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Tag Archive - lamar odom

What’s Going On With Lamar Odom?

March 2, 2012 in by with 3 Comments

Photo via Alenmurr on Flickr.

“Mark asks a fundamental question of anybody in our franchise: Are they in or are they not in?” Carlisle said. “Our fans want to know that Lamar’s in. Our players want to know that Lamar’s in. It’s not about how many points he’s scoring or rebounds; those things are a factor. Our fans, our players want to see the guy playing like his pants are on fire and we haven’t seen that so far and that’s got to change.”

via Rick Carlisle fed up with Lamar Odom | ESPNDallas.com

Is Lamar Odom in?

Honestly, probably not. And that’s fine. In fact, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Not after the tumult Odom’s personal life has undergone in the past year, which has continued in recent days as his father has taken ill. Not after the reports that he seriously considered taking a year or more away from the game to clear his head. And the more time passes with his status in limbo, the clearer it becomes that that probably would have been the right call.

Odom’s situation is hard to wrap one’s head around. His fall from grace has been stunning to say the least—from Sixth Man of the Year to the most high-profile D-League demotion in NBA history, from one of the most valuable contributors on a back-to-back champion to a non-factor on the team that knocked his Lakers out of the playoffs last Spring. His story serves as a reminder that millionaire athletes with superhuman physical abilities aren’t immune to real-world tragedy. Forming an opinion on it is difficult to do without placing a value judgment on how an individual responds to personal hardship. To make the “these guys are ultra-rich, they should just suck it up” argument is to dismiss one’s own potential to see their job performance slip when life gets in the way. At the same time, though, the Mavericks’ desire for a straight answer is hard to be mad at. They have a title to defend and millions of dollars invested.

Odom does not seem to be in the frame of mind to be playing basketball, in any way shape or form. A D-League detour isn’t going to magically fix his head or his heart. If anything, the high-profile demotion could be detrimental to his confidence, even if it’s only for one game. Mark Cuban says he’s not interested in buying Odom’s contract out, but it’s hard to see this story ending any other way. The Mavericks need to separate themselves from the cloud of uncertainty, and Odom needs some time off and some pressure lifted. If he can take a breather and come back next season with renewed resolve, everyone wins.

NBA Finals Lakers Celtics Game 7: A Legacy Equinox

June 17, 2010 in by with 3 Comments

There’s no more basketball after tonight. Not for five months, anyway. So you’d better enjoy this.

These are the two best teams, according to the metric we use to determine that value (most wins from mid-April through June). So you’d better enjoy this.

This is a Game 7, so you’d better enjoy it.

I’m not simply being a promoter for my favorite sport when I say that NBA Game 7′s are entirely different from the other sports that entertain series. In baseball, there are specific moments that live forever, and certainly memorable pitching performances. A key hit. Things of that nature. And in hockey, there’s certainly the propensity given the scoring nature of the game for moments of unequaled tension and intensity. But basketball more than any other sport holds the potential for individual players to exert their will on a game. It’s where greatness often meets greatness, especially for these two franchises. It’s everything we love about sports. That’s cliche, but then again, so is this series.

Take a look at the list of best Finals performances in a loss from Basketball Reference.  That list is crushing to me, because of so many players that never won a ring, and to have those performances on the biggest stage. One really stuck out to me. Stockton with 16 points on 6 of 10 shooting, 12 assists, 3 rebounds, and 3 steals. In a loss. That set the tone for the rest of the series. I just can’t imagine having gotten to the top, put in that kind of performance, and coming up short. Anyway, take that list and sort it. 5 of the top 25 point totals in a loss in the Finals on that list are from LA-Boston ’08 and LA-Boston ’10.  20% of the top 25 Finals performances that ended up not mattering came between these two teams. Individual greatness isn’t good enough. The whole damn roster has to chip in, AND you have to have quality star performances.

Wishing for a truly great game seems like a risk to me. These playoffs have been dreadful, outside of a handful of moments, and in general have been leading us down a path of fulfillment wrapped in bitterness. We got Lakers Celtics, at the price of a full blown LeBron meltdown and the Suns’ effort and heart being for naught. But there’s always that hope. That last, fleeting hope that this will be one of those games. The kind you remember for the rest of your life. It has to be to make a mark. You see, either way, this championship doesn’t mean much independently. I’m not trying to be a buzzkill, but if you were ask Bill Simmons of his most memorable Celtics championship games, would this one crack the top five? Even more modern-focused Celtic fans would probably list that Game 6 in 2008 as the defining one for them. It’s a product of what happens when you have 32 championships between you. But a special game could overcome all that. If it features both of these teams, at their best, which we really haven’t seen yet, it could become one of those things that’s talked about for years. Where you remember where you were, who you were with, how it felt.

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This isn’t to say that the game has no meaning to its players. Instead, it’s crucial. While #5 for Bryant isn’t as important as #6, #4, or #1 (or really #3), he obviously can’t get to six without it. It’s a separation from Shaq, and stabbing Boston in the throat hold special value as well. The second one puts Gasol in rarefied air, and if he’s going to wind up in the Hall, he’ll need this one and one more. For Odom, it’s going to cement his place in the Laker’s sub-pantheon. One contributing headcase is a footnote, but doing it on multiple championship teams gives him a place in the team’s history. He’ll never be top billing, but he’ll have a place. Phil Jackson blah, blah, blah. Derek Fisher’s an especially relevant component. Five championships, and he may not return next season, depending on how much Phil buys into his ability to stave off the ghosts of time for another year. He’s going to have a very rough next year and a half of his life, with the CBA deal approaching, and this is a moment he should take to cherish, when basketball was all that mattered and he was the starting point guard for a championship team. Crazy Pills? Gets to flip his detractors a middle finger with a ring on it, and redeems himself of all the strikes against him, in his mind. Adam Morrison gets something else he can sell when he’s destitute and living in a refrigerator box in ten years.

For Pierce? He’ll never be in with the 80′s crew. But this puts him in his own level below it. The favorite son, and past the concerns of just being a flash in the pan. Garnett and Allen join the ranks of the multiple winners. A single title gets you in the door and gets you a place among your own time’s peers. A second win puts you into a tier with the all-time great champions. I’m not sure why, I’m just told it does. If the first one is for you, to validate your career to yourself, the second is to validate it to all the greats who flash multiple rings. For Glen Davis? The opportunity of a lifetime. To cement a legacy within the first few years of your career, collect rings, and then ride off into money-soaked sunset, always able to say “I know what it takes to win a championship.” Rondo puts himself on pace for a more-talented Sam Cassell trajectory, with two championships early in his career and nothing but upside. A chance to give back to the guys that helped mentor him into a position to be elite at this level.

Doc Rivers may have the most to gain from this game. If he decides to walk away for his family, this game puts him as the only multiple ring Boston championship coach from outside of Red’s tree. He can walk away as one of the few coaches with multiple rings, having gone from one of the worst-regarded coaches in the league (2007) to one of the best.

