NBA Finals, Game #3: Boston 81, Los Angeles 87
Series to date: Boston 2-1
1. Superb Coverage
In all my years of watching NBA basketball, I can’t remember more incisive and illuminating commentary about the game than we got last night from Jeff Van Gundy and his cohorts on ABC and ESPN. The general purpose of these Three Pointers has always been to leave the obvious stuff alone and analyze the matchups and strategic flow of the game in a little more depth. But almost everything I was noticing as the game unfolded–and more–was being identified on the fly by JVG and, to a lesser extent, Mark Jackson and Michael Breen. And what stray pieces remained after that were cleaned up by the postgame interviews with the coaches and the studio analysis of Michael Wilbon and Jon Barry.
Right out of the gate, the crew highlighted that Phil Jackson had decided to match Kobe up to guard Rajon Rondo, and then correctly surmised that the cross-matchup at the other end–either Rondo having to guard Kobe or Ray Allen having to locate him in transition–was a significant motivation for Jackson’s decision. Similarly, when Rondo went down with a slight ankle sprain and Celtic coach Doc Rivers (finally!) went with Eddie House instead of Sam Cassell, the crew poinhted out that the subsequent Celtic run was due to the better spacing House provided as a lethal long-range shooter, opening up the paint for Kevin Garnett to operate.
Van Gundy was in a zone. On the Celtics out-of-bounds play under the basket in the final 1.3 seconds of the first period, he said "Usually [in this instance] you want a cutter to the basket and a shooter going to the strong side." Bingo. The Celtics had a man cut hard toward the hoop to draw down the defense, then had a strong side pick to free up three-point shooter James Posey for a trey. Then there was Van Gundy’s explanation of why the pull-up jumper is such a difficult shot, citing Kobe and Ray Allen as on-the-spot examples. Then, as the Lakers began to gather momentum in the 4th period, Van Gundy flatly announced that he would "trap Kobe on every possession." This dramatized Rivers’ failure to do that, not only making JVG look smart and prescient, but alerting even casual viewers about the silliness of leaving Allen hanging out to dry guarding Kobe in single coverage. Finally, Van Gundy understands that he’s a basketball nerd who looks like the guy who always got picked on by the bullies and ignored by the beauties growing up, and plays on that for comic relief. His halftime comment that of all the celebrities at the game, the one he’d most want to meet is Alyssa Milano ("If I was Nick Lachey I’d never let her out of my sight!") was hilarious.
Mark Jackson necessarily suffers by comparison. Too often he either states the obvious or says something of questionable merit to back up a point he wants to make in the immediate circumstance. Claiming that Kevin Garnett isn’t a very good jump shooter and is far more effective in the low block, for example. Yeah, KG needed to operate down low far more often last night, but not because he can’t stick the midrange jumper–his recent shooting struggles are a significant aberration. Jackson also unleashes groaners like "Jordan Farmar is a starting point guard in this league," which damns Farmar with hyperbolic praise. But Jackson has his moments, like last night when he was the only one to point out that the "effective screens" JVG was praising KG for setting were illegal–a contention borne out by Garnett being called for a moving screen that was almost exactly the same as the one he’d set when Jackson mentioned it.
Looking at the notes I’d jotted to myself after the game, one of the few things left was that nobody’d mentioned how putting Kobe on Paul Pierce had helped shut Pierce down–and then Phil Jackson mentioned it in the postgame. (The great D by Vujacic on Ray Allen which enabled the Kobe-on-Pierce coverage was about all the slim pickins I had left.) But when studio host Stuart Scott asked Wilbon why Pierce shot so horribly, Wilbon didn’t simply parrot Jackson; he also echoed his colleague Jon Barry’s smart, succinct comments about the difficulty of east to west travel (Jackson also brought up this point but Barry, as a recent player, put more meat on the bone about it) and also added his own analysis that the early foul trouble Pierce found himself in contributed to his woes. It was a great blend of cherrypicking the wisdom of others and adding your own insight makes the slam-dunk case for why Wilbon is way better than the guy he replaced, screamin’ Steve Smith.
2. The Donaghy Stink Isn’t Going Away
As if Van Gundy wasn’t already having a fabulous night, disgraced and crooked referee Tim Donaghy verified his conspiracy theory from 2005. Back then, Van Gundy was fined a whopping $100,000 for claiming that the refs unfairly targeted his center, Yao Ming, for various infractions in response to pressure from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. Through his attornies, Donaghy–incensed that the NBA calimed it spent $1 million investigating his unsavory associations, gambling debts, and potential fixing of games, a claim that could lengthen his jail sentence and perhaps compel restitution–essentially backed up JVG’s claims in detail. Interviewed at halftime about the matter, Van Gundy expertly walked the line between covering the NBA’s ass and yelling "I told ya so." He castigated Donaghy for his transgressions and pointed out that they give the ref little credibility, especially as he angles for a lighter sentence. But he also reiterated that the league needs total transparency when it comes to these backroom complaints and, more significantly, how the league decides to respond to them.
