Celtics v. Lakers

At some point in the halftime report of Sunday's Celtics/Lakers game, Mike Wilbon said something along the lines of the following:

"I hate the term 'statement game' - it's very cliche - but in the case
of this game, Celtics/Lakers, I think it's very appropriate."

But as the game went on, I had less and less to take away from it. In the first half, both teams played well at different times, the Celtics would take a sizeable lead then give up some ground to the Lakers as the 1st and 2nd quarters wound down. The game was shaping up to be a hotly contested battle with a lot of players playing truly incredible basketball, especially Paul Pierce and Kobe Bryant.

Something happened late in the 3rd quarter and into the 4th with the Lakers that I can't really explain. It looked like Pau Gasol simply stopped trying. Andrew Bynum forgot that he was bigger than everyone else on the floor and decided to start giving up rebounds to Big Baby. Steve Blake simply forgot that he was guarding a guy named Ray Allen. Staples Center Security is still looking for Ron Artest.

There was a truly telling moment with around 7:20 left in the 4th quarter - Pau Gasol missed his second lazy 11-foot jumper in 30 seconds and apparently Kobe/Phil Jackson had had enough. The Lakers proceeded to run ELEVEN straight plays for Bryant, mostly just isolation drives and fade-aways that Allen guarded very well.

During this stretch, the score went from 89-80 Celtics to 105-91 Celtics; the clock went from 7:20 to about 1:29. Celtics players that scored in this span: Garnett, Ray Allen, Rondo and Big Baby - only one of these was unassisted. In other words, while Kobe was stutter-step, spin move, juke/shake and fade-away jumpshotting to keep his team in it, the Lakers defense was just downright lazy on the other end. Note that Paul Pierce didn't score during this stretch - he was guarded by Kobe Bryant.

For the record: Paul Pierce: 11-18, 32pts; Ray Allen: 8-12, 21pts; Kevin Garnett: 9-12, 18pts, 13reb; Rajon Rondo: 5-9, 10pts, 16ast. In other words, the "big four" shot 65% from the floor - sweet defense, LA.

Back to Wilbon's comment at half-time: what do we take away from this "statement" game? That Kobe Bryant is really good? That team basketball beats individual basketball 99.99999% of the time? That the Lakers look just like the Celtics did this time last year when they coasted the rest of the regular season? I don't really know.

I do know that the Lakers will not get far in the playoffs if Kobe is putting up 41pt losing efforts.

Game 6: The Game that Changed Everything

Thursday was one of the longest workdays I can remember. Time was crawling. I would work for an hour, check the clock, and then realize that it had only been 4 minutes. I couldn't wait to get out of there - I had tickets to Game 6 of the Boston Celtics/Cleveland Cavaliers series at the Garden.

Bill Simmons called it the "concrete pouring game" when we, the fans, would be able to cement a solid grasp of what type of player Lebron James is; in an article earlier this season, Simmons contended that LBJ had the "Jordan/Erving/Thompson DNA strain," but in a Game 6 recap column he wrote that we have to "Take the Jordan DNA out...

"Jordan was a killer. Jordan didn't care if his teammates despised him. Jordan never, ever, not in a million years, would have allowed his team to quit in the final two minutes of Thursday night's game the way LeBron did. His teammates feared him, loathed him, revered him and played accordingly. Bird had that same quality. In the second half of his career, so did Magic. Winning meant so much to those guys that their teammates almost didn't have a choice; they had to follow suit. Or else."

Exactly. So which Lebron was going to show up on Thursday? And for that matter, which Celtics team was going to show up? Games 4/5 Celtics or Game 3 Celtics (what I like to call the "I'm going to continue to pretend that was a violent nightmare" game)? But wait, isn't that interesting?

We wondered which Boston Celtics TEAM was going to show up for Game 6, but only which Lebron James, an individual, was going to play. At its very core, this is why Lebron has not won a title - the championship cannot be won on the shoulders of one great player. It's just like going to meet girls at a bar - if you're stunningly handsome and a great smooth-talker, they're still going to wonder why you're alone. You need a rock star wing-man, the Robin to your Batman. He doesn't have that in Cleveland, and at this rate, will never have it.

But back to the game: the Garden was a jungle that night.

The first Celtics possession, Kevin Garnett took it to Antwawn Jamison and hit a beautiful turn-around jumper... and then he did it again... and again. After three possessions and three KG buckets, you could tell he was going to put on a show. Watching KG hobble around at the end of the season was candidly disheartening, if not all-out depressing. But that night, he was back. And the Garden knew it.

But it wasn't all Celtics - Mo Williams had 20 pts. in the first half, and my buddies and I were worried that All-Star Mo Williams had come back from the dead. Back and forth, up and down, the game went on with plenty of excitement, not always from the usual suspects. In the 2nd quarter, Tony Allen posterized Antawn Jamison and the Garden went bonkers. Here was the guy who makes every true Celtics fan nervous when he has the ball dominating the guy who was going to help LBJ get to the championship. Perfect.

The game was tight all the way through the end of the 3rd quarter, 76-67. Then LBJ came out and gave the Garden their first "Oh no" moment of the night. He dribbled right up to the three point line and absolutely drilled it. The C's had an awful possession and then LBJ went down the court, came off a screen at the top of the key and fired again. Buckets. Oh, S#!*.

But that was it. The C's called a time out, regrouped and handled that 4 point lead and grew it to 9 by the end of the game, with the Boston faithful screaming for all 48 minutes. I've never been part of a crowd like that before. It was incredible. One other thing that was incredible: with 2:07 left in the 4th quarter, down 9 the Cleveland Lebronettes showed about as much urgency as George Bush during Katrina, i.e. none.

My father as I was growing up always said, "Find out what puts a fire in your belly and chase it with unbridled passion. Never let anyone stop you." For Michael Jordan it was winning, for Peyton Manning it's advertising dollars, and for Mark McGwire it was biceps... er, homeruns. But Lebron couldn't will himself or his team to fight anymore, and that is a big question mark.

The Celtics closed out the game with a few 3pt shots from Pierce and (shockingly) Rasheed Wallace. But the "Most Thunderous Moment" Award goes to Kevin Garnett. Rondo and KG were on a fast break and KG got the call about 8ft. from the basket. Regular season KG lays that in off the glass. Game 6 KG, elevated, all 18,624 fans elevated with him, and he threw down a vicious one-handed dunk. You could probably hear the Garden from Cleveland.

So, now the C's face Orlando in the Eastern Conference Finals, but the media story is LBJ's performance and future. Let it be said that while LBJ could have played better, the Celtics won this series because of post-season experience, outstanding defense, and a greater will to win. 'Nuff said.

Game 6, Lebron James: 27 pts, 19 reb, 10 ast, 9 turnovers. Or what I'll call, the most visually un-impressive triple double I've ever seen. I didn't know he had one until I checked the box score.

PS - speculating about where LBJ is going is a useful as speculating about what Brett Favre is going to do next year. Let's just see what happens. I just know that the Knicks just made a lot of money on season tickets on Thursday night.