It turns out the
Lakers won't sweep this time after all, but no one really expected them to. While the majority thinks that the Lakers will go on to win this series, no one thought that the
Celtics would just sit down and let the Lakers steamroll right over them. In Game 1 tonight, they proved it.
Though the Lakers did play as good, if not better, throughout the majority of tonight's game, they just couldn't finish the Celtics off. We were leading by 5 points at the half, but that Laker lead quickly turned into a Celtic lead in the third quarter when
Paul Pierce came in and single-handedly brought his team back into the game within the first minute. Pierce just owned the third quarter, hands down. He scored 15 points in the quarter, and he wasn't even on the court for a few minutes because of how bad
Perkins beat him down! While
Kobe had 12 points of his own in the third quarter, there is no question that Pierce canceled that out entirely.
In the fourth quarter, the game was in our hands for the taking quite a few times. Both
Cassell and
Garnett could not make a shot if their lives depended on it.
Phil has been notoriously known to not call timeouts to get his team back into rhythm or to put full trust in his bench, we saw him do it in the San Antonio series, and the same happened tonight. Kobe went to the bench with about eight and a half minutes left in the fourth, with the Lakers down 8 points. He returned just three minutes later, but those three minutes felt like an eternity. With seven minutes left in the fourth, Sam Cassell idiotically turned the ball over with a shot clock violation, the Lakers were down by 6. When we got the ball into our court,
Sasha scored a quick jump shot to bring us within 4. Soon after that, Garnett blew a turnaround jumper over
Ronny and he caught the rebound. With six and a half minutes left in the game, we were within 4, we had the ball, and Kobe was still resting on the bench. But then, this is where, I felt, we quickly went downhill. In the next 47 seconds, the only thing we were able to produce was one offensive rebound – it was the longest 47 seconds of the game. Sasha brought it up court, passed to
Walton, who then passed to Ronny, who then passed it back to Sasha, who then gave it back to Ronny. Ronny then took a couple seconds to try and drive for a lay up but pulled it up for a jumper with a second left on the clock and missed.
Pau ended up getting that subsequent rebound, but ended up doing almost nothing with it. After he rebounded the ball, he quickly passed it to a cutting Ronny, who went up with the ball hoping to get fouled. After no foul was called and he lost the ball, Walton retrieved it and dribbled it for a few moments. Then the passing circus happened once again. Walton passed it to
Fish, who quickly passed it to Sasha, who then passed it to Ronny, who then passed it to Walton, who then gave it back to Ronny, who then gave it back to Sasha, who then tossed it inside to Pau, but then the ball was mishandled and it went out of bounds off of Boston with 2 seconds left on the clock. Then Kobe came back in the game. Was there any doubt who the ball would be going to with 2 seconds left on the clock? Didn't think so. Kobe ended up missing the shot, and I don't even think he got it off in time, so technically this 47 second disaster could have easily been 48 seconds.
Even though at that point it was still a 4 point game, the Lakers just couldn't get back in it. After that 47 second fiasco, Pierce quickly came up with a jumper for two points and that pretty much did it. We just couldn't get back. We did however get closer inside two minutes when we got within 5 points after Gasol made two free throws, but then
Posey shot a three from the corner and, you know, Pau was sleeping on one side of the basket and left KG open to just dunk it over him. That one's going to be on the Top 10, no question. And that was pretty much the game. A thoroughly exciting game that just deflated very quickly near the end. Kobe only scored 4 points in the fourth quarter by the way, he scored the first two, and then he scored the last two. Where was he in between? No idea, but he had a few good looks. There is no question he could have easily scored, or at least given the ball up to the other guys at some points.
Skip Bayless is going to have a field day with this story in the morning.
But there are a few good things about this game. Even though we lost, we were neck-and-neck throughout most of it – and keep in mind, the game was in Boston, how intimidating must that have been? The game was in our hands, we just couldn't secure it. One of our biggest problems statistically was our lack of rebounding, but only statistically because both teams shot about the same amount and the Celtics only had a few more second chance points that us (even though both sides were pretty low in that stat). Their turnovers really helped us, in that field as well, they had almost double the amount of turnovers than we did. But the most glaring fault from tonight was our points in the paint. We usually get 40 points a night in our sleep! Before tonight's game, we average over 46 points in the paint per game! And if you think that's somewhat misleading, we averaged 44 points in the paint against the
Spurs, one of the best defensive teams this year; we even dropped 52 points on them in Game 1! But how many points did we get in the paint tonight? A whopping 20 points. That has got to be changed. The first time it's okay I guess, because of how great Boston is defensively, but the Lakers have to make some adjustments for Game 2. But overall, the Lakers as a team were pretty damn solid, except for those small things. And I say small because the game was still very much in our grasp. So don't cry, don't worry, Game 2 is just three days away, and it's in Boston so we can still steal one on the road – except this time, we won't have that amazing 41-0 Phil stat to back us up. A lot of people are saying it's going to be a must-win because going down 0-2 in these Finals will be tough for the Lakers, but we know better, right? But if that sentence hasn't reassured you to restore faith, I decided to pull out two plays tonight as highlights. Both have Kobe touching the ball, both are beautiful, and both are super tight. The first one had me excited because it was the first big play we've had in a while, the second had me screaming on the top of my lungs in anticipation because it was so obvious what was about to 'go down'. Here they are:
