Category: Timberwolves

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Let’s start this with the big fat cavaet that I rarely watch, and am certainly not very well versed about, college basketball. And since two of the key principals in the eight-player swap that the Timberwolves and Grizzlies pulled off in the middle of the night Thursday/Friday are high-caliber college players, I am working with hearsay and inferences rather than my own eyes about how good or appropriate Kevin Love and OJ Mayo will be while plying their now-lucrative trade for their new NBA teams. Maybe when I get a gander at Love and Mayo in action, I’ll have a totally different take. For that matter, maybe my college ignorance is why I seem to be among the minority (and in agreement with ESPN’s Chad Ford, which may be worse) in thinking it is a good trade for Minnesota. So be it. You can only go with what you think you know. I’m not trying to hedge, I’m just honestly laying out the context.

First of all, the question isn’t whether the Timberwolves helped themselves last night–compare the pre-draft and post-draft rosters and try to tell me they didn’t significantly upgrade–but whether they helped themselves as much as they could. My answer is no, they didn’t, but that’s because they idiotically punted the 34th pick for no discernible reason other than to be pennywise, and we all know the second half of that course of action.

Let’s cut to the chase. Here are the reasons I really like the Memphis deal.

1) Mike Miller, who is one of the more underrated players in this league.

Well, maybe not underrated so much as unknown despite his gaudy accomplishments. If you put out the trivia question: "Which NBA player has been named both Rookie of the Year (in 2000-01) and 6th Man of the Year (2005-06) during his career?" how many guesses would it take before folks came up with Miller? Having turned 28 in February, the guy is in his prime, yet sports the kind of game that isn’t likely to fall off a cliff once he moves past 30. Last season was arguably the best of his career. He sank over half his shots (50.2%), which is made more impressive by the fact that over 40% of them were treys (359 three pointers, out of 824 total FGA), of which he converted 43.2%. Those are career-best numbers but not a huge aberration, as Miller is a career 40.3% shooter from behind the arc after nine NBA seasons. He also led the Grizz in rebounds last year, averaging 6.7 per game, and doled out 3.4 assists. He’s 6-8–a legitimate 3 and a matchup problem for opponents at the 2. He is a floor-spacer par excellence, making it very difficult for teams to double down on Al Jefferson in the low block without getting singed from outside.

2) Having a plan and sticking to it.

The most glaring need for the Wolves coming into the draft was gaining size, and picking up personnel that would banish the absurd smallball that had Jefferson at center and Ryan Gomes at power forward many times during the season. Taking OJ Mayo with the third overall pick meant that for the fourth straight year the Wolves were drafting a backcourt swingman (McCants/Foye/Brewer/Mayo). When the team thought Mayo was indeed their pick, I heard Fred Hoiberg tell the Draft Party audience that they could always address the need for a big in free agency. Ah, but when you look at the free agent list, it’s slim pickin’s indeed–the best of the lot are probably Kurt Thomas and Dasagna Diop, both less-than-perfect fits (to put it mildly) who will command inflated salaries on the free market. So, that meant paying through the nose or putting up with another year of Mark Madsen and Chris Richard when you didn’t want to play smallball.

Now you’ve got Jason Collins, who has fallen off a bit but is still a better complement to Jefferson in the pivot than anyone else previously on the roster. He’s a legit seven-footer who doesn’t need touches on offense and knows his meal ticket is rugged defense. You’ve got Collins for one year and then his $6.2 million comes off the books and you might have to look for another backup center before you can bring over the hot second round pick Nikola Pekovic, who most agree can be a player in the pivot once his rich deal with a team in Greece expires in two years.

But more importantly, if you’re Kevin McHale, you have eliminated excuses, introduced more direct accountability, and gone out and acquired the person you unequivocally state is "the best big man in the draft." Kevin Love is just a shade under 6-10, has a wide body, is reputed to be a tenacious rebounder, and was named the Player of the Year in the PAC-10 as a freshman, a league that also contained OJ Mayo, Brook Lopez and Russell Westbrook. Many think he is too small to succeed in the NBA paint: McHale is not one of them. The Wolves front office get feisty in pointing out that his combine numbers for size and athleticism compare with Atlanta center Al Horford. They think Jefferson and Love are a legit 4/5, or 5/4, depending on the matchups. I don’t know if they’re right, but I do strongly suspect that Jefferson/Love will play bigger than Jefferson/Gomes, with the 7-footer Collins available to change the mix. More to the point, you don’t have a paucity of big men that enable you to trot out a 3-guard offense as the other side of frontcourt smallball and pretend that’s what you really wanted to do. If you’re McHale, you drafted Randy Foye stating that he can be a combo guard with a primary emphasis on the point, and OJ Mayo is not around to gum up and otherwise complicate that evaluation. The Wolves needed size and they got a better backup than they had last year and the person they believe is the best big man to come out of college this year. If they’re wrong, it will be very easy to notice.