Legacies have a steeper climb since the 80′s. That’s the mark you’re set at. Kobe’s got it worse, having to climb not only the 80′s Showtime crew, but Mount Jordan as well. It’s started to strike me as absurd, how often we use “He’s no Jordan!” as some kind of detractor. The man’s on the verge of winning his fifth championship ring within a decade, with Ron Artest and Derek Fisher as two of his starters.

If legacies have become liquid, never cementing until they reach their hottest temperature, then nothing solidifies tonight. But it’s a vital part of the story for all careers involved, and with no tomorrow, literally, in the 2009-2010 NBA Season, you have to believe anything can happen.
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LA is winning this game. I got out of my car this morning and realized it. I tend to have either no sense whatsoever about an important game, or a very strong one. Which isn’t to say these feelings are at all accurate. I’m usually more accurate when I have a strong emotional reaction to the game. I woke up in January of 2004 and knew, absolutely, in my heart of hearts, that the Chiefs, despite their best season in over a decade, were going to lose to the Colts. It was arguably the most important game of my life after the age of 12 and I knew, 100%, we would lose. It wasn’t brought on by masochism or negativity, I was just sure of it. I knew the Suns were going to lose Game 6 versus San Antonio in 2007. That said, I don’t really care about this game. A self-aggrandizing, self-entitled, pampered franchise will win tonight, and a self-aggrandizing, self-entitled, pampered franchise will lose tonight. As I said, it’s another in a long line of titles. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great theater, and I’ve really enjoyed these Finals. While we haven’t seen both teams at their best in a game so far, we have seen some entertaining basketball.  It’s best for the sport, best for the league, best for the fans when these two franchises meet and it goes seven. I’m merely saying that while I feel very strongly LA will win, I don’t have any emotional attachment to that prediction.

But LA is winning. Perkins’ injury is one of those things that pierces the chest plate and gets to the ventricles. Davis is a terrific bench player but probably not adept at stopping the starting line. Pierce has been terrific, but if the Lakers’ help defense has its head out of its ass, you can cut off the places Pierce wants to go and he’ll force it. Ron Artest will probably hit a few big shots and disappoint in terms of being the wacky true self he’s been for three games in this series.

I told a colleague the other day that basketball, for all its complexity and motion, all its strategy and reactions, is still largely vulnerable to the simple physical attributes of its players. The Lakers are tall. And that’s why they’ll win. I can give you talk about their transition defense, or their inside-out work, about how the overload defense won’t allow for cross-court passes to Allen or Sheed, about Kobe’s drive-and-post work, or Odom’s righty move against Davis forcing him left. But at the end of it? The Lakers are tall. And tall guys win at basketball.

Analysis.

Enjoy Game 7, everyone.

NBA Finals Lakers Celtics Game 6: The Lakers Transition Defense Is Here To Save The Daaaaaaaay!

June 16, 2010 in by with 3 Comments

In Game 5, the Lakers defense was, well, worthy of mockery. But in Game 6, they brought it, man to man, baseline to baseline. They were everywhere, swarming, contesting, and bringing an absurd amount of intensity to each possession.

All season long, one of the pillars of the Lakers’ defense has been their transition work. All that length and skill doesn’t mean much if you don’t work to get back and cut off easy baskets. And with the aggressive style the Celtics have employed that caught the Lakers off guard in Game 4 and 5, transition defense becomes even more important. In Game 6, the Lakers lived up to that responsibility. Via Synergy, we see that the Celtics had 14 transition plays in Game 6, only converting 4 of them, with a 28.6% scoring rate (compare that with 58.7% Scoring in Game 5 and 47.1% in Game 3).  Game 6 was a tour defense in every aspect of the game for the Lakers, but their transition defense really stood out, and speaks to their success that goes far beyond Kobe’s barrages or Pau Gasol’s offensive touches. Here’s a look at one such play they detonated.

With 3:40 to go in the third quarter, the Celtics are trying to somehow put together an effort to close the gap from 17 down to 12 or 10. The best way to do that is with transition buckets, obviously. Kobe misses from the elbow to start the possession.

You’ll notice Odom is in the left corner as the play begins. Artest and Bryant are already backpedaling to make sure there are defenders back. The first thing for the Lakers has always been manpower in transition defense. Simply be there and you’ll deter the transition attack half the time. This time, the rebound goes long and Rondo is off to the races.

Rondo’s got a great setup as this play develops. Ray Allen on his left, streaking to the perimeter wing. Paul Pierce coming up the right side, and he’s got a seam in between both defenders. It should be noted before we get any further, in Games 4 or 5, Odom would be checked out of this play already. He’s far behind the play and would have to really push to catch up.

Now, as well positioned as the Lakers defenders back are, the Celtics do their part to screw this play up. Rondo kicks it to Pierce on the cut way too early. He hasn’t driven to sucker in either Bryant or Artest, meaning Kobe’s got Allen covered and Artest is going to be able to force Pierce inside instead of Pierce shifting back right to the rim.

You’ll notice Lamar Odom is like the cavalry, catching up to Pierce as he starts to make his move. Crazy Pills is going into lockdown mode. Pierce fell into this trap several times in Game 6, forcing shots where he needed to give it up. Pierce is trying to be an alpha dog, which is good, but with how well he’s defended at this point, he needs to think about distributing. Then again, one of his teammates is chugalugging down the court trying to catch up with Gasol. He’s still got a good shot at this point of getting a shot up over Pierce. It’s Odom’s play that’s really going to detonate this.

Artest takes a swipe at the ball, and with position, Pierce has to move even further inward instead of towards the basket. Odom’s length allows him to catch up and he’s going to take away the interior angle as well. Say goodbye to that chance of drive and kicking to one of the best three point shooters on the planet, because that window’s about to close sharply.

Odom makes a great move, cutting off Pierce’s angle without risking body contact, and allowing Artest to close in on him. The Lakers’ length is a huge asset here, and it essentially blacks out any passing lane Pierce may have once he leaves his feet. Allen’s not an option, Davis for the kickout isn’t an option, even Rondo down low he can’t get to. Pierce is going to have to somehow get a shot up over one of the best defenders in the game and a big lanky freak o’ nature that’s got his head on straight. The result?

Yeah, that’s no good. Rondo’s going to try and get an offensive rebound, but Bryant is already forcing him baseline. Davis is still trying to get into the play, and Pierce is busy being swallowed alive like a star falling into a black hole.

The Celtics do manage to get quite a few guys low, but Pierces shot bounces straight off the backboard and goes long.

The Lakers are off to the races and the Celtics have blown another important scoring opportunity. If they keep this up in Game 7, that title is theirs.

