Wednesday, June 4, 2008

The NBA Playoffs, where "Garnett and Gatorade.. again.." happens

A one-for-two effort for the conference finals. Could have been better, could have been worse, haha. My team, the Spurs, is gone, and now I have to put up with some of the most out-of-control over-the-top gushing from Laker fans and the media that I've ever seen. Patience is a virtue.

The Celtics have apparently rediscovered how to win on the road. From the start it was a mystery to me why they suddenly couldn't win on the road. In fact, it's a mystery why anyone has trouble playing on the road. Are professional athlete's the most mentally fragile individuals alive? Think about it - their play is dramatically affected by whether or not there are a bunch of people standing around them cheering for them. The knowledge that their fans exist somewhere is not enough - the crowd must be right on top of them. Good thing this isn't the pattern for all other professional jobs: "Sorry, boss, I totally crumbled at the end of my presentation because I didn't feel comfortable being away from my office. Next time send some of my co-workers with me for emotional support."

I've never seen the media miss the ball so entirely as during the Lakers/Spurs series. First, they went with the Lakers because the Spurs were "too old." Well, the oldest players on the Spurs actually played quite well. Brent Barry - 23 points in one of the games and an all-around solid performance for the series. The key to the entire series - the single reason the Spurs lost - was the disappearance of Manu Ginobili. And please don't hand all the credit on a silver platter over to the Lakers defense. It was decent, but nothing Ginobili hadn't encountered and had success against numerous times before. Obviously, his ankle was giving him some trouble - in game 5 Doug Collins pointed out how he was losing his balance and had no lift around the basket. Think about it. There were three games that could have gone either way, and each occurred without any contribution from Ginobili. If he had done anything, the Spurs probably win at least one or two and possibly all of those games. Their problem the whole series was they went cold during crunch time. And who on the Spurs has the role of creating a shot and coming up with a clutch basket in crunch time? No thanks to any of the media for asking. Answer: Manu Ginobili. This series was significantly closer than the media portrayed it.

Now, everyone is falling over each other to hand the championship to the Lakers, without a second thought. But stop and think. You do have to give the coaching nod to Phil Jackson. But on the floor, what advantage do the Lakers have besides Kobe? LA had enough trouble with the Spurs setup of an injured Ginobili and a bunch of spot-up shooters. What about a Pierce/revived Allen combination? Kevin Garnett will probably command a double-team, freeing up Boston's array of shooters - Pierce, Allen, Posey, House, possibly Cassell, and even Rondo recently. You can forget about the rebounding edge that the Lakers had against the Spurs - Garnett, Perkins, Powe, Davis, etc. will do a much better job on the boards than the Spurs bigs did. Gasol will look like a giant bowling pin half the time. So what if the Lakers haven't lost a game at home in the playoffs - they almost lost twice at home to a suffering Spurs team, having to overcome huge deficits both times. Boston has home-court advantage and they've been terrific at home, not to mention the fact they seem to have recovered the ability that made them the best road team in the NBA. Make it two wins at the Palace, one of the toughest places to play all year.

All things considered, I'll take the Celtics in 6.

Reasons I want the Lakers to lose:

1. The Gasol heist. What's next - are the Lakers going to offer Ira Newble, a couple of the Laker girls, and Mitch Kupchak's half-eaten lunch to the Hornets for David West?
2. Laker punks. Has anyone instigated more bad blood this year than Sasha Vujacic? It seems like every other game he's almost getting in a fight with someone. And who names themselves "The Machine?" A tool, plain and simple. Kobe has a dual personality. One is his intensely competitive side. The other is his big baby, whiny, show-off side.
3. Loud-mouth Laker fans that suddenly emerge to announce to the world how they feel.
4. The media would be brought back to earth
5. Three classy, hard-working players win a championship: Garnett, Allen, and Pierce.

Final thought: how many incredibly mindless/obvious/cliched things will Mark Jackson say before ESPN/ABC gives him the boot? Someone nailed it the other day - it's like listening to an announcer from an NBA video game. Get this - the circus show Knicks were thinking about offering him the head coaching position. How perfect would that have been?

1 comment:

E DURSO said...

that second paragraph bit about playing on the road is great.