3) Boil down the legacy and it’s a 2-for-1 swap

Thank god for salary cap junkies who keep us all honest, and for closet GM types always figuring the roster angles. They will have a field day with this 8-player (count ’em, eight!) deal and all its salary implications and ability to maneuver or not. Well, having watched this Wolves squad for the past four non-playoff seasons, I am well aware of what Marko Jaric, Antoine Walker and Greg Buckner bring to the table. Jaric has been reviled for what he got–a ridiculous contract that will pay him more than $7 million a year through 2010-11–and what he was not–he was not a good complement for Kevin Garnett, not good in the clutch, not capable of making anyone forget he cost not only Sam Cassell but a precious first round pick that has led to tanking by the franchise in order to keep it. Marko can be a spasmodically effective player in a "do all the little things mode." That’s not the definition of a $7 million man, however. Walker would have been bought out last year if he hadn’t greedily wanted more than he was worth to go away. And Buckner spent more time in street clothes than a uniform.

Minnesota is not exempt in this deal from taking on the Grizzlies’ mistakes. Foremost among them is Brian Cardinal, who will make $6.5 million a year through 2009-10 and is less effective than Jaric. And Collins we’ve already discussed–overpaid at more than $6 million. So there you have it. The players who are truly coveted in this exchange, the ones whose talent really matters and will thus determine the legacy of the deal, amounts to OJ Mayo for Memphis and Mike Miller and Kevin Love for the Wolves. And that’s what will have to be determined: Is OJ Mayo ultimately worth more or less than Love and Miller?

Those are the three reasons why I currently endorse the trade. But do I perceive there to be any downsides to the deal? Yeah, some potentially serious downsides. This is by no means a slam-dunk bonanza. Here are my primary concerns.

1) No defense and lots of turnovers

The Wolves brass seem convinced that Love and Jefferson on the front line is perfectly sufficient–no, even better, part of the
new vogue–for the long term future of the franchise. But almost all the raving I’ve heard about Love is about his passing, his midrange and long range shooting, his savvy box-outs–not a lot about his defense. On top of that, there are some questions about his physicality in the paint. Now I know Jefferson’s game, and his offense is light years ahead of his defense. So going with a pair of legit power forwards who don’t excel at D sounds like a recipe for disaster in the paint against large lineups. True, large lineups don’t happen even a majority of the time anymore, but, funny, the really good teams seem to be able to defend them, mostly by having one themselves. Not to put too fine a point on it: Minnesota’s interior defense could be in trouble if Jefferson and Love are your frontcourt. Maybe it will be better than Jefferson-Gomes, simply because Love is larger, but let’s not forget that Gomes is pretty big (250 pounds) and smart too.

What’s more, you no longer have Mayo in the backcourt and by most accounts, Mayo can be very good with perimeter defense. Stopping penetration was one of the team’s biggest bugaboos last year, and Mike Miller doesn’t seem like the answer. In fact a quintet of Jefferson-Love-Gomes-Miller-Foye, as marvelous as it might be on offense, sounds like a disaster on D. The Wolves would win and lose a lot of game by scores like 115-111, and that’s not the way to build a winning culture in the NBA.

The silver lining in this, perhaps, anyway, is that the NBA showed us this year that defense is more than ever (in this time of zones are okay and hand-checking isn’t) about time synergy more than individual prowess. The Celtics only had two good/great individual defenders in its starting lineup–KG and Rondo–yet played masterfully together, rotating and fluctuating as if everyone was on a string. By contrast, the Nuggets had two defensive studs among its five starters–Marcus Camby and Anthony Carter–and played wretched, dreadful, pathetic team defense. The lesson is emphasis and motivation. Do I think current coach Randy Wittman can emphasize and motivate a subpar defensive team to be appreciably better than their individual collective talents? No, not really, which is why this is a concern.

The other concern with the new Wolves roster is turnovers. For all of Miller’s strengths, he turns the ball over more 2.6 times per game, which is plentiful. As a rookie, even a precocious one, Love is going to make mistakes that lead to turnovers. Most importantly, Randy Foye is going to have to be your floor general and steady ballhandler. In addition to being a porous defender last season, Foye was hardly Mr. Steady with the handle. In fact I’d say Bassy Telfair is a large beneficiary of this trade, even as Corey Brewer seems penalized by it.