NBA Finals Lakers Celtics Game 5: “THE LAKERS DEFENSIVE IMPLOSION SHOW! STARRING LAMAR ODOM!”

June 15, 2010 in by with 4 Comments

When you give up a 109 defensive efficiency mark, several things have gone wrong in your team’s life. You presumably made the Finals by being good at defense, and certainly, that’s how the Lakers did it. In fact, despite how brilliant their offense can be when it’s moving and clicking and working and not just watching Kobe pull up and launch from 25 feet, the Lakers’ defense has been responsible for their top seed in the West and their romp through the Western Conference Finals.  And yet in Game 5, they suffered lapse after lapse. Some of it was little things, like the spacing you give Paul Pierce to avoid him getting baseline. Others were medium size things like positioning in transition and running off shooters. And then there were the massive, catastrophic failures that occurred as the game went on, like the one we’re going to look at today.

With 7:47 left in the fourth and the Celtics leading by 8, they set up in the halfcourt.  Fisher is already in “leghump” mode. Bynum is shadowing KG as the Celtics prepare to run the pick and roll.

Not two seconds later, things start to go badly.

All season the Lakers have done a great job of always maintaining presence down low. They have the length and athleticism to extend all the way out to the perimeter, but they are very rarely caught with their pants down. But by this point in the game, the Celtics have been peeling off mid-range jumper after mid-range jumper.  This problem is exacerbated by how far out KG sets the pick, all the way out at about 30 feet.  But as Pierce makes his move, Andrew Bynum, again playing on a bum leg, stays with him. The problem is that Lamar Odom is now the sole defender of the basket, and he’s a half-step from the free throw lane by that point, and Sheed’s doing nothing to settle him back, instead drifting further and further out. The reason is not to set up for an ill timed three, but to free up Allen and take advantage of the Lakers’ biggest defensive personnel weakness: Derek Fisher.

Pierce heads for just inside the top of the key, and is going to have his pick of options. He can drive, pull-up (which is obviously what he wants), or kick it back out.  Odom smartly comes to help out Bynum so that Pierce can’t get around him to the right side of the basket, cutting off his penetration angle and forcing him to hesitate which allows Bynum to close on him. Meanwhile, Sheed screens the living daylights out of Fisher, and Allen peels off. There is no one within a zipcode of the right underside of the basket, with Kobe locked up top  guarding Robinson and Artest recovering from KG’s screen at the perimeter. As all this is happening Odom now has three responsibilities. He’s got to help Fisher who is basically like Mario in the sandpits of Super Mario World 64. He has to keep an eye on Sheed for the kick out spot-up three, and he’s got to deter Pierce from driving. Any time you create a situation where Lamar Odom has to manage three mental operations at once, you may have set yourself up for disaster.

Pierce decides to test his chances and opts to pull-up for a jumper just inside the halo. Bynum uses the go-go gadget arms to contest, which is going to force Pierce to kick it back out when he realizes he is no longer 25 and his vertical now puts him squarely in the shadow of Bynum’s arm. Meanwhile, Allen has peeled off of Fisher, who is still struggling to get around Sheed as Sheed has him locked up completely. Lamar Odom? I have no idea what he’s doing. None. No clue.  I like to think he’s guarding Space Ghost, who is taunting him.

As Pierce kicks it back out, Ray’s eyes go wide as he sees what’s happening, and moves to swoop underneath.

Robinson peels off from the corner using KG as a mild screen and gets Pierce’s bailout. Bynum is all the way above the free throw line after contesting, Kobe’s trying to cover with Ron on KG to prevent the pick and pop. Fisher has FINALLY cleared the screen and now sees what’s about to happen. Here’s where the real disaster comes into play. Either Odom should know that Allen coming low is his responsibility, or Fisher is failing to alert Odom to that fact. Either way, a “heads up, Ray’s coming” from Fisher probably would have been useful. As it is, Odom never turns his head in either direction to even acknowledge the presence of Allen. Rasheed Wallace is done for this play. Because Kobe’s having to help Artest with KG, and Odom is apparently caught between trying to decide whether he should stay low or go chase Wallace to prevent the three, a passing lane opens up right from Robinson down to the left side of the basket.

This is the moment where there is still hope. It is fleeting, and it is cruel. The clock’s winding down, Kobe has recovered on Nate, Bynum is still covering Pierce, and Artest has KG handled. The bad news? Look where Odom and Fisher are. Fisher, instead of sprinting to recover on Ray, has held up, apparently trying to prevent Sheed’s three. Which is exactly what Odom’s doing as well. Odom actually moves laterally left, away from the basket and where Ray is headed, and now the two are close enough to fist bump one another. Which means that all alone, under the basket, in a pivotal Game 5 of the NBA Finals, the 9 time NBA All-Star, NBA champion shooting guard is just hanging out. Robinson dukes the pass over Kobe’s head, and Allen gets an easy two.

And the aftermath is really the best part.

Kobe just watches in total disgust. Odom actually tries to get back in time, and nearly fouls Allen. Ron Artest looks like my dog after a dog barks on the television, alert, but confused. Fisher is about to have the “Which one of us screwed up, oh, wait, I’m the crafty veteran, it’s your fault” conversation. And my personal favorite? Andrew Bynum literally does the Jake Delhomme Horsefeathers reaction.

And that’s how a defense implodes. It was a series of unfortunate events, but it does highlight several of the things that went wrong for the Lakers’ defense in Game 5.

NBA Finals: Celtics Need To Attack The Lakers Bigs With Rabies

June 13, 2010 in by with 0 Comments

“You should attack their big man like you’re trying to give him rabies.”

Earlier in our season (did you forget I coach JV high school basketball?), we faced a team that built their offense and defense around one of the lankiest 15-year olds you could ever see. He wasn’t abnormally tall by any means. He was about 6’3”, which is sort of incredibly tall for a 15-year old, but it’s not like he was Manute Bol out there. For the sake of the story and keeping anonymity, we’ll call this player Seal.

We’re going to call him Seal for a couple of reasons. First, he sort of looked like Seal without all of that facial scarring. Second, it gives me a tangential opening to mention that I was in Chicago last weekend and in Chicago I got to sing Kiss From A Rose with Trey Kerby while driving around. It was pretty great.

Anyway, Seal was a very sound, fundamental defender against our team. His arm length was almost cartoonish and he used it to perfectly defend a lot of shots coming into the painted area. He rarely went for the pump fakes, he kept his arms high in the air to intimidate our players and he timed every passive aggressive shot taken around him perfectly. He blocked at least nine shots in the first half of the game, as our guys were scared to challenge him.

And he wasn’t just protecting the rim well either. He kept the ball high on offense and put it up only when the shot was there. He also controlled the boards against our guys. It sounds simple but he just jumped as high as he could and secured the ball. He didn’t tap it all over the place before grabbing it. He just grabbed it.

