2010 NBA Finals and beyond

[Imperor]

DJ Mbenga looks less than enthused in that top right photo.

[lazarus]

I wish fans would chant "D-N-P!, D-N-P!" so Mbenga knows that people at least care.

Doc Rivers in his press conference saying he told the team that their starting five still hasn't lost. Whatever, dude. Rasheed Wallace played a great fucking game tonight and that's a bit of a slap in the face. I don't think Kendrick Perkins would be scoring 18 point and making clutch 3-pointers. You also held the Lakers to a ridiculously low shooting percentage--how much more could Perkins have helped?

Rivers also is aware that the Lakers are playing with their starting five in name only, with a crippled Andrew Bynum having to watch his minutes and Bryant obviously far from 100% health. So it's not like it was some kind of unfair matchup.

[Imperor]

Hey, I love Mbenga and wish the city of LA loved him too. I once had a #28 away blue Mbenga jersey shirt back when he was in Big D blocking shots so hard the ball went lopsided*.




*may or may not have actually happened.

[lazarus]

There's some rioting going on. Traffic lights pulled down, car and store windows smashed, etc.

I'm not a big cop supporter but these people should all be beaten down and/or shot. No respect for the city or their fellow citizens.

[Lila64]

[deep]

I was out tonight, so I missed the game. I did DVR it.

This sounds like one game worth watching, even if one knows the outcome. I may watch it tomorrow.

[Hewson]

Originally Posted by lazarus

Doc Rivers in his press conference saying he told the team that their starting five still hasn't lost. Whatever, dude. Rasheed Wallace played a great fucking game tonight and that's a bit of a slap in the face. I don't think Kendrick Perkins would be scoring 18 point and making clutch 3-pointers. You also held the Lakers to a ridiculously low shooting percentage--how much more could Perkins have helped?

.

Rasheed scored 11, not 18.

And the Celts were dominated on the glass, especially the offensive glass all night. Perkins would have made a difference there, and Rasheed and Garnett wouldn't have been so out of gas at game's end had Perk played 30-35 minutes.
I think thats all Doc was trying to imply. Not an excuse, just an explanation that his absence was a big factor. Lakers got 18 minutes from Bynum, Celts could have used 18 from Perkins.

At any rate, congrats to the Lakers. They earned it last night. Fought hard and had more down the stretch. While Kobe was MVP of the series, Artest was clearly MVP of game 7 of the finals, never thought I'd type that.

Ray Allen did a great job on Kobe defensively, but that effort definitely affected his offense. Surprised Doc only used Tony Allen for 5 minutes.

Must have killed Bill Russell to stand on that floor and hand the MVP award to a Laker. Hope they paid him well for it.

We'll see what unfolds, but the Celts will look a bit different next year.

[lazarus]

In addition to Allen's lack of play, I'm also surprised that Nate Robinson was barely in the garme. 3 minutes? They at least could have used his energy.

[phanan]

Perkins definitely would have made a difference on the boards. The Lakers got tons of offensive rebounds and that, along with the free throws, was the difference in the game.

Despite that, the game was unfolding perfectly for the Celtics. Low scoring, grind-it-out affairs usually play right into their game plan. Gotta credit the Lakers for slogging through it and finding just enough at the end to overcome it. Congrats to them and their fans.

A disappointing end over here, considering that nobody knows what will happen to the Celtics now. That was probably the last chance they had with this incarnation.

[Headache in a Suitcase]

first... if that game was played in january, the only thing anyone would say about it would be a quick "wow was that an awful game" in passing. the tension of it being game 7 of the NBA finals made it, at the very least, dramatic... but just a terrible, terrible game.

all credit is due to the lakers. they proved to be the better team. they won, can't say it any other way. but the boston celtics are going to be reliving that second half in their heads for the rest of their lives.

the team that i dominated the cavs iso 1v5 offense settled on force feeding the ball to paul pierce and letting him go 1v1 for, oh, the last 24 minutes of the game. the offense completely stagnated in the second half... they got nothing going to the basket, nothing in transition, no fluid motion... nothing. just jumper after jumper after jumper. that's why you can't even blame the foul shooting differential... 37-17 in favor of LA would normaly be cause for alarm. but boston isn't going to get foul calls shooting nothing but fall away jumpers. i was incredibly impressed with the adjustments that doc made in the first half to create more spacing and be able to get to the rim more on those screen/rolls, but then it all went away come the third quarter.

a friend of mine from college, big celtics fan, sent me a text midway through the 3rd quarter in which he suggested that marquis daniels started banging ray allen's mom after game 2. think about it... ray hasn't made a shot since then, and we get no more sideline shots of ray's mom in her sparkley jersey. put it together, put it together...

and, well... then there's kobe. kobe should give that mvp trophy back to david stern. or better yet, make it a hood ornament on the bentley that he should be buying ron artest. kobe should buy everyone in queensbridge a new TV, and heck... even buy some shit for that guy who threw the cup at ron ron in detroit.