2) That Mayo is a Superstar about to happen

On draft night a few years back, everyone was wondering whether Detroit should have taken Carmelo Anthony instead of Darko. Turns out the real choice was Dwyane Wade after LeBron. It happens every year: Some people thought Marcus Williams deserved to go over Chris Paul and Deron Williams and some thought it idiotic. And there was Foye/Roy. Now we’ve got two guys who are consensus stars in Rose and Beasley, and divided opinion on OJ Mayo. Some see him as star who belongs in the conversation with Rose and Beasley, much as Wade did with LeBron and Melo. If those people are right, then this will obviously be a horrible trade for Minnesota. There are some things that could make it much less horrible–the emergence of Randy Foye into a star himself, making Mayo’s stardom redundant to the position; or the overachievement of Kevin Love from very solid pro to Chris Bosh-like invaluability. As I said before, the legacy boils down to Love/Miller for Mayo. And if Mayo is the dominant star who leads his team beyond expectation, bad deal for Minnesota.

I’ll tell you what I’m not concerned about. I’m not concerned about Mike Miller retarding the development of Corey Brewer and inflating the Wolves to mediocrity so it can’t seize any more stud draft picks. If Brewer develops, he’ll earn minutes–the Wolves desperately a quality defender in their rotation–and the idea that Miller is going to come and go before he can be really important to the franchise underestimates his shelf life value.

Last but not least, I want to reiterate how dumb it was for Minnesota to fritter away its second second-rounder at #34. I like the blockbuster Memphis trade (with the college cavaet unfortunately attached) and the first second rounder, who seems to be a mixture of draft luck and solid scouting. But this seems like it was a pretty deep draft–at least that’s what the Wolves braintrust itself was telling everyone to get its flock excited about the second rounders. And this did seem to be a draft where there was more-than-usual disagreement about who did and didn’t have first-round potential, meaning that some players regarded by smart, diligent scouts as first-rounders were still there at #34. For the Wolves to let Miami simply take it from them for two future second-rounders and cash feels like a lack of resolve to improve as rapidly as possible and bear relatively small cost for trying.

More than that, it was stupid public relations. As one of the commenters to his site, Andy G, mentioned last night, there is going to be at least one or two players picked at or beyond #34 that will pan out in this league, opening the Wolves up to the same kind of scorn they received for Josh Howard.

Worst of all, it may be the pick they handed over to Miami that is the specific example. The Heat chose Mario Chalmers, who the rep of being a steadying influence, a selfless point guard who enabled his more talented teammates at Kansas and then hit the big shot when it mattered to send the championship game into overtime. In other words, Chalmers is calm, seasoned and without a lot of ego. Now he is going to a team that has a pretty dire situation at the point, meaning that Chalmers might be able to work his way into getting quality minutes with a starting unit that includes Wade, Beasley and Shawn Marion. There’s potential for 8-10 assists per game right there, and if Chalmers gets them as a rookie, he’s going to have a very high profile. For all I know, this will be a laughable scenario when we look back on it a year from now. But if so, the Wolves will have dodged a bullet–and one fired from a gun they handed over to their critics.

^{(Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE/Getty Images)}

NBA Finals, Game #5: Boston 98, Los Angeles 103

Series to date: Boston up 3-2

Other assignments prevented me to compiling a good three pointer for last night’s game, and it is already late in the day to slap together some of my impressions and questions about the contest. But given the exquisite recent feedback this site has received from a great mix of both Celtic and Laker partisans, KG fans, and everything quasi-neutral in between, I thought I’d briefly weigh in and open the floor for discussion. In any case, I’ll have something more thorough after Game Six.

* I woke up this morning somewhat surprised that the "Kobe fouled Pierce" line seems to have generated some legs. Personally, I thought the worst call of the game was the third whistle on KG, when he obviously had a clean block on Gasol and yet was forced to go to the bench. The Kobe "foul" on the steal from Pierce was minimal contact, and given the stage of the game and the very slight infraction, I thought I was an appropriate no-call. But both the second and third fouls on KG were huge in deciding the game, and both were very questionable calls. Without Kendrick Perkins, the Celts were already hamstrung down in the low block. Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom finally seem to have gotten the message that they have to attack the paint with some urgency. Garnett discovered that guarding an energized Gasol is a tougher task than handling Odom; and James Posey on Odom should almost always be, and usually was, a mismatch in Odom’s favor. On a night when the Celts again did a good job on Kobe (post first quarter) and Paul Pierce was unstoppable, I think Boston wins if KG stays on the floor more than 11 minutes in the first half. Yes, LA got a majority of the "could go either way" calls, including the crucial ones like KG #2 and 3 and the Kobe steal. That’s a natural tendency when a team is at home and trying to stave off elimination.