At halftime, we ripped into our guys for being afraid of Seal. Our big men were better than him and we all knew it. They were just playing scared. And by being scared of his length and shot-blocking ability, they allowed him to dictate everything inside. I told our team the same quote that sits atop this post. Attack Seal like you’re trying to give him rabies. Be the more aggressive dog in the fight. It actually took the smallest player on our team to turn things around.

He gave up more than a foot in height to Seal but he had no fear. He went right at Seal on the first couple possessions of the second half and perfectly used his floater to protect shots. He jumped into him to create contact and knock him back a little. He gave Seal a different look than what he had seen all game long – aggressiveness. This aggressiveness not only showed the team that getting your shot blocked was nothing to be afraid of, it also got Seal out of position inside. All of a sudden we were grabbing rebounds and getting putbacks inside. Seal had to reach over our players to protect his rim and he was getting into foul trouble the other team couldn’t afford to have him in.

By the end of the game, Seal was on the bench with about 16 blocked shots and five fouls. He fouled out because we attacked him with purpose. We ended up dominating the boards in the second half because we didn’t allow him to control everything. It was an easy win with a good lesson to our guys that they shouldn’t let the other team’s big man control the interior.

When I look at this Celtics-Lakers Finals so far, the overall message rings true throughout. Now there are a couple of differences. I don’t think the Celtics are afraid of the length inside. The Celtics are a big team on their own. KG, Perk, Sheed and Big Baby provide a formidable frontline. The problem is the size of the Lakers frontcourt with Gasol and Bynum can completely neutralize that. Also, there is no Dikembe Mutombo or Mark Eaton (what up, Devine?) protecting the basket. But the Lakers have still done a pretty incredible job of protecting the basket. They’ve blocked 31 shots in the first four games of this series with 28 of them coming in the first three games.

The Lakers length presents a problem that the Celtics can fix in three ways and it’s all about Boston being aggressive in the way they do things.

1) Don’t Be Afraid to Attack the Basket
I don’t know that I’d say the Celtics were afraid to attack the basket in the first three games. They were blocked 28 times and actually won the points in the paint battle 116-112. But whenever Gasol and Bynum are in there together, there seems to be a bit of trepidation. Part of that could be the good team defense the Lakers are playing. With the way they’re helping, it’s easy to think twice about attacking and if you’re hesitating then it’s going to kill a lot of advantages.

This biggest way to fix this is to find ways to get Rajon Rondo to the basket without a lot of long limbs challenging his layups. Big Baby was great in Game Four in the way he smothered the interior. But that can be defended pretty easily with better effort and positioning by the Lakers bigs. Also, Lamar Odom pretending he cares would also be a great way to combat Davis. The more important thing is getting Rondo into the paint with good opportunities to score. Assuming the Lakers can’t block his shot so easily (six times in the first three games), even if Rondo misses the Celtics should be in a great position to grab the offensive boards and get good putback opportunities.

2) Grab the freaking ball!
Kevin Garnett used to be THE standard for NBA rebounding. During his days in Minnesota (chest pains for me right now), he had to do it all and a lot of the Wolves rebounding advantages were because of KG’s insistence on owning the boards. Since he’s been in Boston, the Celtics have been a good enough team to not need so much effort out of him. He’s able to concentrate on defense first, defense second and everything else third. Perhaps that lack of need for his boarding has turned him into a slightly above average rebounder instead of the all-world specimen he used to be. I’m sure the ravaging his knee took over the course of a couple of years hasn’t helped either.

KG used to be so great at tipping the boards to himself because he’s always been longer and more athletic than his opponents. He was able to tip the ball until it was safe to just grab it so he could fire a good outlet pass to his guards. With the declining athleticism and the great length of the holy Bynum-Gasol-Odom triumvirate, Garnett and the rest of the Celtics no longer have that luxury. When KG taps the ball to himself, Gasol and Odom have the length and the athleticism to match him or overwhelm him on the boards. They’re able to steal a lot of 50/50 balls because it’s still up for grabs. When Big Baby was dominating the offensive glass in Game Four, he just went after the ball and snatched it out of the air. He didn’t play badminton with it.

Kevin Garnett’s rebounding is really important to the Celtics success. They need to win two out of the next three games for banner number 18. That’s a 66.7 win percentage needed. Well, it’s no coincidence that since Garnett has joined the Celtics in 2007, they’re winning 69.8% of their games (including playoffs) when KG grabs nine rebounds or more in a game. He has to simply go grab the basketball.

Tipping the ball to yourself probably works against Boris Diaw, Kenny Thomas and Amare Stoudemire. But against the length of the Lakers and thieves like Kobe Bryant, it widens the margin for error on closing out defensive stops for Boston.

3) Be quick but don’t hurry… actually, Kendrick, you need to hurry
One of the most frustrating things for me to watch in the NBA is Kendrick Perkins in possessions of the ball around the basket. He’s the epitome of what you don’t want to teach young big men do around the rim. Especially against a frontline like the Lakers employ, you have to be quick to the basket. Kendrick Perkins moves around like the Tin Man when he hasn’t seen an oil can in months (insert BP joke I wasn’t clever enough to think of here).

Perkins could get a lot of easy buckets in this game and put a lot of pressure on the Lakers by racking up these easy points. Instead, he gets the ball and then allows someone to hit the slow motion button on him as he tries to get the ball up to the basket. Perk isn’t taller than most big men he faces and he isn’t all that athletic so it’s easy to see why he’d be careful around the basket. But he has to find ways go up quickly with the ball. He’s like one of those chattering teeth you wind up. Except, whenever you want to show someone how they move you always forget to wind it up enough for a full show. It ends up stopping abruptly and anti-climactically. So you have to wind it up a second time and by then the mystique of a spring loaded toy has been washed away in disappointment.

Well, Perk seems to always need that second wind up around the rim. Except when he finally gets it, there is a Laker around to block or challenge his shot. Kendrick has only taken 18 shots in this series but he’s been blocked five times. That’s an absurd percentage that would make Carlos Boozer blush.

Overall, the Celtics aren’t exactly getting killed in this series. It’s 2-2 and they have a chance to protect their homecourt and head back to Los Angeles tonight with a 3-2 lead. The easiest way for them to do this is to attack the paint much like Glen Davis did and find ways to get the Lakers size and length out of position.

In other words, go out and give them rabies.

NBA Finals Celtics-Lakers Game 4: Big Baby Drools And The Rest Of The Bench Rules

June 11, 2010 in by with 0 Comments


(via Truth About It)

Back around the turn of the millennium, the Sacramento Kings were trying to establish themselves as a force to be reckoned with. While they were building an evolving squad that was trying to find the balance between a veteran bench and a growing core of really incredible players, they had a certain group of players called “The Bench Mob.” The Bench Mob was comprised of an unusual band of brothers for Sacramento. The leaders of the mob were Jon Barry and Darrick Martin. They had Peja Stojakovic before he was Peja Stojakovic. They had scrappy guys like Lawrence Funderburke, Scot Pollard and Tony Delk. Hell, even Tyrone Corbin and Bill Wennington made an appearance from time to time.

