The Rake Magazine

Tag: Kevin Garnett

  • The Three Pointer: As Good As Over

    (AFP/File/Gabriel Bouys)
     

    NBA Finals, Game #4: Boston 97, Los Angeles 91

    Series to date: Boston 3-1

    1. Changing Reputations

    It is just a matter of when now. Because surely you don’t think Lamar Odom finds his composure, Pau Gasol unearths some grit, and Kobe Bryant recaptures his magical mojo in sufficient quantities to take these unrelenting and surprisingly deep Celtics to the woodshed three times in a row. Not after last night. Not when all the pundits such as yours truly have proven to be dunderheaded false prophets. The "best player" has not been, and won’t become, the best player. The "best coach" has not been, and won’t become, the best coach. And the "better bench" has not been, and won’t become, the better bench. Lakers in 5 or 6, I said. Wrong.

    But more high profile reputations than mine are being altered by this star-studded, commercially attractive matchup. Here are the ones most shocking to me.

    * Phil Jackson–It has been a bad, bad series for the Zen Master. Throwing gasoline on the fire by using a very stale Trevor Ariza on Paul Pierce as first off the bench in Game Two was bad enough, but leaving Derek Fisher on the bench in favor of the callow and selfish Bobbsey Twins, Vujacic and Farmar, while his lead disappeared last night was even worse. When Fish left the game with 2:58 to go in the third, the Lakers were up 11, 72-61. Incredibly, the man with three rings and more than 100 starts and 4,000 minutes in the postseason, the man who kept stepping up to staunch the momentum shift in the Celts’ comebacks in the second period and early in the third, sat for more than 12 minutes, entering with 2:10 left to play and the Lakers down 5, 88-83. Ostensibly, Farmar and Vujacic were in the game to provide some ball pressure on Eddie House, a better shooter but less adept on the handle than Rajon Rondo. Didn’t work. The only Celtic turnovers in that 12:48 Fisher sat were offensive fouls on Pierce and KG. Meanwhile, House had 5 points and his backcourt mate Ray Allen had 4. So perhaps Vujacic and Farmar provided some offensive counterpoint and helped spread the floor so Kobe could go to work and have a capable safety valve on the perimeter? If that was the idea, it failed miserably. Vujacic and Farmar combined to shoot 0-5 FG during that stretch, and nothing from the line–zero points–while the Lakers’ team as a unit managed just 11, in 12:48. By the way, Derek Fisher finished the game 5-6 FG and led the Lakers in plus/minus with a plus +7.

    * Kobe Bryant–The Black Mamba. The crunchtime assassin, best closer in the NBA, able to make the big shot when it matters most. With Kobe in the lineup, LA can always stop the bleeding. An all NBA Defensive First Teamer, able to lock down any perimeter player. A more mature teammate whose generosity of spirit and willingness to shoulder most of the responsibility relieves the pressure on his teammates and enables them to play freely and easily, knowing that Kobe always has their back. You can ball that assessment up and throw it in the trashcan.

    * Ray Allen–Aging fast and with bad ankles his already mediocre defense has become subpar. That was the rap on Mr. Shuttlesworth, who merely played all 48 minutes last night, and, unlike Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett and even Paul Pierce, didn’t seem the slightest bit winded or gimpy at the end. His up-and-under wraparound layup through Gasol and two other Lakers to bump the lead from one to three was simply cool to savor for the next decade or so; his seizing on Vujacic’s lean in to blow past him for another layup that sealed the win will perhaps leave a permanent stain on Sasha’s psyche. But that’s not why I’m so surprised by Ray Allen. No, it has been his remarkable defensive effort on Kobe (although Pierce deserves more credit for last night), the nine rebounds he corralled while nobody really noticed, and the two perfect dishes to James Posey for treys that broke the Lakers in the 4th quarter. Ray Allen has the entire package.

    * Paul Pierce–Again, it is the defense that is most surprising. Pierce’s block of Vujacic at the close of Game Two, and his block on Kobe–when was the last time you saw Kobe’s fadeaway get swatted? Never? Me too.–was just part of it. His positioning and ability to use his length and strength to maximum defensive advantage was something I simply didn’t know he possessed until the Cavs series, and in retrospect, playing two long dudes like LeBron and Tayshaun probably really helped Pierce prep for Kobe. So did the fact that many people guarded Kobe. But in the second half last night, Pierce was mostly the guy. In the corners of our TV screens the last few games, we saw Kobe and Pierce constantly trash talking each other. Guess what? The best player on the floor in these playoffs has been Paul Pierce (in a close shave over KG).