* I am rooting for the Celtics (but not so hard that I don’t want to see, close, well-played games) and have been a big critic of the Laker defense during the series, but did anyone else think that Van Gundy, Jackson, and Barry in particular were way too harsh on the Lakers’ indifferent D? JVG at least tried to be very specific, as when Jordan Farmar didn’t want to take the charge on Pierce, and I’m all for roasting Vlad Rad, but I can’t ever recall such vitriol being directed against the *winning team* in such widespread fashion. Barry essentially predicted the Lakers will get blown out on the return trip to Boston. Uh, I’m not so sure. The fact remains, the Lakers have a very good team, and that they don’t play team D nearly as well or tenaciously as the Celts shouldn’t obscure the fact that they have a superior offense and the game’s most talented player, and that the Celts are starting to physically break down. What sort of perverted logic will these pundits deploy if the Lakers snatch Game Six, which is not totally outside the realm of possibility, even if they play defense as porously as they performed last night? Do you folks agree or disagree with this? In any case, I was amazed at the negativity directed toward LA; maybe because many of them had picked the Lakers and are overcompensating for currently looking wrong.

* KG lovers, including yours truly, have to own up to the fact that those two misses at the line in crunchtime were killers, the sort of misses that can invade the psyche if he’s put in a similar situation in the next game or two. Another ray of hope for LA’s chances of keeping this thing alive.

* Yes, Pau Gasol is a lousy defender. But he is underrated for his grit on the offensive boards and I think his contesting for rebounds wore KG down some last night. Garnett is usually a master at snatching rebounds that are up for grabs and Gasol and Odom were able to keep many of them in play last night. Given how little ground Gasol covers on defense, especially compared to KG, he expends much less energy during a typical game. Thus, here is what I’d say to KG, who usually is very receptive to messages that emphasize defense as opposed to offense: "KG, unless you want to be worn out down the stretch, you need to take it at Gasol and get *him* in foul trouble so *he*’s the one who has to sit. Because Gasol is a key to their offense right now, both in the low block and the high post, where he can feed the perimeter shooters or dish down to Odom. The best defense you can execute right now is drawing fouls on him, which is what will inevitably happen if you go strong and hard in the paint when you guys have the ball."

* How many points did Odom score with the right hand last night? Why hasn’t he been switching hands on the penetration off the dribble this entire series?

* I don’t understand why Rondo and the other Celtics haven’t been able to make LA pay for sloughing off Rondo when he is running the half court sets, but after three games of this pattern, isn’t it time to start thinking about starting House, essentially matching him up with Fisher, and bringing Rondo in when the Lakers go to Farmar and Vujacic?

* Will there be a fight before this thing is over? If so, my money is on either Posey or Vujacic as the instigator.

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.

^{(AFP/Nicholas Kamm)}

Game #2, NBA Finals: Los Angeles 102, Boston 108

Series to Date: Boston up 2-0

1. No D in Los Angeles Lakers

After watching the last 2 and a half quarters live and then the entire game on tape, I’ve got to say that for all my babble about the superiority of the Western Conference this season, the Celts lose last night’s game if the opponent was the Cavs, and probably the Pistons too. What a dreadful, dreadful lack of defensive commitment shown by LA, beginning at the top with Kobe Bryant–has an all defensive first-teamer ever mailed it in so thoroughly at that end of the floor in a big game?–and extending down to poor Trevor Ariza, who needed GPS to figure out where Paul Pierce was on the court during his mercifully brief 7:19.

These were supposed to be the old, veteran Celtics, the team whose Big 3 have double-digit years in the league and who bring dinosaurs like PJ and Sam I Am off the pine. These were supposed to be the neo-Showtime Lakers, young and fleet, especially lanky big men Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom and the go-go backup backcourt of Sasha Vujacic and Jordan Farmar. So why did the Celts have more fast break points, 14-10? Why was Doc Rivers correctly telling his team at halftime that every time they forced a miss they could get layups and open treys if they pushed in transition? Yeah, the Lakers were embarrassed on the boards in Game One and determined not to let it happen again, so they hit their offensive glass hard and likewise posted up frequently in the first half. But how many times did we see whatever Lakers bothered to hustle back in transition necessarily play out of position to staunch that early flow, creating all sorts of chaos and mismatches if indeed the Celts had to wait for a second wave of offense on the controlled break–that is if they didn’t score immediately?