This wasn’t the best bench in the league by any means. In fact, they had a bunch of specialists and not really anything resembling a tried and true group of proven contributors. And that’s sort of why it worked. Nobody expected much out of them. Maybe they weren’t going to make a good percentage of their shots. Maybe they weren’t going to execute with the flair and grace of Webber, Vlade and Jason Williams. But they were probably going to outwork you no matter who you threw at them.

This Boston group of pine-sitters reminds me of the same thing. It’s not so much a Bench Mob as it is a swarm. In the fourth game of the 2010 NBA Finals, the Boston bench managed to swarm the Lakers players and hit them with a deluge of energy and effort. The Lakers couldn’t help but hope for mistakes by the men in green. Rather than outwork them and exude their talents and dominance over this group, the Lakers just sort of took it. The Boston bench didn’t just outplay the Lakers bench. For much of the fourth quarter, they outplayed the Lakers starters and put on a show in doing so.

“We were like Shrek and Donkey.” – Nate Robinson on the Game Four performance of Glen Davis and himself.

It’s sort of perfect that Nate Robinson made this analogy for him and his bulbous sidekick after they helped the Celtics find a fourth-quarter groove and even up the NBA Finals with a must-win in Game Four. Nate Robinson was the pesky, annoying sidekick that you expected to provide all of the comedic relief while Big Baby bruised his way through the forest, destroying everything in his path. It was entertaining and almost cartoonish.

When Big Baby grabbed his fourth offensive rebound of the game with 8:23 remaining in the fourth quarter and powered his way back up to the basket against Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom, he absorbed the foul, scored the basket and unleashed an outburst of emotion and drool that makes Kevin Garnett look like Tim Duncan on horse tranquilizers. Effort, energy and heart were going to be needed to win the NBA Finals. The Game Four version of the Boston Celtics bench had it and the Lakers simply didn’t.

A lineup of Nate Robinson, Ray Allen, Tony Allen, Glen Davis and Rasheed Wallace played the first 9:10 of the fourth quarter against LA and left the game with an eight-point lead for the starters to play with. They survived a quick run of technical fouls by Rasheed Wallace and Nate Robinson. They survived 12 fourth quarter points from Kobe Bryant. They took control of a game in the NBA Finals, which was as close to a must-win as you can get without having a loss result in elimination.

Big Baby was fantastic. You can say that he excelled because Andrew Bynum nearly sat for the entire second half as his knee swelled up beyond belief because that’s not the entire truth. Big Baby was able to score when Bynum was out there. In fact, he scored on whomever the Lakers employed to plug up the paint. Lamar Odom was absent-minded and couldn’t find the focus to put a body on Big Baby. The Large Infant bounced off Mr. Kardashian and bounced off Pau Gasol. If there was a basketball to be had or a key bucket to be scored, the oversized-undersized power forward from LSU was going to get it done.

And as good as he was in this game, it’s just as important we recognize the rest of the bench players that did their part. Nate Robinson improbably played out of this world again by hitting threes, making plays and being the annoying ball of energy that’s only been replicated by the chicken hawk in Foghorn Leghorn cartoons. Tony Allen played remarkable defense against Kobe Bryant. Did he stop Kobe? Not even close. Kobe ended up with 33 points on 22 shots, which is sort of ridiculous. However, he did turn the ball over seven times and had Allen make some pretty big plays by stripping the ball and challenging jumpers.

You also can’t forget the job that Rasheed Wallace did in this game. Yes, he ran around after a couple of foul calls against him and eventually earned himself a tech. It was absolutely deserved. But it’s just part of the Sheed package. He plays with a fire when he’s into the game and he was definitely into this game. This time the fire gave the Lakers a technical free throw that Kobe promptly missed. One minute later, Wallace hit a three-pointer from the top of the key to give the Celtics a nine-point lead that felt insurmountable. Couple that with some tough defense inside and you’ve got the cherry on top of the sundae the Boston bench served up to their fans Thursday night.

This Celtics bench has been inconsistent all season long. It’s just as likely they’ll follow up this performance in Game Four with the exact same thing in Game Five to help Boston take a commanding three games to two lead in the Finals. It also wouldn’t surprise me to see them come up well short of the needed effort to best the Lakers and essentially give the series to Los Angeles headed back to Hollywood.

But if they’re playing with energy, bringing the fire and brimstone from the pine and playing with such fervor and raw emotion that they can’t control the saliva free-falling down out of their mouths and down their chins, I find it hard to believe the Celitcs won’t head back to Los Angeles needing to split the final two games to take hope their 18th trophy as an NBA franchise.

NBA Finals Celtics Lakers Preview: NEW! ON BROADWAY! FOR THE 758TH TIME! THE SHOW YOU ALL KNOW AND LOVE!

May 21, 2010 in by with 6 Comments

Hmm? What’s that? The Conference Finals are still on?

Ho ho ho.

Silly person.  Let’s not waste our time, shall we? Look, I love the Suns. I think Steve Nash is a Hall of Famer and someone that many people underestimate in terms of valuing the play he’s given us. I’d rather have Amar’e Stoudemire than Chris Bosh, terrible defense and all. But let’s face it. They’re sunk. People will tear down their defense, and their desire, and mark them as flawed and inferior in every way. They’ll do all this despite the Suns landing the third seed in a pscho-competitive Western Conference, despite them getting past Portland, who though injured all to hell, were also in the wounded animal territory. They’ll do this despite them taking down the Spurs, the prohibitive favorite to face the Lakers in the WCF, and doing it in four games in which they looked the superior team throughout. But the Lakers? Too tall. Too strong. You have a team that relies on quick, smart passing and transition offense up against a team that puts Sequoias in the passing lanes and has what I think is the best transition defense in the league (when they actually give a crap). This isn’t a failure of the Suns, this is just what the Lakers do. Turn it on when they have to and coast on through when they have the advantage. Hell, Jordan Farmar is making big shots. Derek Fisher is playing well. When that happens, they have literally no positional weakness. What do you do against that?

And the Magic? Okay, sure, Boston sucks at home. Fair enough. And you did make yourself a nice little run at the end of both games. But you lost at home to a team you beat last year. They disrespected you in the press, then came into your house, and disrespected you there. I mean, all you had to do was rely on Vince Carter. I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS HAS NOT WORKED OUT. THIS IS TOTALLY NEW INFORMATION.

They may not be sweeps. After all, we’re talking about two of the laziest teams in the league with huge advantages. But these series are over when the Lakers and Celtics decide they are.

