Archive for January, 2010

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Stomach Punch: Lakers 90, C’s 89

January 31st, 2010

3 big games. 3 brutal losses. The C’s played their best ball of the season in the 2nd quarter of this one, but it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish and the C’s once again showed an inability to close out a superior opponent once again. There was plenty of good to take out of this game, but you have to give credit where credit is due. The Lakers fought back from an 11 point 4th quarter deficit and the C’s recurring problems cropped up as the Lakers did just enough down the stretch to take a 1 point lead with Kobe Bryant draining a jumper in Ray Allen’s face at the top of the key.

The Lakers executed on both sides of the ball, scoring on their final 3 possessions while also limiting the Green to just 5 points in the final 6:40 of this contest, drawing a critical offensive foul on Paul Pierce with a pushoff with 30 seconds left and playing smart defense on the C’s final possession, rotating over to a rolling Ray Allen off his feed from Paul Pierce which forced a tough look from downtown that rimmed out.

So what do they make of all this? I’m not quite sure. The C’s showed they could play with and dominate the best team in the game for large portions of this one. Once again, sustaining it was the problem. The good news is that the defense was probably as good as it has been all season in the final 3 quarters and despite how bitter this loss will be for a team that desperately needed it, the pros you take out of this game outweigh the cons for me in my book. Large problems loom…..but the C’s hung with the Champs. They just need to remember how to do it when it counts. » More: Stomach Punch: Lakers 90, C’s 89

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Posted in Game Recaps

Finding Positives in Despair

January 31st, 2010

Matt Moore, Hardwood Paroxysm, 1/30/10:

“There will not be a Big Ol’ Honkin’ LA-Boston post when LA creams them tomorrow…I doubt it will be competitive.”

Well, Matt was wrong. I don’t mean to pick on Matt; he’s one of the best hoops bloggers writers alive, and he knows the game as well as anyone writing about it. And this game doesn’t necessarily disprove his central contention—that the Celtics are too old to be competitive this season, and that they are not a championship-caliber team. After all, the Lakers beat the Celtics on what was, for LA, the 7th game of an eight-game road trip. 

But this game, this crushing Sunday afternoon loss, proved  two (positive) things. (Brian Robb will have more in a full post-game bullets post):

1) The Celtic defense from 2008 still exists. Whether it will exist often enough or long enough for the team to win a title remains unknown or perhaps even unlikely. But in this loss, the defense was absolutely spectacular. The fact that the Lakers shot 48 percent is a tribute to how freaking good that team is, as epitomized by Kobe’s game-winner. The C’s decision to overplay on Bryant and sometimes double him forced Boston’s defenders to cover even more of the court than usual on rotations, and they were up to it. Really, really up to it. 

The evidence: 16 LA turnovers for a team that takes care of the ball almost as well as any team in the league. Many came on tough cross-court or interior passes as the Lakers tried and failed to beat Boston’s rotations with quick passes. 

Again: The defense was spectacular. Do not lose sight of this when you see that LA shot 48 percent. 
» More: Finding Positives in Despair

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Posted in Game Recaps

Sometimes the Obvious Must Be Stated

January 31st, 2010

Doc Rivers on KG (and Pierce?) before the game today (via the Globe):

“Yeah I can,” said Rivers. “But not right now. Right now, none of our guys that have come back [from injury], you can’t hold any of them to normal standards. The biggest issue with our injuries is they’re healthy now, but they’re not ready to play basketball at this level yet, full-time.

“The only way they’re going to get back is to keeping them on the floor and letting them play through it. Unfortunately while you’re doing that, your team is going to struggle a little bit.”

This is obvious, and Doc is absolutely right that in order for KG to get as close to possible to 100 percent—whatever that is for him now—he has to actually play more than 15 games at a time. Last year, everyone crossed their fingers that keeping KG out of the 20 or so games leading the post-season would get him healthy in time for the playoffs. 

Doc’s quote here is sort of an acknowledgment that that is not enough anymore. The top half of the East is too tough now, and the bottom half has a few times capable of pushing the C’s in the first round. The C’s cannot have KG playing himself back into rhythm and game shape in late April. They’ll need him there when the playoffs begin. 

Can that happen? We’ll see. 

Oh: BEAT LA!!!

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Posted in Commentary

Game 45/82: C’s (29-15) vs. Lakers (36-11)

January 31st, 2010

We like to deviate from our usual preview format and do something different for big games, and any game against the purple and gold qualifies. In anticipation of the season’s first match-up against the hated Lakers, I asked Kurt Helin of the Lakers blog Forum Blue & Gold some questions about the defending champs who somehow recovered from the emotional beating of the 2008 Finals to achieve something in life. (I keeed, I keeed). 

Here’s the transcript of our q-and-a:

Celtics Hub: Is there a definitive prognosis on Kobe’s finger? 

Forum Blue & Gold: It’s an avulsion fracture on the index finger of his right (that’s shooting) hand. This is a where a tendon pulls off the bone and takes a little bit of the bone with it. If you or I got this, we’d get a splint on the finger, some quality prescription pain drugs and be told to rest it. Kobe is taking the approach that in the splint it is going to heal normally — at the same pace whether he plays or not — so it’s simply a matter of pain management. Whether or not he should actually take time off can be debated, but it’s moot because he won’t.

He has tried a number of different splints (from soft to with metal in it) trying to find one that works best. The problem is, the stiff splints help him shoot better but hurt his ball handling. At the end of the day, mentally he is still Kobe, and if he feels he has to take the game over for the Lakers to win he will. Whether he is shooting well or not.

CH: With the Lakers on the hook for a ton of money next year (and, most likely, the next few seasons), are they really willing to deal an expiring contract like Adam Morrison’s in exchange for salary that stays on the books past this season? If so, any chance they go in a direction other than point guard? » More: Game 45/82: C’s (29-15) vs. Lakers (36-11)

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Posted in Previews

Talkin’ Lakers With the Enemy

January 30th, 2010

This is a quick Part I of our Lakers-C’s preview. Part II, in which we hear from a writer who covers the Lakers, will come early tomorrow morning. 

For now, I’ll direct you two places: 

• Kurt Helin at the top-notch Lakers blog Forum Blue & Gold asked me some questions about the current state of the Celtics. I answered them, and you can read our Q-and-A here. Topics include: What’s wrong with Ray Allen? How much of a burden is Rajon Rondo carrying? How is KG’s knee? 

• Andrew and Brian Kamenetzky, the proprietors of the nice new Lakers blog on ESPN’s Los Angeles site, invited Kurt and I to do a sort of round-table e-mail exchange about the Celtics and Lakers. That is available here. We discuss everything from how Sheed is fitting in to why fans care so much about these regular-season games. We also offer our predictions for Sunday. 

That’ll do for now. Look for Part II of this preview either very late tonight or early tomorrow.

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Posted in Previews