Things didn’t get much better when the tempo slowed and the Celts operated their half-court sets. The Lakers’ pick-and-roll recognition and response was pathetic–if Kevin Garnett had hit half of the wide open midrange jumpers he usually knocks down, Boston would have been up 20 instead of 12 at the break. (And BTW, KG very rarely got those looks against Cleveland or Detroit or even on the road against Atlanta.) Of course Boston often didn’t bother with the pick and roll because Vlad Rad and Ariza were totally stumped by the fact that Paul Pierce could put the ball on the floor–that newfangled dribble move! They must have been reading all the breathless hype about how banged up and incapacitated Pierce was from his 96 second absence in Game One. That’s about as far from "the Truth" as if he’d had to tap out from a figure-4 leg lock from Ric Flair in wrestling. In any case, imagine how badly Radmanovic would have looked if Pierce had two good knees.

Kobe? It was hard to tell who he was guarding half the time, although twice running out to slap palms with Ray Allen on the latter’s uncontested treys provided some clues. A couple of times Kobe was matched up on Leon Powe, and we know how that worked out–well, better than when hapless Luke Walton was forced to try and guard somebody.

You really could go right down the Lakers’ roster. Odom totally allowed the wily vet PJ Brown to get in his head at both ends of the floor. Derek Fisher hasn’t gotten the memo that you see if Rajon Rondo is hitting his jumper before you allow him to become a playmaker, especially if you are much slower than Rondo (who had just 4 shots versus 16 assists). RonyTuriaf was too slow for Powe–and for PJ Brown.

Put bluntly, the Lakers played shockingly bad defense, and that, to me, was the ballgame. Consider that the Celts shot 46% in the Atlanta series, 42.5% versus the Cavs, 45.8% against the Pistons, and even 42.1% in Game One against the Lakers. Last night they were 52.9%, including 9-14, or 64.3%, from beyond the arc, and that’s with KG having an off night at 7-19 FG. Boston’s bench shot 11-16 FG–69%.

If Jackson and his crew are smart, they will change their priorities for the next game. Put Kobe on Pierce and tell him to shut Pierce down. Kobe is capable of it and it would get his mind off trying to do too much at the other end. Pierce will try and get him in foul trouble but the refs will have heat on them for the free throw disparity in Game Two and won’t call the borderline contact. Put Vujacic on Ray Allen and tell him that he is only allowed to shoot as often as he makes Allen miss. On offense, Kobe will be taxed from actually playing some defense, so Los Angles should play more inside-out with ball movement, posting up Gasol and running Odom off screens and forcing KG to decide which one he is guarding. Because if a dinged up Perkins or an ancient PJ Brown can stop Gasol in the low block, the series is pretty much over anyway.

2. Overrated: Referee Bias and Laker 4th Q Comeback

Anyone who cares about pro hoops intimately knows the feeling of believing your team is getting screwed by the refs. The violence you wish to do is totally out of proportion (hopefully) with the way you normally view setbacks and petty grievances and injustices in your non-fan existence. I’ve found myself rooting for the Lakers against the Nuggets and the Jazz, and rooting against them versus the Spurs. I favor the Celtics in this series due to my longstanding observation of KG during his time in Minnesota, and my growing respect throughout these playoffs for their team-wide commitment to defense. But I have affection for the Lakers too, and have found that you really detest the refs when you are not only pulling for someone to win, but equally pulling for the other team to lose, and the whistles therefore double down on your passion.

This long preface is meant to stake my claim as a slight, but certainly not blind, Celtic partisan here. To Laker fans screaming bloody murder about the free throw discrepancy, I understand–but don’t feel–your pain. Remember, I’m the guy who claimed the Lakers’ Game Four win against the Spurs was "tainted" due to the referees. Believe me when I say that the anger will subside and perspective will set in. And the perspective that is required here–as was true in the LA-SA Game Four–is that the refs weren’t the difference here.