The Van Gundy/Cuban dust-up from 2005 was actually small potatoes compared to Donaghy’s other contention: That two of the three refs (Dick Bavetta, Bob Delaney and Ted Bernhardt) working Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals were NBA "company men," who, at the direction of the league, went out of their way to officiate the game in a manner that would boost the Lakers over the Sacramento Kings. The officiating in that game was notoriously atrocious, to the point where then-Kings’ coach Rick Adelman bitterly complained about it after the game and many people only half-heartedly wondered if the fix was in.
I know that Donaghy is not to be trusted, and that if he was going to inaccurately allege that refs beside himself were crooked, that Lakers-Kings game would be a strategically wise one to cite. But Commissioner David Stern cannot wish this one away, or cite previous FBI investigations into the matter. First of all, an entire, separate tribunal similar to the Mitchell Commission regarding steroids in baseball needs to be established, complete with subpeona power, and all doubts and controversies on this subject need to be exposed and examined. The stain and the stink are already out there, and the NBA needs to regain their credibility and good name with scrutiny that should err on the side of overkill. Remember, even as Stern castigates Donaghy for being a criminal trying to save his own skin, the league is also now proven guilty for creating an environment that allowed a compromised Donaghy to operate, and influence, many games, including playoff games. In light of Donaghy’s detailed, shocking charges, how is the NBA any different in trying to save its own skin by simply denigrating him?
Even as the investigation takes place, Stern (or the person who replaces him) should take Phil Jackson’s advice and divorce itself from any influence over or connection to its officiating crews. That the league office has authority over the refs severely compromises its ability to investigate and judge any allegations made by Donaghy that the league influence referee conduct in the first place.
3. Leftovers
A
fter making a bad coaching mistake subbing Trevor Ariza first off the bench in Game Two, Jackson redeemed himself with the Kobe-Rondo matchup and also by calling plays for troubled Lamar Odom twice in key second-half situations coming out of time-outs last night. Odom hit the first one and had enough penetration to enable Pau Gasol to get the putback on the second one. Jackson knows he’s not going to win this series if both Odom and Gasol remain in a funk. Right now Odom is the more significant problem. He’s resorting to attempted slam dunks on missed shots long after the refs have blown the play dead, cheapskate macho that’s even worse than KG’s, is a pickpocket’s delight every time he puts the ball on the floor, and has become a foul machine because he’s not thinking clearly–"confused," as Jackson put it. Those two plays out of the timeouts were designed to buck him up, and the Gasol putback made it a two-fer on the confidence-rebuilding front.
I am thoroughly aware of the reasons why the Kobe-Rondo and then the House counter were both relatively effective. But did it really have to happen that way? Mark Jackson seemed to think it would be a terrible thing having Rondo be aggressive with his own shot as Kobe sloughs off him to play center field or double Pierce, claiming Boston doesn’t want to rely on its "fourth or fifth option." But an unguarded Rondo is a decent first or second option. He shot 49.2% during the regular season, and even his playoff accuracy of 41.4% is better than what the team’s other two point guards, Cassell and House, are shooting, and that’s with people guarding them. Which brings up the second point: Why not keep sloughing off the point guard and doubling KG in the low block even with House in the game? He shot 2-8 FG (admittedly, he was 2-3 from beyond the arc), so why not see if you can keep frustrating the Big 3 and make Eddie House beat you? Because guarding House out on the perimeter obviously helped get KG off. It reminds of all the times one coach will go big or small, and rather than seeing which way the deliberate mismatch turns, the opposing coach subs in the corresponding bigs and smalls to match up. If the situation(s) repeats itself in Game Four, hopefully the Celts will allow Rondo to go off, and the Lakers will dare House to beat them.
Count me among those who think this was a moral victory for the Celts. Their Big 3 was 1-12 FG in the first period and the score was tied. Pierce and Garnett were terrible from start to finish and they still nearly pulled it out. If you’re a Laker fan, you can argue that Gasol and Odom likewise stank up the joint and the Lakers prevailed regardless, but on the basis of the first three games, who is more likely to bounce back to vintage form, Pierce/KG or Gasol/Odom?
Just moments after Mark Jackson commented that Farmar and Vujacic were in a bit of a tiff over who should be controlling the basketball in the half court, Farmar clanked a long trey off the front iron. It’s the latest in a long line of reasons why I’m not a Farmar fan. But he and Sasha have more guts than brains, and both need to defer to Kobe more often, but when one of them has the hot hand, Laker fans should hope the other has the good sense to nourish it rather than horn in.
Those who said the refs would call a "makeup" game in favor of the Lakers after the free throw disparity in favor of the Celts had ammunition for their argument after LA traipsed to the line 14 times in the first quarter alone. And yeah, overall I noticed a *slight* bias in the calls in favor of the Lakers, especially early. And as Wilbon pointed out, that may have compounded Pierce’s lack of rhythm, just as quick whistles on Kobe deterred his momentum in Game Two. But my take is that the calls were more even-handed last night than they were in Game Two, and that the refs didn’t decide the outcome of Game Two, let alone Game Three. And I do think Doc Rivers got in a clever dig at Jackson during the postgame last night when he claimed he was happy Jackson didn’t come in whining about the foul disparity this time.
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