So here we are. Again. With the two teams with the most Finals appearances. Again. One of which will have been in 31 of the past 62 Finals. The other which has the most championships. You say sports elite, I say a failure of the NBA to solidify its popularity by excluding 90% of the league from contention. But hey, the ratings will be through the roof.  It’s a smart business model to rely so heavily on these two, like an ice cream parlor serving up the best chocolate and vanilla soft-serve in town. There’s sprinkles (Rondo) and nuts (Artest), but there are still only two flavors. However, if those two flavors are the most popular and you have the best, why waste time with variety?

So Lakers-Celtics it is. And really, if we were to be casual fans, we would have seen this coming. Take someone who has only taken a passing glance at the league over the past three years. Ask them who the best teams are. They’re going to say “Oh, the Lakers. They’ve got Kobe, and that big Spanish dude and Odom and they got Artest, right?”  They’ll also say “Oh, and the Celtics. I mean, I know they’re old, but Pierce and Allen and Garnett. That’s just too much, right?” They may have said Cleveland depending on their awareness of how good James is, and hey, maybe they were really astute and selected Orlando. But the fact is, the more you pay attention to the league, the more you’ll get caught up with insignificant details. That’s what’s incredible about these Finals. They are simultaneously completely surprising and the most predictable result possible. If you pay attention to the game, to the regular season, to matchups, to really anything prior to the second round, you wouldn’t have seen this coming most likely. It’s possible.  After all, we knew the Lakers were capable of this, and we thought Boston was capable of this. But with how LA has taken so much time off in playoffs before, including one game in Oklahoma City, and how banged up the Celtics were, predicting it would be this easy was something that was only intuitive to fans of those franchises who are obsessed with one another (“We want Boston!”) and the casual fan.

As Krolik pointed out, we live in a cliche, conventional world. Defense does win championships, teams that have won before will win again, Vince Carter cannot get it done in the clutch, Kobe is the best player in the NBA, fly-over country doesn’t matter, a watched pot never boils and you have to play with the heart of a champion (or have the most ridiculous collection of talent since Showtime and have top free agents willing to take the MLE just to play for your team because of the weather, chicks, and celebrity) to be a champion.

So how does this shake out?

QUICK! SOMEONE MAN DEAD PUPPET FISHER’S STRINGS!: Rondo’s going to average 28-14-8 in this series, isn’t he? I mean, he has to. Derek Fisher can’t contain him by any stretch of the imagination because of his physical advantages (fast, long, better than Derek Fisher), and if he’s able to get floaters to fall against Dwight Howard, then the Lakers trifecta can’t be much harder. But then, Fisher’s handling Nash. Hold on, I’m going to vomit. Okay, there, I feel better. He’s not allowing Nash to destroy him, and Gasol has proven that even when he should fail because of his trademark characteristics (weak like a wheat field, sluggish like sloth), he usually succeeds (manhandling Howard in last year’s Finals, detonating play after play after play). So really, trying to bet on Rondo doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t fit into our cliches. “Veteran Point Guards always succeed over younger, faster guys.” So there’s one for LA.

TRAPPED ON 18 FOOTER ISLAND: Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom are younger and more versatile at this point than Kevin Garnett. It’s much like Vader struck down Obi-Wan, only in this instance, Obi-Wan would not have been kind and helpful to Luke but instead would have acted like a mental asylum escapee barking, spitting, and threatening to have sex with his children. Oh, and if you’re wrapped up in this metpahor, Glen Davis is Luke Skywalker in this scenario. If you have a hard time imagining Davis crying like Luke does at the end of Empire, just imagine someone stole his fudge bar.  There. So Garnett surely won’t be able to succeed in this series, right? WRONG. Let’s check the Cliche chart! “Veteran superstars always step up when it matters and taste glory one last time.” So get ready for that pick and pop to Garnett to work. This actually works in basketball terms. Gasol has the defensive range to step out, but he’s going to be drifting to stop Rondo because Laker’s Fight Club Rule 1A is.. well, actually, it’s “Don’t ever go out in something that isn’t hand-made for you by a fashion designer that you paid too much for, which is appropriate since they’re the only ones that can afford tickets to Staples for games they’ll show up 45 minutes late for.” But the second rule is “No easy layups.” So Garnett will have that 18 footer, and that’s his wheelhouse right now. His go-to. His Chris Kataan annoying voice.  And it will fall. Oh, it will fall.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING POST GAME: I want an investigation. Kendrick Perkins in the last two months has shut down Jermaine O’Neal (a little odd to the degree, but fine, whatever) and Shaquille O’Neal (okay, still old, but hey, the man’s still a mountain) and contained Howard in relation to number of touches versus number of points. Yes, Howard got 30 last game, but much of that was against people other than Perkins and if he’d scored on half the actual touches he got, he would have had 60. The man may be the strongest dude in the post in the NBA right now. He’s not even jamming guys with hard elbows. Just slightly shoving them back, like they’re blocks in Super Mario World. So can he do this to Bynum? Absolutely. Will he? No chance! Why? Check the Cliche chart! “A young up and comer who has faced adversity will step up and make some big plays.” Gotta be Bynum, right? I mean, it’s not going to be Shannon Brown, unless that play is “Make a really spectacular jump that results in a missed dunk that everyone gets excited about even though he missed the damn dunk.”  So Bynum should somehow get points here. That’s right. Andrew Bynum will succeed where Dwight Howard, Shaquille O’Neal, and Jermaine O’Neal have failed. For the Simmons readers in our audience, please insert your favorite violent act I will commit upon myself here.

SUPERMEGASTAR VERSUS MEGASUPERSTAR: So what then? What will it come down? What will decide this series of EPIC MASSIVE PROPORTIONS, LIVE ON ABC? Let’s check the Cliche chart! “Two superstars will rise to the occasion, and one will lead his team to victory just a bit more than the other.” Well that’s not helpful, Cliche Chart. I’m trading you in and getting one of those funny infographics pieces on the BP oil spill or something.  Look, it’s going to be Pierce and Kobe. It’s always Pierce and Kobe. This would lead you to believe it’s going to be the Celtics, if you’ve been paying attention all year. After all, Kobe played badly this year. He just did, relative to his former production. He took too many, shots, bad ones, and all those game winners were often needed because he failed to fit into the offense and instead went all Max Payne. Pierce has always been the bedrock, coming out of a shooting slump in the Magic series and knocking down those elbow jumpers. But this is all if you’ve been paying attention. What does the conventional wisdom say? Kobe wins. And the Lakers get revenge in an epic, seven game series with Kobe hitting the game winner through a flying ring of fire while shooting down the terrorist in the audience (screen tested by David Arquette) and saving all mankind. And on the floor afterwards, Pierce and Kobe will hug, with Pierce saying how much he respects him, and Kobe saying, no, I respect you. And they will bro hug and the music will play and Jack will celebrate with Andy Garcia and ESPN will start on a documentary about the documentary about them.