Let’s get specific. Early foul trouble on Kobe Bryant was to my eyes (and I played back the tape a lot on my second viewing of the game) comprised of both legitimate and questionable calls. The first foul, when Pierce tried to rub him off on a screen and he reached around to keep contact with Allen, was an understandable call and a legit foul. It also could have been a no-call. The second foul–the arm-shove to Allen before he got the ball–was deemed by Van Gundy and Jackson as a cheap foul, but it looked pretty blatant to me and was in any case unnecessary. Whether or not it was called, it was a stupid move by Kobe and a tribute to Ray Allen, whose defense on Bryant has been something of a revelation this series. The third foul on Bryant was an obvious flop by Paul Pierce–that’s not the way players fall, if they fall at all, when someone runs into them. It was a borderline flop if Kobe had the ball and was going to the hoop: that it was whistled as Kobe was trying to move through a pick (and Pierce is a master at slightly moving to the side on his picks) was a bad call, especially so because it was #3 and sent him to the bench. Ditto the technical on Kobe after the layup seemed like a rabbit-eared move. I’m all for ringing up technicals on blatant protests by players, but it is being enforced so haphazardly–hey, Kendrick Perkins could get a technical every single time he commits a foul, and ditto Gasol–that to whistle Kobe, especially when it looked like a Celtic reached in and raked him during his drive, was bad judgment by the official. Also, there was more than once when Kobe got hammered driving the lane–once
Pierce knocked him so obviously that Kobe changed his hand and scored lefty–and no whistle was called. So, yes, I believe there was a pro-Boston bias on balance to the calls. I think even more than Kobe, Gasol got screwed, but some of this is Gasol’s fault–he’s just not very aggressive by nature down in the paint, and that matters to the refs. Nevertheless, I saw Gasol get fouled as often as I saw Leon Powe get fouled and Powe had 13 free throws to Gasol’s one.

So why don’t I think it swung the outcome of the game in which LA only lost by six points? Because the large lead caused the Celts to lose their focus, as happened at least twice before in the Pistons series. These lapses are a weakness, but thus far not a fatal weakness, with Boston. The smaller the lead, the tighter their focus, and while that was indeed an impressive scramble-back by the Lakers, it was that combination of one team’s desperation and another’s nonchalance that makes for second-rate, sort of novelty basketball. I don’t believe that improbable comeback is any more successful if the refs call a totally balanced game.

The ending of that comeback, by the way, was to my eyes poetic justice. On the Celtic end, Boston put the ball in the hands of the person who is their crunchtime assassin, Paul Pierce. (A reader/commenter briefly convinced me that Kevin Garnett has an equal right to that claim for the Celts, but after reviewing some old crunchtimes for Boston in these playoffs, I reverted back to thinking that when it comes to the team needing a basket, Pierce is going to be their preference about 8 out of 10 times.) Pierce drew the foul and hit the crucial free throws. At the other end of the floor, the Lakers’ and arguably the NBA’s premiere crunchtime assassin never touched the ball because Sasha Vujacic mistakenly continues to believe he’s the second coming of Manu Ginobili and got his ill-advised shot blocked by Pierce. Replays showed Kobe getting open on the weak side just before Vujacic launched. A fitting ending to a horrible game if you are a Lakers fan.

3. Worst Assist Ever Called

Hey, I grew up worshipping the Celtics, who won their first ring with Russell when I was five years old, growing up approximately 7 miles from the old Garden, and even I think all this "Celtic tradition" stuff is getting out of hand. Don’t believe the hype.

And speaking of hype, does everyone recall the play that typified LA’s brain dead, foot cobwebbed, approach to defense last night, when Leon Powe dribbled the length of the court and sank a layup while Gasol, Vlad Rad and others had garlands strewn in his path to the hoop? Perhaps you’ll recall that Powe received the ball beneath the foul line in his own end, and thus had to dribble about 85 of the 94 feet. Well, the player who gave him the ball–it could have been an out-of-bounds pass, or perhaps just a "why don’t you bring it up, Leon?" gesture–was Rajon Rondo. And the official scorer in Boston gave him an assist on the play. Sort of puts those 16 assists Rondo tallied, and the 31 allotted to the Celtics team, in a new, less favorable light.

^{(AP Photo/Winslow Townson)}
 

Los Angeles 88, Boston 98

Series thus far: Boston 1-0

1. The Buck Stops With Pierce

I firmly believe that Boston’s postseason prospects took a dramatic leap forward when Paul Pierce went off for a monster performance in Game 7 of the Eastern semis versus Cleveland. Up to that point, the Celtics unbelievably still hadn’t sorted out a pecking order for their offense.

