the eve of Game 1, Bryant told me how the development of these Lakers, their growth, allowed him to channel his aggression, his time, into his own game. Two years ago, Bryant said, the Lakers weren’t good enough to beat the Celtics. He hated losing to them, but he could live with it. This one, he’ll take to his grave. This one, he’ll never get over.

      All that screaming in the locker room, all that angst over a Game 5 that felt like ’08 again, and Bryant stopped walking and stood for a moment. He had to start building back these Lakers, building back the fragility of a defending champion on the brink of elimination.

      His eyes narrowed now, his lips stiffened, and Kobe Bryant would say late in this chase for a back-to-back championship, “Listen, if you told me at the beginning of the year that we’ve got two games at home to win a championship, yeah, I’ll take that [bleep].”

      There has always been an interesting dynamic between Kobe and his teammates. As long as they keep winning, he’s generally happy, but when the chips are down he lashes out like a black mamba. Certain people, like Derek Fisher, can take it as motivation and play a great Game 6, but I wonder how someone like Ron Artest, who hasn’t been in the foxhole with Kobe before, is going to react to the mounting pressure. It’s not just that the Lakers might lose, it’s that Kobe might lose, and that might be worse.

      What is going through his teammates’ heads when the game is on the line? Are they wondering if Kobe approves of this shot or doesn’t approve of that shot? Are they afraid to make mistakes for fear of the tongue-lashing that they’ll no doubt get on the way to the bench? Or do they somehow transform his criticism into toughness and good play?

      I guess we’ll find out tonight.


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