Sportolysis – The World Sports Blog

My God. What a game, what a series. Nothing can compare to the Jazz-Bulls encounters I watched in the 90s personally but this came mighty close to it in competitiveness. Both teams were great and wanted the title badly and it showed in Game 7.

This is the most physical NBA game I have seen. The first half was crazy. Lakers shooting what 22%? Offensive rebounding one after the other to help them not get out of the game. Boston played some great defense in the first half against Bryant especially and also Gasol. All the Celtics played their part showing once again the great all round team they have. Paul Pierce played his heart out. Rondo tried making more shots than giving assists and took the initiative.

There were two key moments in the game for me. One when points stood at 57-55 for almost an eternity. Both teams just wouldn’t let the other score! Lakers came back brilliantly. Phil Jackson is a great coach and he identified the problem of Kobe going for very low percentage shots against tight defense. Lakers played some great defense in the second half to step it up.

The second key moment was the Derek Fisher 3 pointer. He is a clutch player and deserves his 5th Championship. There was a debate going on early in the series among the commentators whether Fisher’s number and jersey should go up there when he is all said and done. One of the two vehemently said it shouldn’t but what he has given to Lakers is years of great service and it should in my opinion. In other points, Ron Artest had a terrific game and as Kobe mentioned, ‘the Spaniard’ Gasol deserves a lot of credit in this Championship victory, Gasol’s second consecutive.

The Rondo 3 pointer and almost steal which could have turned it around showed what a fighting team Boston is. This is the first time the Lakers have defeated the Celtics in game 7 of the finals in 5 attempts and they are now only one short of the 17 Championships Boston has.

This match will be remembered for a long time, not for artistic basketball but for the tenacity of both the teams. Just too good.

The Lakers dominated in the paint, and from there, they controlled the first half. They never trailed in the ball game and held on to their slight lead in the first half courtesy a terrific performance by Paul Gasol. He just took the game in his hands shooting from inside the D.

Kobe Bryant improved as the game went on and had at least two absolute genius plays – one from point 59 – 61 field goal and the other when he blocked later in the game. The Lakers kept on the pressure throughout and Boston finally relented in the third quarter giving in a lead of 20. Ray Allen having 5 personal fouls didn’t help.

I am not a huge fan of Kobe Bryant but his discipline and focus is some thing to be admired. That shot of Chris Rock speaking to Kobe and Kobe not reacting at all looking straight heads on was freaky. As Kobe said in the post game interview “all the media hype, all the attention, nothing else matters” where Kobe is concerned. On a completely unrelated note, I am looking forward to watching a fairly recent documentary featuring Chris Rock where he explores African-American hairstyles called Good Hair which should be a lot of fun.

Speaking about the Celtics-Lakers rivalry, personally, I had been positive towards the Lakers till Shaq was a Laker but completely became anti-Lakers since then. I loved Tim Hardaway and Miami Heat has always been my team. Seeing guys like Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett grow up, I have a soft spot for the Celtics. I want them to win this series but I don’t see them doing it.

They have a solid all round team with many good players. I am not surprised at all that they defeated the Cavs. My only worry – have they peaked too early? There are still two rounds to go and it is still a LONG way away from thinking about a championship.

Every one wrote off the Pistons. Then, Ben Wallace blocked Shaq. Read more on the block here. So we definitely have two conference semis which will go to six games and the possibility of either of them, if not both going into game seven definitely exists.

The Piston’s were never as good as people thought they were? Ah the interesting debates in sport – always fascinating. My take is that they were good enough to win championships and you don’t win championships with just luck and because the opponents aren’t that strong.

Some reviews of the Pistons-Heat game 5:

• Detroit Bad Boys.
• 20 Second Time Out.
• ESPN.

The focus now shifts to Suns-Mavericks. It sure is exciting!

Tonight is the night which promises the end of a Pistons dynasty. There are weaknesses about the Pistons the experts are speaking about and fans are irritated over but I am just going to say that the Heat have been that good. I was watching the Heat-Pistons game 4 and even though it was looking close at the end of the first half with a point separating the teams, the Heat looked firmly in control.

It showed as the gap opened up in quarters three and four – gaps which looked much bigger than they actually were at points in the game. A lot has been spoken on Dwayne Wade. All the praise is rightfully deserved but more impactful for me is the combination with Shaq and the rest of the guys – that damn good for me to win the championship this year. First, the Pistons dynasty must end.

The victory for the Suns to tie the series 2-2 was important because we needed at least one series to go into a game 6 if not a game 7. Else, we could have faced the situation of March Madness – good early on only to fizzle out when it mattered most. The fear was so big that Matthew Sussman even suggested the playoffs to close when the conference semi finals ended. The Suns resurgence is very promising.

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Starting this week, we have a new feature at Sportolysis. In Visitors, I invite one person each week to share perspectives on a sport, a sporting event, sporting aspects or any thing in between. This week, Jon Reed of Complete Sports joins us to give his thoughts on the NBA Playoffs 2006 till the conference semi-finals and looking ahead at the conference finals.

By Jon Reed

What have we seen so far? Try 9 OT games, lots more that were decided by 1 or 2 points, and the biggest young star in the NBA proving that he can get the job done in the playoffs. Ah yes, the rebirth of the NBA.

We’ve seen one of the best conference semifinals ever, when we had arguably the top 2 teams in the NBA (San Antonio and Dallas) square off in an incredibly well-matched series, where only one game could be considered “not close.” We saw a series between Cleveland and Washington that featured Cleveland making 3 game-winners in the last 5 or so seconds. We’ve seen running and gunning from Phoenix throughout the playoffs, and we’ve seen tight defense in Game 7 when the Pistons needed the win.

We’ve seen countless incredible performances from stars. LeBron got a triple-double in his first playoff game. Tim Duncan did everything but drain a couple 3-pointers against the Mavs (incredibly without drawing a foul), but even he was topped by the heroics of Dirk Nowitzki. Dwyane Wade’s been knocked down many times, but he has the Heat in the conference Finals. Shawn Marion has played over 40 minutes a night, guarding guys like Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom, Chris Kaman, or Elton Brand, and all the while he’s been the Suns #2 scoring threat. The individual performances have been incredible.

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A lot has been said on Brown. I like this form of expression better. [Via NBA LJ]