Despite all the snark, this will be entertaining as get-out. Rondo will probably have a few huge games and Kobe should do something amazing and the teams are matched pretty well. Neither is considerably deep, both have players playing well above their actual talent level right now (Brown v. Tony Allen), and are frontloaded with personalities. You’ll laugh at Glen Davis flopping all over Pau Gasol. You’ll cry at Ray Allen trying to guard Artest. And at the end of it, one of the greatest franchises in sports will hang another banner.

We should have saw this coming.

NBA Playoffs Lakers vs. Suns Game 1 Recap – Lamar Odom Does His Thing Like We All Knew He Should/Would/Could

May 18, 2010 in by with 0 Comments

There are plenty of things to talk about in Game One of a Lakers blowing out of the Phoenix Suns.

Kobe Bryant went off in a very scary way for Suns fans.

David Arquette somehow became the post-game story.

Andrew Bynum’s knee was tested and rested.

Jordan Farmar and Shannon Brown not only looked like NBA players throughout most of their time on the court but they actually looked like they were ready to help this Lakers team hoist up a 16th banner.

And Pau Gasol proved that he’s most likely the deadliest post player in the NBA.

However, none of that was as important as the playoff sighting of Lamar Odom. We all know the enigmatic tale of Lamar Odom. More so than most NBA players, Lamar Odom was a child prodigy the likes of which we’ve rarely seen. He was a power forward with the skills of a point guard. He wasn’t Magic Johnson by any means but he certainly was capable of shattering any proverbial mold set before him so that he could make a new one in his likeness.

After bouncing around high schools and colleges, Odom found his way into the NBA by being selected fourth in the 1999 NBA Draft. Unfortunately for him, he was picked by the Clippers and destined to be one constant conundrum wrapped in an enigma trapped in one of those super hard Sudokus. He showed flashes of brilliance in which he’d dominate guys like Kevin Garnett even though he had a far inferior team, while trying to balance the delicate building of a team of lottery picks and hope.

Fast-forward 10 years and he’s still as confusing as ever. Any time you start analyzing the Lakers roster and what they’re capable of with any NBA fan, you’re bound to come across the “what if” question concerning Lamar Odom. What if he maximized his talent and potential? What if he was motivated every time on the floor? What if he actually tried to Power Bar his way to the moon?

Lamar Odom has always been the NBA equivalent of The Riddler. He might as well be wearing an ambiguous green jump suit with question marks all over. Or should the jumpsuit be forum blue and gold?

Even though Lamar has been lauded as a shoulda-woulda-coulda over the past decade, the Lakers success has never been truly contingent on him showing up to play. Yes, the Lakers are a better team when he’s playing well but they’re also a better team when Kobe is taking smart shots, Pau Gasol is obliterating the concept of post defense and Andrew Bynum is being a big lug of a man that is impossible to keep away from the rim.

Against the Suns in Game One, Lamar Odom continued his career-long eradication of the Phoenix Suns. He’s played 827 games in the NBA (including playoffs) and racked up averages of 14.6 points, 8.9 rebounds and 35.8 minutes per game while shooting 46.5% from the field. But when he’s faced the Suns as a member of the Lakers, he’s taken his game to a whole other level.

In 32 career games against the Suns while playing in a Lakers uniform, Lamar Odom has upped his averages to 16.4 points, 11.7 rebounds and 38.3 minutes per game while shooting 48.3% from the field. Monday night, he posed the exact same problem for the Suns that everyone hoped would be a constant threat during his entire NBA career.

Lamar Odom finished with a spectacular line of 19 points and 19 rebounds off the bench in just 31 minutes of play. But it wasn’t the line he posted as much as it was the way he posted it. Seven of those rebounds came on the offensive boards. He feasted inside with 7/10 on his shots around the rim (Hoopdata). Simply put, the Phoenix Suns see a perfect weapon in Odom for what they do and have to watch while he has his way with them.

When Lamar Odom is on the court against the Suns, he’s able to slip into any spot on the floor that he needs. He can stay back and take long jumpers, even if they are a horrific shot for him to be taking. But most of all, he’s going to dive into the lane and create havoc against a Suns defense that still can’t defend the paint. I know we all like to think this Suns team is improved defensively in some way but regardless of what stats you want to use, when Amare and Frye are on the floor together you’re just not going to be able to match the length of a guy like Odom.

The Suns are designed to one thing and one thing only – that’s score a ton of points. When the tempo was high at the beginning of the game, it looked like the Lakers were going to have a real contest in front of them. Maybe it wasn’t going to be the same heart-pounding threat that the Thunder were in the first round but it wasn’t going to be far from it either. With Odom on the court, the tempo is no longer an option. He controls the boards and if he controls the boards then he controls the tempo of the game. He can get back on defense, end the Suns possession if they miss and get the momentum going the Lakers way.

We’re not necessarily sure that he’s going to show up and do this again in Game Two because that’s just not what he guarantees on a basketball court. He leaves us guessing, which adds to the drama of the NBA playoffs.

The confusion adds to not only his mystique but the Lakers mystique as well.

NBA Playoffs Lakers vs Jazz Game 2 Recap: Tightly Contested Blowouts Are The New Rage

May 5, 2010 in by with 3 Comments


(Note: This is not me or anybody I’m related to. Carry on)

I remember when my parents put a basketball hoop into our backyard when I was 10 years old. I spent an inordinate amount of time out there working on jump shots and layups.

After a year or so, I was getting pretty decent at making them. I didn’t have a ton of dribbling ability because the majority of the backyard was grass. There was a cement walkway down the middle of the yard so I could dribble well in a straight line but overall, my specialty was becoming shot making. Every once in a while, I’d get some bonding time in with my dad and we’d play one-on-one. He always beat me to the point of frustration. I’d want to stop playing. I’d want to quit. But he wouldn’t let me. Maybe he was trying to foster a balance between my overly competitive nature and a sense to stick with things when they aren’t going your way. Or maybe he just liked beating the hell out of me playing basketball. I like to think it was the former.

The thing is I don’t know that my dad was any better than I was. He wrestled in high school and college. He played football. He wasn’t exactly John Havlicek out there. He couldn’t really dribble. He was a decent enough shooter to beat an 11-year old. He definitely wasn’t getting better out there and I was. But I couldn’t beat him. Sometimes, people just have your number at a certain stage in your life. My dad was bigger and stronger than me. He’d block my shot. He’d crash the boards against me on his own misses. He’d just dominate me whenever he felt like it.

This is the state of the Lakers-Jazz series.

It’s the closest blowout of all-time. The Jazz are in every game but they’re not in any position to win. This may sound pessimistic and maybe it is. But the Jazz have no chance. They came close and made a valiant effort in Game One – even had the lead late in the game. In Game Two, it was more of the same. However the team just can’t seem to put it together against the Lakers. Plus, I don’t think they’re actually capable of truly winning a game in Los Angeles no matter how close the game is.

