Finals Game 4-aka Bwahahahahaha! Suck it, Lakers!

Two other points I forgot:
1. Doc Rivers, his pregame speech notwithstanding, seems to be getting the better of PJax this series, which is absolutely incredible. He recognized that Rondo was killing them on the offensive end and hardly played him at all in the second half. He went to KG in the post to slow the Lakers momentum. Meanwhile, Phil didn’t really do much of anything during the Celts comeback, and actually benched some of the Lakers’ more useful players (like Radmanovic).
2. Sasha Vujacic must still think he’s guarding Manu. Attention, Sasha: Ray Allen is RIGHT HANDED. Forcing him right, as you did much of the game, including on the clinching layup, is not such a good idea. Also, Pau, where were you on that play? It sure seemed like Sasha was expecting help over there. No way I concede a lay in from Allen rather than forcing Garnett to do something (anything!) with the ball and the clock running down.

TD is in the opening sequence on ABC. He looks young so I think its from the Knicks series.

From M. Stein’s Game 4 review :

Two more killer factors: L.A. was outscored 31-15 in the worst of its fourth successive third-quarter outage … and Boston has clearly stolen the Lakers’ comeback mojo.

The Lakers erased deficits of 20 and 17 here to stun San Antonio in Games 1 and 5 of the Western Conference finals at Staples Center, but it looks now as though the assist they got from the schedule-makers - with such a short turnaround between rounds for the Spurs and no more than one day off between games - was bigger than we knew. In this series, L.A.’s furious rally from its own 24-point deficit in Game 2 at Boston fell agonizingly just short, followed up by Lakers’ sinking to new levels of despair with this collapse.

If the WCF/ECF had the same or close to same 5-7 days off between Game 7/Game 1 - If the ECF went 7 games the Celtics/Pistons would still have had 5 days off - I think you would have seen a drastically different Games 1, 4 and 5….. and I fully believe now that our SPURS would have given the Celtics a lot more issues. From the article :

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2008/columns/story?columnist=stein_marc&page=Gm4-080613

and several others just like it, it seems when the going gets tough the Lakers go “ok Kobe, get us out of this!!” and just listlessly stand around. It happened in Games 1 and 5 vs. the Spurs, but Kobe was able to do just that. This time, not so much. When the Spurs get down, they have Tim, Manu, Tony, and/or even Bowen or Ime to work on.

If the Lakers come out “balls to the wall” and play lights out, and you see a ton of FT’s (LA only plays really good when they are getting lots of FT’s) then you will see LA win, and Boston will take it back home in Game 6. But if that doesn’t happen, I seriously doubt this thing is going back to Boston.

Say if the score is in the 100’s, LA wins. If not, Celtics celebrate #....17?

ANY of the Finals since the WFC, until last night. Came across the game somewhere around the middle of the 3rd when the comeback was in progress and decided not to change it ( didn’t want to mess with the comeback Mojo). I probably dislike more of the players on the Celtics but my hate for the Lakers franchise trancends who is actually playing in the game. So…....I finally watched some of this years Finals. I might even tune in for the end of the next game if it looks like the Lakers are going down. I just want to see the agony of season ending defeat on their faces…...sweet it will be. Suck it Lakers! Ha Ha!

Good grief. I suppose the sole reason I can NOT get it up to cheer for this Laker squad (besides Jackson and Kobe) is that the entire team does the “Duncan Face” treatment if they lose. Case in point from Mr. “Machine” from the Daily Dime :

Vujacic simply allowed Allen to drive around him, waving a hand toward Allen’s midsection but failing to move his feet to deny Allen the lane, and no help defenders came over in time to seriously contest the shot.

“The whole game, from the minute I came in, they called fouls on me. He fell down, foul. I was trying to find a way to guard him for 48 minutes, and everything I did was a foul. He got me. He went to the basket, and it was a good basket. I don’t know what else to say,” Vujacic said, half-forlorn, half-disgusted as he stood in front of his locker in a morose Lakers dressing room.

Did he expect Allen to drive left instead of right? Did he expect stronger help to come?

“I wanted to stay with him, I wanted to stay aggressive, but again, there would be a foul. So I kind of stood back, I gave him the room to operate, and he went to the basket, so that was a bad defensive decision on my side,” Vujacic said. “It doesn’t matter, help or not, we came out and were supposed to be more aggressive, and not let him breathe at the top of the key. It’s a tough loss, it hurts, but we’re not done yet.”

Um, yes…you ARE done. Duh. No way you are taking 3 straight from Boston, esp. not after this. It’s as if they expect and they think it’s “pre-ordained” that they are the ones that get all the breaks, all the fouls thier way, etc. When the Lakers don’t win, Jackson’s the first to say “well, if the refs will call the game in our favor, maybe we’ll actually win.” I am REALLY suprised he did NOT get fined during Game 4 of the Spurs series when he blatantly said “we’d be a lot better off if those refs would blow the whistle for us and not be so giving to the Spurs.” I thought they fined people for that, but apparently not Mr. Zen. sigh Even when the Spurs got jobbed in Game 4 (Yes, they did…in regular motion you couldn’t tell Fisher’s shot hit the rim, in regular, slow, fast, etc. you CAN tell that Fisher gave Barry a huge man hug, or tried) they said NOTHING about the officiating. Same with Boston. At least when those teams lose, they admit they suck.

Anyways, I’m so happy the Lakers are going to lose, and hopefully lose in 5. Ha.

That postgame interview was funny. Extremely. Scroll down to the middle, you’ll find it. Highly entertaining.

http://basketbawful.com/

They even have a clip of Bill Walton from the NBA on NBC where he is fawning “Soooooo powerful.”

I don’t remember much from that Finals, but I found it hilarious that Duncan was being guarded by Larry “my back is useless” Johnson.

My DVR cut off the first part of the montage. I thought that it started when the camera kind of flies into the underground tunnel, so I missed TD’s turnaround over Larry Johnson as Bill Walton says “so many moves, so much power…” My DVR cut the video off in exactly the same spot for games 2 and 3, so I assumed that was the start of the broadcast.

When I watched the video on Youtube, it turns out TD’s picture is on the wall in the underground tunnel as well. I won’t be happy until they create a montage of nothing but Tim Duncan and Manu, but I will no longer say he’s not in it all. If I were a samurai, I would commit hiri-kiri to salvage my honor in the face of my public embarrassment.