    2. Garnett and McHale In Their Rightful Places

    During Kevin Garnett’s last two or three years here, there was clearly some mutual frustration going on that began to morph into disrespect. Both men were pretty careful not to say so in public too often, but Garnett thought McHale’s lack of prowess in evaluating personnel was the reason he was getting further from a ring instead of closer as he entered his 30s. For McHale’s part, he thought KG didn’t do the things that turn a star into a champion: Go down and bang for shots and box-outs in the low block, get to the foul line, set nasty picks, and simply do what it takes when the game is on the line to secure the victory.

    McHale has gotten the prototype player he wanted in Al Jefferson, and Big Al, who should never be judged as the KG compensation because it just isn’t fair to him, played well enough that all the homers around the Wolves in the local media crowed that Minnesota actually got the better of the KG trade. One columnist for one of the local dailies even said he wouldn’t trade Jefferson for two KGs. Well it is pretty close to final accounting time and what we see is that the Celtics won a league best 66 games, had the greatest single season improvement in NBA history, and are one victory in three chances away from being crowned NBA champion over the MVP on the favored squad from the better conference.

    As should be obvious to all of us by now, the Celtics win with defense, stifling defense. As should be equally obvious, the Celtics would be at-best a mediocre defensive team without Kevin Garnett. It is KG’s unparalleled combination of length, quickness, instinct and intelligence that enables the Celts to extend their schemes so far out on the perimeter and so wide toward the sidelines. By all accounts from the folks in Boston, it was KG’s selfless passion and relentless work ethic–we saw that work ethic for a dozen years and that passion for about ten a half here in Minnesota–that catalyzed the culture of the revamped roster and created the attitudinal synergy, the pride and trust that are as important as athleticism to creating great team defense. KG is the foundation of the Celtic D: more than any other player in the game today, he is "everywhere" when his squad is defending the ball and he doesn’t take plays off. (That’s why Bill Russell has such a blatant man-crush on the guy.) When the Celts were hopelessly behind last night, he made two plays–denying putbacks to Odom and Gasol about four minutes apart–that are the sort of crucial, unsung bits of grit that help get you out of a hole. It is no coincidence that Gasol always shot from in close with a hurried lack of confidence, and why, except for last night’s first quarter, Odom suffered from lead in the paint.

    Having spent a dozen years up close and personal watching KG, I too was unsure about his crunchtime capability at the offensive end, his desire to seize the game via brutish willpower of the sort he constantly demonstrates at the other end of the court. Af
    ter years and years of rebutting KG haters, and, less convincingly, KG skeptics, I wavered as I watched the Hawks extend the Celts to 7 games, knowing that their best player was not most comfortable being atop the crunchtime pecking order. And I bought into the alpha theory of hoops I so frequently disdained, picking first the Cavs and LeBron and then the Lakers and Kobe to overcome KG and his other Big 2. But last night, with everyone screaming for Garnett to get down in the damn low block and go to work, he did was he always does: played his game his way, with a share of low post moves and a share of midrange jumpers and a share of high picks and deft passes. He took more shots than anybody on the team and made half of them, led them in rebounding, and, of course, defense. He finished fourth on his own team in points and second to Eddie House in overall plus/minus with plus +17 in 37:09, which means the Celts were minus -11 in the 10:51 he was off the court. And the team that has adopted his personality is one win away from the NBA Championship.

    Put me in the long line of people who need to apologize for doubting Kevin Garnett, who in his first year away from the dysfunctional gulag of Minnesota, is on the verge of accomplishing all anyone could ask of him. And remember that the man who belongs at the head of that line is Kevin McHale.

    3. Kudos and Brickbats

    As Bob Horry packs up his trunk load of rings and heads into the sunset it is time to come up with a cool, catchy nickname for James Posey, the new man with the golden touch from outside when championships are being decided.

    Doc Rivers has outcoached Phil Jackson in this series but one thing that mars his great performance is the number of people, me included, who kept hollaring for more minutes for Eddie House at the expense of Sam Cassell. Give Rivers at least half a kudo for seeing how effective House was in keeping Kobe honest on defense, and riding him over Rondo down the stretch. And give Mr. House a full kudo for doing what the Vujacic/Farmar combo couldn’t–make big shots from outside in the second half.

    Gasol and Odom will have a very hard time recovering from this no-show. Even playing a small lineup for much of the second half, the Celts managed to essentially break even with the Lakers on the boards and in points in the paint. What’s more, all the Lakers except for Fisher were frontrunners, Odom worst of all. When LA was rollin’ easy, he was driving like a banshee, pulling up and sticking the 17-footer, and even twirling the ball around his back by the sideline on one play. When crunchtime beckoned, he not only disappeared, he hid. Neither he nor Gasol wanted anything to do with the final outcome of this game–you could see it in their body language. Kobe had yet another bad game. But Kobe also had ten assists and it should have been 15 or 18. Kobe was on an island. It will be a very very hard thing for him to forget this summer.

