A Familiar Tune

This was classic Boston Celtics finals action. You know Larry Bird was in Indiana, with a Miller Lite in one hand and a foam finger on the other hand, proud as a father watching Pierce go down in the third and then get right back up!! It was Bird-esque and the stuff legends are made of.

Game #2 preview late night on Wicked Pissa Dude radio at http://www.wickedpissadude.com.

Man, I hope this injury doesn’t turn out to hamper him in Game 2. Last night just felt good. There’s no turning back now. Let’s hope for good news from Jeff in the next couple of days.

I predicted yesterday that the Lakers would not crack 90 in Boston. My prediction still stands. The Celtics did exactly what I said they would do; make Kobe into a jump shooter and dominate the boards.

The good news for the Celtics is that Kobe doesn’t get it. You listen to his post game comments and he views his bad performance as a result of his shots not falling instead of Boston’s defense. In one sense Kobe is right. There will be at least one maybe two games, probably in LA where his jump shot will fall and he will light it up. But what Kobe doesn’t realize is that when he is reduced to a jump shooter he is not drawing fouls or double teams and is not involving his teammates. When Kobe is reduced to a jump shooter, LA is not that good of an offensive team. Unless LA can figure out a way to get Kobe into the lane more and rebound better, they are not going to win this series. They will win one or two games because Kobe will have the occasional can’t miss night, but they won’t win four.

Why can’t Kobe have the same kinda night. It’s about what he’s shot all year vs us. Our D is that good!

Kobe’s a punk. He didn’t miss bunnies. He made most of them. He also made some incredible contested shots. But by and large he missed because the Cs were in his face the whole game. Let him think it’s his fault, though. He’ll keep trying to compensate and forget about his teammates.

Can we tone down the hyperbole a little? Pierce tweaked his knee. You could see when he fell that it wasn’t going to be that serious. It’s good that they carried him off though, because it gave Scalabrine and Tony Allen something to do. It certainly wasn’t “Reed-like” or “Bird-like.” Having said that, Pierce played an outstanding 2nd half, both before and after he went down. I just hope he doesn’t get trey-happy after nailing those two in a row.

Really, it was a typical Celtics win. Good defense in the second half. They kept Kobe from getting to the rim. It was almost identical to the way they defended LeBron James, except that it’s much harder to keep LeBron out of the paint because he’s so strong. Also, Gasol had a couple of alley oops off the pick and roll, but absolutely nothing on his post ups— not a single basket. The Lakers can’t win if Derek Fisher and Vlad Rad are providing the bulk of their offense.

I don’t agree with Phil Jackson’s benching of Lamar Odom in Q4. He said he wanted to get another shooter of the floor, but he paid at the defensive end and on the boards, where the Celtics dominated for the entire game. Vlad Rad is a shooter but he can’t do much else. When you are trying to come back on the road, defensive stops are more important than treys until you get under one minute. Jackson pulled Odom with nearly 6 minutes left to go.

Brick, I don’t know why you’re acting like you know what Pierce’s injury is. Are you on the medical staff? No one can know how much pain he was in, and you make it sound like it was no big deal just by a facial expression.

old ray played a hummer-all game he was in the flow and really showed leadership. doc deserved the game ball.

not to sound bitter, but that was an offensive foul on Odom. But he would have fouled out and it would have been the ballgame, so block it is.

Congrats on the win, Cs fans. It was well deserved, you out worked the Lakers and pulled off your game plan. I think Lakers fans see it as their team getting sucked into your game. The question is, with a few adjustments will that change or will the tune be the same for the entire series. I think you’ll see more of the Lakers that played the second quarter, but we shall see. Either way that was a fun game to watch (up until the end, anyway).

Kurt (of Forum Blue and Gold)