The Celtics beat the Lakers in LA today and showed why they're a different team this year. Unlike Game 7 of the Finals KG dominated the glass from start to finish.
Kobe and Pierce both carried their teams on the offensive end scoring a ton of points very efficiently. Pierce got help from his team mates as the C's shot 60% from the field overall, Kobe didn't get any help. Great win, what a way to wash away that awful game in Phoenix!
Game Notes:
- Rondo had a relatively quiet first half, but he exploded in the second half. In particular he took advantage when Phil Jackson desperate to stop Pierce moved Kobe onto the Captain. After that Rondo repeatedly beat Steve Blake to create easy buckets either for himself or for a team mate.
- Perkins played 27 minutes of very tough basketball, he combined with Glen Davis to shut down the Lakers big men for most of the game. Odom got a few drives on Davis, but other than that nothing came easy for them.
- Nate Robinson played well tonight, hopefully it means he's coming out of his shooting slump.
- The Lakers got 22% of their misses on the offensive glass, the Celtics got 31% of their misses. That's a massive win, typically you'd flip those stats around based on their overall season rankings.
- Shaq only played 12 minutes due to foul trouble, still he got 6 rebounds in his time on the floor. Having Perkins/Shaq available to play most of the C minutes makes this a much better team.