I’ve generally been contemptuous of the way ex-players who do color commentary on NBA games, especially in the playoffs, constantly focus on pushing the alpha status of the stars, or, conversely, blaming those same stars when they aren’t expanding that alpha profile to (in my view) too lopsided and thus predictable levels. But the greater point they are trying to emphasize is legitimate, and particularly acute on the Celts: There needs to be a consensus on the crunchtime assassin, the player considered first as you sort through your options. That doesn’t mean the assassin takes the shot: He might be the decision-maker, or merely the effective decoy. But as things get increasingly tight and emotionally chaotic, you don’t want three or four players thinking they are The Man, and, perhaps worse, all the role players unsure about how they prioritize their trustworthy options on offense.

I don’t tend to watch a lot of coverage directly before or after games, so it is fortunate that I was able to catch what became for me a revealing interview with the Celts’ "Big 3" right before the Atlanta series. The best question was simultaneously put to all three at once: If the game is on the line, who takes the last shot? Garnett and Pierce both said Ray Allen at precisely the same time–and at the same time Allen himself was saying Whoever has the best look. But then Allen went through his wretched shooting slump, and besides, as longtime go-to guys on their respective teams, Pierce and KG themselves didn’t seem totally certain about how they pecking order lay. But then Pierce, despite the enormously taxing assignment of guarding LeBron, went off for 41 in a series clincher that blatantly carried the Celts to victory, the kind of performance that turns a player who is a crunchtime contender into the crunchtime assassin in the eyes of his teammates and, hopefully, himself. It was huge for Pierce, and huge for the Celts.

In retrospect, Boston was lucky to be able to survive in the postseason for so long before this role-defining performance. Part of it was that Atlanta and to some extent Cleveland just wasn’t capable enough to capitalize. But let’s give the bulk of the credit where it is due: Boston’s defense covers for a multitude of their offensive sins. In fact, I’d argue that the phenomenal democracy, teamwork and ego-less trust in each other required to play the sort of suffocating D Boston deploys probably was a factor in their inability to create a pecking order at the other end of the court. Great defenses have no pecking order–they are, as the mostly accurate cliche goes, only as strong as their weakest link.

Now this alpha-dog thing can also get overblown, which is why I get impatient with Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley leaning on it for so much of their analysis. I’d argue that Kobe Bryant’s ability to ratchet back his alpha tendencies played a huge role in the Lakers’ revitalization this season, for example. But I don’t think it can be overlooked that the Celts are a much more dangerous team now that it is clear that Pierce is the straw that stirs the drink for them on offense. We saw it in the clinching Game Six against Detroit, and we saw it last night in the all-important (for the underdog Celts, anyway) Game One of the NBA Finals.

By now, many of you are wondering how I’m overlooking Kevin Garnett. Granted, KG’s break the gates in an aggressive and highly efficient and effective manner on offense gave Boston a great boost and launched their Finals with noteworthy confidence. And to clarify, I’m hardly knocking KG–I picked him as the league MVP (it was a mental tie with Kobe; you can go back in my archives and read the tortuous prose). But that’s because Garnett was the league’s greatest difference-maker on the most important end of the court–the defensive side. As a career 20 ppg scorer, KG is no slouch on offense, obviously–for one thing, he is a criminally underrated midrange jumpshooter. But, as has been said many times, whether in criticism, confusion, exasperation or resignation, Garnett does not have the natural temperament to be the assassin on offense–he’s too selfiless, too legitimately team-oriented, and, by now, both too inexperienced for someone of his NBA tread (I think Bill Simmons initially made that point) and too laden with controversy (a la T-Mac) about his ability or lack of ability to handle the role. Bottom line, when Garnett missed eight shots in a row down the stretch last night, it wasn’t a psychological buzz-kill for the Celts. But if Pierce had been missing those relatively open looks? Yeah, I think the concern would have been heightened.

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, I also chafe at the melodramatization of merely piquant or poignant moments. Thus the Pierce-LeBron shootout had to be anointed as a Bird-Dominique redux and Pierce’s return to the court after his unfounded fears that he had seriously injured his knee was hailed in terms only slightly less hyped than the great Willis Reed legend. So let’s remember two facts: Pierce was sidelined with the knee injury for a grand total of 1:45–just 105 seconds–during which time the Celts outscored the Lakers 6-0. So, yes, losing Pierce for the rest of the game, let alone the series, would have been a steep challenge for Boston to overcome, but the net effect of the whole thing was great bonus to the Celts–players have sat because of foul trouble a lot longer than Pierce was in the locker room, so his actual absence was negligible in terms of court time, yet the psychological advantage of first facing the prospect of going into crunchtime without your assassin, and then having that daunting prospect suddenly vanish was all mental gravy. Cap that with Pierce bookending his injury with the mini-explosion to start the second half and the pair of treys that, to me, permanently shifted the momentum of the game over to Boston. For the third quarter, it rang up as 15 points on 5-5 FGs, two dimes, a rebound, steal and turnover in 9:27. It was Kobe-esque.

