The House that Boom Built

• No Team has ever come back from 3-1 to win an NBA Finals. It has happened in the Playoffs though, many times, most recently by the Suns in that very memorable series a couple years ago against, wouldn’t you know it, the Los Angeles Lakers
• I don’t think anyone knew the Lakers were gonna come out this flat. Even people who picked Boston thought it was going to take at least 7 games. Who woulda thought?
• Pau Gasol and Sasha Vujacic are just another examples of trashy Euro soft basketball. Whens the last time you have actually seen Pau Gasol take a charge or go chest to chest with a driving defender, rarely. He usually backs off and tries to go for the block. When he does take contact, I almost don’t want him even to go through the trouble because he makes it look as if he is getting pounded up the ass. Maybe its just me.
• Vujacic, though not as bad, showed that hustle does not always equal great defense. Sometimes that burst of energy off the bench is crucial, but when you combine it with the situation he was put in, energy + choking= total failure. He played terrible terrible defense against Ray in the last few minutes. You could tell he was flustered and completely lost focus in the heat of the moment. He forgot proper defensive positioning and did not slide to stay in front of his man, choosing instead to try to go for a steal that was not there and then making a poor attempt at trying to fool Ray, passing him off to his equally Euro soft teammate Pau Gasol.
• The whole Celtics team came out like a man on fire and Paul Pierce showed me intensity I never thought he had in him. Before the series everyone talked about the KG, Kobe intensity matchup, I dont think anyone ever expected Pierce to show up with perhaps, really, his most inspired performance of these Finals and probably of his career.
• The Lakers inexperience is what did in the end. The triangle is a difficult, structured, and highly regimented offense, when you have a young team that is giving up a large lead and is slowly and surely choking, to ask them to play the triangle leads almost certainly to failure. The typically smooth running, passing, driving, offense of the Lakers became bumbling and highly mistake prone.
• Kobe did his best, but he’s probably still, almost 24 hours after the game, drunk off his ass. Paul Pierce did a great job, but Kobe needs much more help from his teammates. That really is not saying much because he was playing with absolutely nothing. Every possession that he did not touch the ball, it was turned over or they faced a desperation shot at the end of the shot clock. At the very least, when Kobe had the ball, as poorly as he played, he got to the rim or got a good look. Check that, his teammates were worse than nothing, they did not even give him screens or space the floor well enough, allowing the Celtics to pack the paint and make life extremely difficult for Kobe.
• Phil Jackson, this is serious business. Realize the youth of your team and how quickly that game took a turn for the worse. Phil Jackson’s hands off let them play it through attitude became a detriment to the team last night.
• The Lakers have yet to play a good game and the Celtics have at least 2 and a half. Its surprising in a series when one team does not ever play a good game, that usually means that the level of competition is wildly inequal. I think when most of us looked at the NBA Finals Eastern Conference-Western Conference matchup, we thought the level of competition was wildly inequal, except in a far different way.
• If the Lakers don’t come out to play in Game 5, Phil Jackson’s legacy will seriously be tarnished. That whole caveat of only being able to win with the best talent will almost be absolutely confirmed. A Phil Jackson team, pretty much swept, in an NBA Finals is not only unimaginably difficult to picture, but also just downright embarrassing.
• Please tell me I am not the only one who thinks James Posey looks like the Mask from V for Vendetta.

Exhibit A:

my god, uncanny…

-E