What more is there to say? The biggest comeback in Finals history, the Big 3 live up to their name, and Doc Rivers makes all the right moves. Now the Boston Celtics are one game away from the title, while the Lakers have barely put up a fight.
Before the series, this matchup was billed as the league’s best offense (Lakers) against one of the best defensive teams in the history of the NBA (Celtics). There’s a saying in baseball that good pitching always beats good hitting. In basketball, the same holds true to defense over offense. In Game 4, however, the vaunted Celtics defense took a while to show up, apparently not ready for the emergence of Lamar Odom (playing with newfound aggression) and the intensity that the Lakers brought on both ends the entire first half. So after spotting the Lakers a 20+ point lead, the Celtics decided to go to work. There was a turning point in the 3rd quarter where you could see the Celtics flip the switch. Using a small-ball lineup of Eddie House at point (instead of a clearly slowed Rajon Rondo), James Posey at the 4 and Garnett at center, the Celtics started swarming to the ball, extending their defense to half court and clearly making the Lakers uncomfortable.
As they started to make their comeback, there was one specific play which I thought really was the beginning of the end for the Lakers. Ray Allen (who has had an amazing series, but more on that later) had a fast break lay-up with only one man, Derek Fisher, to beat. Fisher gave him a hard foul, sending Allen to the floor, and making him earn the points at the free throw line. One or two possessions later, the same thing happened, with Ray Allen leaking out, leaving only Vlad Radmonovic to beat. Radmonovic is 6’10, compared to Allen at only 6’6, but Radmonovic decided simply run under Allen, hoping to distract him. Ray was able to cleanly lay it in, and while the lead was cut to only 10 or so at that point, it highlighted everything wrong with the Lakers. In the regular season, that type of move would have been fine for Radmonovic to pull. But in the NBA Finals, Vlad should have put Allen on the ground, maybe even intentionally earning a flagrant foul. That play, to me, exemplified everything wrong with the Lakers. They are simply a softer team.
At this point of the season, after everyone has been playing for so long, it comes down to who wants it more, and who can go and take the game for themselves (sorry to use clichés here, but stay with me). My point is that the Celtics seemed more motivated and more equipped to win the title. Kobe looks out of gas, and nobody else on the Lakers really inspires much confidence when the game is on the line. In crunch time, the Lakers seem to regress into the Lakers of the past two years, as opposed to the championship-caliber that we saw this year.
Some keys from Game 4 (and looking ahead to Game 5)…
Ray Allen & Paul Pierce
Both known as pretty much one-dimensional scorers their whole careers (Allen moreso than Pierce), Ray Allen and Paul Pierce have turned in complete games the entire Finals so far (except for Pierce in Game 3). Pierce has been getting it done on both ends the entire playoffs, and in Game 4, Pierce switched onto Kobe for the entire second half, bodying him on defense while scoring against Kobe on the other end. The signature moment was Pierce cleanly rejecting a turnaround jumper by Kobe, one of those things that you will rarely see happen, if ever. Allen, after an up-and-down playoffs where some questioned if his career was over, has found his way in the Finals. In Game 4, he played the entire 48 minutes, did a good job guarding Kobe in the first half while still making plays on offense. Not only that, but Allen grabbed 9 rebounds and scored the sealing basket on an isolation play. There’s a reason that Allen is part of the “Big 3,” and right now he’s reminding everyone why.
Lamar Odom & Pau Gasol
Odom and Gasol are both great players. They’ve proven this throughout their respective careers, and one bad series isn’t going to change that. In Game 4, we even got a glimpse of what makes them so great- in the open court, there might not be a better big man pairing than these two. But other than a solid first half of Game 4, Odom hasn’t really shown up, and has found himself on the bench at the end of Games 2 and 4. Gasol, on the other hand, simply can’t stand up to Garnett. He’s had his moments, but the one thing that has really surprised me about Gasol are his hands. For whatever reason I’ve never really thought of Gasol as having bad hands, but there are points where I’m surprised if he DOES make the catch. This is the one thing that makes Kobe more upset than anything, when he makes a play and Gasol can’t finish.
If the Lakers want to even take this series back to Boston, they need both of their star big men to be on the floor contributing the entire game. I’d attempt to break it down further, but at this point I think it simply comes down to playing well or not playing well. Right now, neither is playing well, and until either of them shows that they can play like they are capable, there’s no point in going into any more details.
Doc Rivers & Phil Jackson
It’s been well-documented in the past few days, but the coaching effort by Doc Rivers has been fantastic. He finally found the perfect lineup to use against the Lakers (detailed above). This works because the Lakers biggest weakness is at point guard (nobody to really bother House) and because Posey is big and fast enough to effectively guard Odom. Remember that the Celtics are the team that has been much more banged up, and Rivers is still finding the right combos despite missing two of his best players. I’d expect Rivers to go with the House-Allen-Pierce-Posey-Garnett lineup more in Game 5 until Jackson finds a way to counter it.
Phil Jackson, the 9-time champion, hasn’t looked good at all this series. Part of the problem is his personnel- the Lakers really don’t have enough size to match up with the Celtics, and he doesn’t have any quality big men to spell Odom and Gasol, forcing them into longer minutes even though they aren’t really doing anything to help the Lakers. The Ariza move was great in the first half of Game 4, and I’d expect Ariza to see extended minutes again in Game 5, but you would think that Jackson would have another wrinkle that he would break out. One thought would be to go big against the Celtics, playing Kobe at the point (especially since Farmar and Fisher really aren’t giving them much), Ariza (or Vujacic, depending if they wanted more offense or defense) at the 2, and the trio of Odom, Turiaf and Gasol all at the same time. Since Kobe, Ariza, Odom and Gasol are so athletic (something that is true no matter how well or poorly they’re playing), they could get away with something like this without sacrificing their open court game. Kobe is basically playing point anyway, especially in crunch time, so this really isn’t that radical of a move. Phil has earned the right not to be questioned, but he certainly hasn’t made an impact from the bench so far in the series.
Prediction
Even though the Celtics look like they have this thing all wrapped up (when they stole Game 4, I said that they just won the championship), but I think that Kobe is simply too proud to lose the series on their home court. No team has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit, and this doesn’t look like the squad that will do it, but I think the Lakers have at least one more win in them. Look for a classic Kobe performance in another hard-fought game, before the Celtics win it in Game 6.
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