(Update: For those of you who usually don’t read the comments, I urge you to scroll down at least this once and check out the rebuttal from reader drza44–at 3:19 on 6/6–who argues that if anyone is the Celts’ crunchtime alpha scorer, it is Garnett, not Pierce. It’s an argument more grounded in factual reality than the one I just offered.)

2. In Praise of Celtic Defense

Of the 15 players who attempted more than one field goal, 12 missed over half their shots. The accurate players? Pierce, who was incredibly efficient with 22 points on only ten shots (7-10 FG). But the other two, at 6-11 FG apiece, were Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. That’s because the Celtics were determined to pressure the perimeter and the midrange between the arc and paint, a strategy that worked beautifully. I frankly don’t know if Tom Thibodeau is the defensive genius he’s reputed to be or whether Doc Rivers is unfairly shortchanged, but it is obvious that having a veteran team that hasn’t won very often–an experienced, yet hungry team, in other words–is a great recipe for being to execute supple, seemingly complicated defensive sets and rotations with a minimum of blown assignments. I mean, Ray Allen is nobody’s idea of a quality defender, but I counted at least three times when Kobe was spinning away from his man and turned right into a rotating Allen on the double team–twice it caused him to alter his shot. The Celti
cs defended the perimeter with dogged help for each other and they anticipated rather than reacted to Kobe off the dribble–kudos to whoever logged the film time to divine his tendencies and figure out ways to deter it. Kobe shot 9-26 FG and no more than a handful of those attempts were easy. It was a rugged night for the MVP, and I’d wager that in the next game or two he is going to be a lot more aggressive at drawing the foul rather than trying to get clear. When it comes to disarming assassins, how does a pair of free throws in the final 11:48 of this ballgame sound in terms of shutting Kobe down? Two points. Zero field goals after twelve seconds were gone in the fourth period.

Meanwhile, even without Kobe’s 0-3 from behind the arc, the rest of the Lakers went 3-11 3pt FG. Contrast that with the Celts’ 6-19 and the free throw disparity (28-35 versus 21-28) and that’s the ballgame in a contest where the overall field goal percentage was a virtual tie (32-76 for the Celts, 32-77 for the Lakers).

Boston’s luxury of not having to double either Gasol or Odom also has something to do with their superb perimeter and midrange defensive activity–the personnel is there. But the schemes were likewise very impressive. In fact, after watching Detroit miss a bevy of open looks in the previous series, I’d figured the Lakers’ ball movement to be a huge advantage for this series. And it still may work out that way as the teams inevitably keep adjusting to each other. But Boston’s team defense–I’ll hand out an individual kudo or two in the next point–was simply marvelous in its forethought and coordination.

3. Kudos and Brickbats

How good was PJ Brown on Gasol after Kendrick Perkins got dinged and in foul trouble in the second half? The best bench guys deepen the personification of their team’s identity and Brown, as well as Posey, definitely qualify: They are fundamentally rock-solid, defense-first, emotionally intense yet relatively unflappable players.

On the other end, what idiot was lauding the backcourt depth of this Lakers team just the other day? I didn’t like the decision-making of Vujacic and Farmar in the previous postseason series but couldn’t argue with the overall results. But watching Sasha bomb away, and clank, while a frustrated Kobe called for the ball with the Celts up just 90-85 with 2:34 to play, crystallized a game’s worth of bad backup play from the gold and purple.

Actually there wasn’t much backup guard out of the Lakers yesterday, was there? I guess I understand why Phil Jackson flipped Kobe over on to Sam Cassell after Sammy got hot on Derek Fisher in the first half–a temporary solution for a temporary brushfire–but why was Kobe picking up Cassell during Cassell’s second-half rotation? Why not use Jordan Farmar for more than 7:11–at least let Cassell post Farmar up once or twice and see what happens. Because meanwhile, if Farmar could pick up where he left off offensively in the San Antonio series, Cassell would have been in a heap of trouble. Personally, I think the law of averages says that at this point in his career Cassell will follow a boon with a drought, which happened, as we saw, and would have with Fisher or Vujacic or probably even Farmar on him.