While I technically agree (hello 2004 Yankees), he's pretty close to right on. Tonight shows everything you need to know about most of the players on the Lakers roster. They have no mental toughness when the going gets tough, and when the pressure is on, they play phenomenally stupid. The Celtics are a team I can respect watching them play. They are terrific. Their stars have heart. They show up to play. Even bench guys like Posey or PJ Brown or Powe step it up. But the Lakers are soft and weak and fall apart at the first sign of trouble. They go into deep funks where they cannot run their offense at all. They treat the ball like a hot potato, and a wet paper towel provides better defense. They couldn't stop anyone to save their life. WTF is Vujacic doing going for a steal when Allen's going by him on the C's last possession, for instance? Stupid and bad D. Hey, Gasol and Turiaf, what say you go get that wide open rebound with five minutes left instead of letting little Allen just jump up right between you and reset the offense (and they scored). And what does it take to look down and see where the three point line is?

I'm glad a Lakers team playing this way is going to lose. They don't deserve to win. The Celtics do. So great job, Celtics. And Lakers, have fun searching for your sack this summer.

Stat of the series:

Third quarter scoring in the series thus far: Celtics 116, Lakers 73.

I know people don't like to give Ainge much respect, because the KG trade was a dumb move by McHale more than a good move by Ainge. However, you still have to give him credit for making the Allen trade, for acquiring guys like Posey, Brown, Cassell, House, and for drafting guys like Rondo, Perkins, Powe, and Davis.

Best to get this out the way now then

Celtics: 23-28 from the line
Lakers: 21-29 from the line.

Why? I have no problem calling my teams out

Well he did win Executive of the Year. :)

I agree that he has made some good moves, although I wouldn't yet put Davis in the same talk with the other three draftees. Plus, can't get credit for Cassell when they were crying for each other for a couple months before my craptastic Clips released him to shut him up.

I think in the long run, on the basis of talent, the C's will still end up down on the Allen deal, but if it gets them a championship this year, then everything's all good. I think they shipped away good, young talent to get a shorter term return with Allen. But I would give Ainge more credit for the KG deal. Really, Jefferson was the only player worth a damn. Even if that's on McHale a bit, there were plenty of other GMs who could have taken advantage of him who didn't manage it.

Which was about right, the way the game was played. Both teams played aggressive at times and not so much at other times. Nice to see a game that looked it should be even actually be even.

Couldn't agree with you more. I've enjoyed pro basketball less and less since MJ retired. There is no one that makes his whole team better like MJ did when he won all those championships.

Dude....

By the same token, the series ain't over. The Celtics tend to play lax when they feel they're in a comfortable position.

Still, it's hard to believe they're one win away from #17....and that Doc Rivers is one win away from being an NBA Championship coach.

And "choke" is an overused term in professional sports. It's pretty rare to see an actual choke job - a team/athlete afraid to win. I think I saw a true choke in a tennis match once. The Lakers just blew it.

All this "Kobe will never be MJ" has got to be eating away at Bug.

Love it. :)

Chief, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but if you ever again insinuate that Orange County teams are somehow tied to Los Angeles, particularly the Anaheim Angels, I will drive over there and beat you until candy comes out. :)

And at $4.50 a gallon, I intend to get my money's worth of candy. :D

I hate the Lakers, but I hope they fuck up the Lakers, and win this in 7.

Boston. It's not the teams. It's the fans. It's a Bourgeoisie city pretending to be a Working Class city, and the fans (for the most part) are the same way. Poseurs.

At least LA fans don't try to pretend they are a "nation" of tough, hardcore fans. They are fans, but they realize that they are just that - fans. Not some bandwagon riding fuckfest.

Was that too harsh? I'm tired.

Less harsh. More predicatable. Thus blunted.

You're right. I confess. I do get predictable. It's honest though.

Although, the predictability switches a lot. :(

I actually find myself rooting for Boston in this series.

I want to see the celebrity fans go back into their parallel universe.

I want to see Sasha Vujabitch be thrashed viciously about the face and neck.

I want to see Kobe "If Barry Bonds were an alleged rapist" Bryant be lower on the totum pole than Shaq.

I want to see Phil "overrated" Jackson be lower on the totem pole than Auerbach, if for nothing more than that anti-flopping video Red did.

I want to see the smug prick Lakers fans choke on their own arrogance.....You just know they bought into the "Lakers in 4...5 max" hype. I know I almost did. Paper Tigers.

Does the fact that I don't even know who "Sasha Vujabitch" is make me less of an NBA fan?

Probably, but I've always been just a Pistons fan. The rest of the league can rot as far as I'm concerned. It actually sucks having to pay like $200+ to Directv (in 4 installments) every year just so I can watch one team. I literally never watch another game on NBA League Pass.

The Kobe-Jordan comparisons does not bother me nearly as much as the Gasol-Pippen comparisons I heard in some circles at the beginning of the series.

Don't make me bump your thread again.

Man am I angry at myself. I avoid all mentioning of the final score so I can watch the replay, then a few minutes in to the 3rd Q with the Celtics playing like utter crap I turn off the TV and go upstairs, but on a whim I check the boxscore... Naturally I went back down and started watching the rest of the game, but way to ruin the suspense of the comeback. D'oh. :(

I know there's mixed-feelings about him (and rightfully so, he can be a bit over the top even for this Boston fan), but BSG actually gave up his tickets to last night's game and stayed home to do one of his "running diaries." It's up on ESPN.

Kobe can't win without Shaq.

Phil can't win without more than one hall of famer on his roster.

This has been an interesting series, but I do not think it is as lopsided as the series record shows. Two games that the Lakers lost they had every opportunity to win. The difference in the series is the the Cs had a big lead they let get away, but they held on to win. The Lakers had a big lead, but they let the Cs manage to take that game from them. Otherwise, we are tied 2-2 right now.