  • Glen Taylor Opens another Can of Worms

    Copyright AFP/GETTY IMAGES, photo by Ronald Martinez

    For a man who has made a billion dollars on wedding invitations, Glen Taylor sometimes isn’t a very bright guy. Yesterday’s comments to the daily beat writers–"KG tanked it" is the money quote–is a perfect example of how Taylor keeps cutting off the nose of this franchise to spite its face by his continual denigration of Garnett’s role and impact on the team during the tail end of his dozen years with the Wolves.

    First, let’s give Taylor’s comments their tiny due. When Garnett was shut down with five games to go last season I don’t think I was alone in believing it was at the instigation of team management rather than Garnett himself, despite comments from the front office and KG’s agent, Andy Miller, that he was indeed hurt. The statements by Miller and Garnett in response to Taylor’s latest charge clearly imply that it was KG who instigated his removal from the lineup, albeit because of legitimate injury rather than a desire to secure a better draft pick by diminishing the ballclub’s chances of winning.

    But for that miniscule drop of truthful satisfaction, what has Taylor wrought for himself and his franchise? When it comes to tanking, his comments reek of baldfaced hypocrisy. There hasn’t been a more blatant example of trying to lose a game that impacted the number of lottery balls a team would receive than the finale of the 2005-06 season, a year before the KG absence that is the subject of Taylor’s allegation. During that game, versus Memphis, the Wolves *benched all their promising young players* down the stretch for the likes of scrubs such as Bracey Wright and Ronnie Dupree, allowed a Memphis opponent an uncontested layup in the waning seconds of regulation, and then had Mark Madsen chuck up seven three-pointers in a double-overtime loss. Mind you, this was all after the ballclub shelved both KG and Ricky Davis due to "injury." My column that night was entitled, "The One-Pointer: Wolves Disgrace Themselves." Anyone who watched knew exactly what was happening. And now Glen Taylor has the gall to say "I don’t like that so much" with respect to tanking, and then drop the anvil on Garnett?

    Look, Kevin Garnett is no saint–he’s human. He was two-faced in his support/nonsupport of first Flip Saunders and then Kevin McHale. I ripped him for it at the times they were happening. He also was a lousy general manager, arguing on behalf of Troy Hudson and Mike James, among others. He openly feuded with Wally Szczerbiak (along with most of the roster). But Taylor’s remarks continually besmirching KG since he dealt away the superstar–from the "freeze out" of Wally and team split between pro and con KG acolytes to the demand for a sizable contract extension last season to the pettiness of negotiations of how he should be honored on his return to Minnesota this weekend–do nothing but poison his own well. They collide face first into some hard realties ignored by Taylor’s selectively biased perspective.

    1. Kevin Garnett gave this franchise everything he had. The Minnesota Timberwolves were a standing joke–a dysfunctional gulag on the frozen prairie–before he arrived and for a dozen years he rebutted expectations that escalated into belittling demands that he abandon this franchise and go find a bigger, better market in which to play.

    2. Within the fraternity of coaches and players in the NBA–the people who are on the inside, who genuinely know what’s what–Garnett has an impeccable reputation as a player who doesn’t stint on practicing or playing at anything other than 100 percent. His ability to set the tone from the top of the pecking order is of enormous value in sweeping away a lot of the motivational bullshit that many coaches and general managers–and, by extension, owners–have to endure when sheperding a ballclub through a long 82-game season.

    3. Because of Garnett’s sterling reputation and the frozen geography of the Timberwolves’ locale, Taylor’s calling out of his loyal superstar pretty much ensures that no prominent free agent will want to come to Minnesota in the near future. Remember what happened to the Bulls and Jerry Krause when he got into a power struggle with Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen? A similar dynamic now seems likely here.

    I am on record as admiring the amount of money Taylor has put into trying to build a winner here, and it would be hypocritical of me to discourage the owner from speaking his mind. Give me the free-wheeling guy who believes honesty (even if it is only his version of it) is the best policy over some dissembling, secretive groupthink spinmeisters. But this is a food fight Glen Taylor cannot win. Frankly, I’m surprised he doesn’t realize that. He and his organization would do well to drop this quixotic KG fixation and tend to the business at hand. Because contrary to all the wonderful spin we’ve heard locally about this great Garnett trade, the Celtics have the best record in the NBA and Glen Taylor is answering questions about whether or not his current ballclub will go into the tank for a third straight year.