please, put this "kobe is the closest thing to jordan" ridiculous bullshit argument away for good. please... i'm begging you. if ron artest didn't man up last night we'd be talking about john starks this morning. kobe was awful. in the biggest game of his life he shit the bed. he was bailed out by artest, gasol and the celtics inability to throw the ball in the ocean. he rebounded the ball well. yes, true. offensively he was a complete disaster.

i'm sure if you ran down the list of the greatest of great all time players you could find someone who had a similar dog shit performance in such a huge game, but you're gonna have to do a lot of looking, and you're not going to find one on jordan's resume', bird's resume', russel's resume' or magic's resume'. kobe is an all time great player. there is no doubt about that. but he's not on the same level as jordan, bird, magic and bill russell. and that's not an insult. to be just below those guys is an unbelievable achievement. but no matter how much espn and david stern tries to market him as more, he just isn't.

i think this is the last shot for both of these teams. the celtics, obviously, will need to retool. the lakers? kobe is getting older, ron ron's only able to stay saine for a limited amount of time, fisher's shot, bynum has no knees. they certainly have a shot to make another run, but time is running out and running out fast, especially with an offseason that's likely to change the face and swing the power of the nba from coast to coast. oklahoma city is coming hard and coming fast, and they have an absolute stud to carry them.



and now on to more important matters... we are now 12 days and 15 hours away from free agency.

[Hewson]

Originally Posted by Headache in a Suitcase

a friend of mine from college, big celtics fan, sent me a text midway through the 3rd quarter in which he suggested that marquis daniels started banging ray allen's mom after game 2. think about it... ray hasn't made a shot since then, and we get no more sideline shots of ray's mom in her sparkley jersey. put it together, put it together...

They showed her during game 5. (She may have been sitting on Marquis's lap, I'm not sure)

[Headache in a Suitcase]

john wall shoulda went with nike.

[RedRocksU2]

All I can say is that I am glad I saw this game with my son.
I had about 6 beers in me and I was getting restless with all the missed free throws by Pau and Kobe, that was killing me.
My boy (Who is 10), just looked at me and said; "They will come back, dad...they will".

Once Fish got that 3 pointer to tie and Pau got that rebound later on, he gave me a chest bump.

Good times.

[RedRocksU2]

Originally Posted by RedRocksU2

Lakers win by 4.

sweet

[RedRocksU2]

Thanks Mike.

Now to find out when's the parade...I would think Sunday?

edit;

Monday @ 11 am
Up to 2 million expected at the ceremony? No way.

[Lila64]

Listening to Kobe on the radio now (AM710) with Jim Rome. He hasn't slept at all.

[RedRocksU2]

I was listening to it.

[lazarus]

Originally Posted by Headache in a Suitcase

i'm sure if you ran down the list of the greatest of great all time players you could find someone who had a similar dog shit performance in such a huge game, but you're gonna have to do a lot of looking, and you're not going to find one on jordan's resume', bird's resume', russel's resume' or magic's resume'. kobe is an all time great player. there is no doubt about that. but he's not on the same level as jordan, bird, magic and bill russell. and that's not an insult. to be just below those guys is an unbelievable achievement. but no matter how much espn and david stern tries to market him as more, he just isn't.

At least he got his shit together before the end of the game. He sank a great jumper, and made those three free throws like they were nothing. And I don't know why you mention his rebounding efforts in passing like they didn't majorly affect the game. EVERYONE was shooting bad, and Kobe's efforts on the board were just as crucial to their win as anyone else's contribution.

I know this should have been a time to rise to the occasion, but the bottom line is that the award is for the MVP of the series, not Game 7.

[RedRocksU2]

Game 7 MVP -Artest.

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Originally Posted by lazarus

At least he got his shit together before the end of the game. He sank a great jumper, and made those three free throws like they were nothing. And I don't know why you mention his rebounding efforts in passing like they didn't majorly affect the game. EVERYONE was shooting bad, and Kobe's efforts on the board were just as crucial to their win as anyone else's contribution.

I know this should have been a time to rise to the occasion, but the bottom line is that the award is for the MVP of the series, not Game 7.

2 of the 3 games in which kobe scored 30 points the lakers lost.

when it comes down to it, there was no MVP for this series. one time i'd like to see a league come out and say "hey, ya know what? nobody gets it."

spin it any way you like... kobe was awful on offense last night... incredibly bad for a player of his magnitude. pao and artest bailed him out from being one of the biggest goats in finals history.

i said kobe rebounded well. he did. i don't glorify his rebounding totals because he didn't dominate the glass. he rebounded well. his awful offensive performance outweighed his rebounding.

pao and artest were terrific, and fisher's shot was incredibly clutch. i'll even give bynum a lot of props for gutting his way through a game in which he was in obvious pain.

kobe? he sucked. ray allen? he sucked too.