I agree that the series is not over yet. But IF the C's go on to win, there would be a lot of "can you believe that happened?" stories you could run with. Besides Doc Rivers, you have KG actually winning a title after his lack of playoff success in the past, Danny Ainge being a championship winning GM, Ray Allen, a possible Series MVP candidate, ten days after being declared washed up, and my personal favorite, the representative of the "JV" conference once again winning a title over the Varsity conference splitting the number of titles evenly between the conferences over the last six years.

One more note that may only interest me. According to Basketball-Reference, the last Western Conference team to win the NBA title that was not named the Spurs or the Lakers were the Houston Rockets who won back to back titles in 93-94 and 94-95. Before that? Seattle in 78-79. Wow.

Jordan can't win without Pippen

Get me a slupree bitch! :)

Garnett can't win without Brian Scalabrine.

History backs me up.

Dr J can't win without Moses Malone!

You tell me...

It's pretty unusual for Boston to ever have the neutral fans on their side but I think that's happened for the most part in this series.

Kobe is most unlikeable sports figure west of Bill Bellichick.

So in your mind Kobe = MJ and Shaq = Pippen in terms of talent?

Shaq > Pippen

no doubt that at this moment were the series to end, Ray Allen is your Finals MVP. who knows how the rest will play out, but right now he is.

TBH for his sake, after having been seen as the junior member of the Big 3 all season, I hope he plays strong down the stretch and takes Finals MVP.

Of course not. The Kobe and Jordan comparisons should have ended a few years ago. Kobe will never be Jordan, but in a few years time, people will be comparing perimeter players to Jordan, Kobe, and Lebron. All three are different type of players with different skill sets

Kobe is a different type of player than Jordan, that's true - he is much more one-dimensional. He is also NOT NEARLY AS GOOD as Jordan.

You forgot to also add that Kobe is a butt pirate. :eek:

They also play a different position. And I would say that he's not quite as good as Jordan, not "NOT NEARLY AS GOOD"

+1

No doubt Kobe is good, Kobe is an all-star. But I also think he's in large-part a media creation. He's a result of the media's constant clamoring for "the next Jordan." Not that he isn't a talented player, but he really can't hold a candle to Jordan. But since the media needed someone to pimp as the "next Jordan" in order to sell the league, Kobe got the call. Playing in a major media-market (and a major basketball culture), with MJ's old coach hasn't hurt in that regard either. Because of all this, he gets some pretty favorable calls from the officials and thus gets to the line a lot and is able to increase his ppg, which only adds fuel to the fire of the comparison.

But looking at skill-sets - looking at accomplishments - no way can Kobe even hold Jordan's jock. I found it funny when they were talking about accomplishments the other night and showed some graphic - Kobe has won what - 1 MVP and 2 scoring titles? Jordan had like 5 mvp's and 8 scoring titles or something? Shit - Iverson has won more scoring titles than Kobe, and as many MVP's (not really sure of this?) Why aren't we calling HIM the next MJ? Not to mention that MJ never had the benefit of playing with another player who forced the defense to change their entire gameplan like Kobe had with Shaq.

Kobe = MJ talk is an insult to MJ

dola - if MJ had had Shaq on his team, he could have gone undefeated in '96

Kobe is a media creation? I've never heard Kobe say anything disparaging about Jordan nor have I ever heard of him claiming to be the next Jordan.


Jordan was also ahead of the times when he was playing. No doubt Jordan is the man that is at the top of the list for best players. But you are using MVP's and Scoring titles to dictate who the best is? One one hand you knock Kobe for not winning enough MVP's and scoring titles, but then you go on to say that Kobe had Shaq (which was enough of a reason to not need to win scoring titles).

In the end, Kobe will go down as the best player of the post-Jordan era. But I think the only thing that Kobe really wants at this point, is the Finals MVP award. It's the only thing missing from his resume as a basketball player. And I have no doubt that he'll win at least two titles before all is said and done.

Yes. Kobe is a media creation. In that the media (and the league is complicit too) saw a talented young ballplayer in a major media market, a major center of basketball culture, and promoted the hell out of him and built him up. Not to say he isn't a great player as I said, but the media for years and years has been pushing him on us as "the best player on the planet" and "the next MJ". He hasn't...in fact to his credit everytime he is asked that he laughs it off and says that it is ludicrous, but the media keeps pushing it. because it sells. it sells magazines, tv ads, lakers jerseys, etc

Kobe can't hold Jordan's jock.

And I would say Tim Duncan is the best player of the post-Jordan era.

and Bug - to be clear i'm not using accomplishments like that to say who i think is best. i was talking about how the other night (game 3 maybe?) they were doing the "kobe-mj" comparison and flashing those graphics on the screen, and i just found it very ironic, because in no way do those statistical accomplishments support the argument. if you want to make the argument, you can make the argument, but don't use statistics that don't back it up to try to support it

Kobe has done a heck of a lot with not very much on that team. I will say that. Guys like McGrady never did and heck even Garnett, Allen and Pierce couldn't do it until they got each other to come together.

Kobe has Pau Gasol and Lamar freakin' Odom as his cast o' characters. That's not a Big 3. Kobe has said a lot that he's not even going to try to be the next Jordan, never wanted to be and has eschewed the talk. He just wants to be the best him he can be.

He's a young guy that came up fast, he's emerged into a leader and while he's got issues and such, I think that he comports himself quite well. If nothing else, I think it's really cool that he speaks multiple languages, seems to enjoy playing and has no doubt learns from past situations better than almost anyone in the league.

that's a nice way of saying "he's a rapist"

I agree.

except when he sticks it where it's not wanted

+2

Tim Duncan??? Not so sure about that. I think that is still Kobe or even Shaq.