The first problem is that Carlos Boozer is playing like he has money on the Lakers. I don’t know if it’s laziness with him. Maybe it’s just a lack of complete interest. There were a few moments (very few, actually) when he would push Pau Gasol out of position early. Instead of getting the ball four feet from the basket, Pau was getting the ball around six feet from the basket. When this happened, the hook shot was less deadly and he wasn’t quite far away from the basket enough to open up his jumper with the threat of driving the ball.

But Carlos didn’t do his work early. Instead, he continually gave up prime real estate on the low block for Pau Gasol to establish. And the result was Pau Gasol annihilating the Jazz interior inside (22 points on 11 shots). It caused numerous matchup problems throughout the game too. You couldn’t leave Boozer by himself with Gasol because Carlos had little chance of containing him. So you had to send a double team. When the double team happened, Ron Artest was blatantly left open. It worked for the most part too; he was just 1/7 from three. However, it didn’t work when the Lakers were patient and used Gasol as a decoy of some sorts. They caused the Jazz to scramble on offense and too often left the middle of the paint wide-open. The Lakers responded with 64 (!!!!) points in the paint. In two games, the Lakers have made 50/67 (74.6%) attempts around the basket.

The second problem is no one can check Kobe Bryant with the way he’s playing right now. It’s hard enough to stop him when he’s making questionable decisions. He’s attacked the basket much more in this series than he has for most of the season. With Kobe, you try to close off driving lanes and force him to make those impossible long two-point jumpers. You hope that he misses them and if he makes them you just live with it. But in this series, he’s now taken 16 shots around the basket in the first two games. According to HoopData, Kobe averaged just fewer than five shot attempts around the rim per game. In fact, when he gets five or more shot attempts around the rim this season, the Lakers are 29-9.

There’s no mistake that a properly aggressive Kobe Bryant, in which he’s taking the ball to the rim and creating off the dribble, is much more deadly than when he’s trying to win the game from 20-feet and beyond. In the playoffs, the Lakers are 4-0 when he hits the five or more attempts around the basket mark. And just 2-2 when he doesn’t. Wesley Matthews and CJ Miles are trying their hardest to contain him but with the way he’s choosing to play, it’s nearly impossible for them to get a good effort in stopping him.

The third problem is the length and what it does to the Jazz’s rebounding. In the first game, the Jazz did a great job of keeping the ball alive and taking advantage of their ability to jump quickly on the second leap. In Game Two, the Lakers just took the ball off the glass and started the ball up the other end of the court. Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom alone outrebounded the entire Utah team. Without Paul Millsap’s strenuous effort on the offensive glass, the Jazz would have been obliterated. He had eight offensive rebounds and seemed to be the only player effective enough to put up a fight.

The Jazz simply don’t have the bodies to make a difference against the Lakers skyline. Would Andrei Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur make a big difference? It’s possible. They’re not really incredible rebounders but it provides much smarter, more agile bodies to bang with the Lakers than what Koufos and Fesenko are able to contribute right now.

The biggest problem of them all was the complete let down Deron Williams gave the Jazz and their fans. He was horrible in Game Two. I’m not sure what it was. Maybe it was Kobe guarding him for a good portion of the game. Maybe he was unsure that he properly applied the GLH to his head. I’m not quite sure. What I do know is that if he is going to have lackluster games in this series, the Jazz have little hope of truly competing for wins.

Overall, this game was just weird. Again it was the closest blowout victory I’ve ever seen and it was buoyed by the worst good performance I’ve ever seen with what Ron Artest produced on the floor. He missed 86% of his threes in the game and also missed four layups. And yet, he somehow ended up with 16 points and two dunks.

The result was that the Jazz lose another close butt kicking. The Lakers just are too big and too strong for the Jazz to beat them on a narrow cement pathway right now.

NBA Playoffs Thunder-Lakers Game 3: Here’s How Russell Westbrook Killed A Man

April 23, 2010 in by with 4 Comments

Something I’ve been impressed with all year with the Lakers is their transition defense. They’re not just always up the floor and ready to pick up their man, but they have such good positioning. Teams try and force the issue and run into a wall, then try and slide off and hit another one. It’s frighteningly effective to the point of despair for running teams. Which is why the astounding amount of fail on Russell Westbrook’s poster-dunk last night was even more surprising in context.

Before we begin, it should be noted that I went to look at these plays expecting Derek Fisher to have been the catastrophe on defense. He wasn’t. He got blown up on this play, but it’s a hard angle, in a difficult position, and when you consider the rest of the work he did, it’s forgivable. Westbrook’s late pull-up elbow and-one wasn’t an and-one at all, and Fisher had a hand up, after fighting through a screen. The pull-up answer three from Westbrook after Fish’s dagger was just an incredible shot (with possible poor shot selection) that Westbrook nailed with Fisher right there. Even if he was slightly to Westbrook’s right trying to guard against the screen drive, Fisher recovered enough to acquit. So this play really isn’t his fault, even though he’s the one that got taken at halfcourt.

Westbrook dribbled up to halfcourt, and then saw this:

I suppose in this scenario that Pau Gasol and Odom are expecting that monumental hole on their right to be plugged with the corner defender, or for Fish to be able to cut the snake off at the head. That, in and of itself, has to be concerning from a defensive standpoint because the Lakers should have reached the point where they no longer count on Fisher’s defense to always be there. It’s like a U2 album at this point. It’s still got the capacity to be quite good, but you should have learned to listen on iTunes before you put your money down.

Meanwhile, I didn’t draw it, but you should just go ahead and imagine a big lightbulb above Westbrook’s head.

Westbrook realizes that Fisher’s not only old and slow and crusty and smells like a death sandwich (thanks Videogum!), but is overplaying his right as are the rest of the Lakers, Phil Jackson, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and the cast of Glee. So he gives him some Jimmy Smith 2001 juking sans cocaine, and is off to the races. Lamar Odom, meanwhile, is apparently hallucinating.

Fisher’s trying here, hoping to re-establish position before Westbrook gets to launching point. Odom recognizes what’s happening but can’t quite get there, which means he’s going to try and give him a Bynum-foul. Pau Gasol does what you would expect Pau Gasol to do.

I’d also like to point out that Shannon Brown has the same position for the entirety of this clip, as if he is a crab alien in Space Invaders trying to provide help defense. Additionally, from this still, Ron Artest looks like he’s leaning back with his hands in his pockets saying “Whoo Boy, Dat’s going to be one ugly poster!”

And it was. You’ll notice Gasol recoiling in horror. Artest reaches out, as if to say “No…” and is cut off.  And then blood rained from the skies and people in Oklahoma were louder than anything since “Shameless” came out, and OKC managed to steal a game.

And that, my friends, is how you make a poster.

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