NBA Finals: Boston vs. L. A.

The NBA Finals: Boston vs. L.A.

Prelude to Game Two. There has been a lot of talk in the media and around the water coolers across the nation about Paul Pierce’s knee injury and all the theatrics involved with getting him off the court, first by his teammates carrying him to the sidelines, where he got in a wheelchair to go to the locker room. From all appearances he was in excruciating pain. Doc Rivers thought it was a catastrophic injury and entertained thoughts of the championship flying out the window. Pierce was the team’s leading scorer and has been for several years. Without him they’d be in trouble. But, alas, within two minutes he walked unaided back on to the court, accompanied by thunderous applause from the Celtic faithful, so happy to have their wounded warrior back in the game. He had no limp; he had a kneepad on but that’s all that was out of the ordinary. He went right back in the game and before you could say Larry Bird he scored two three pointers which were pivotal in the outcome of the game. Here was an injury and recovery to rival the heroics of Curt Schilling in the World Series a few years ago—I am thinking of the episode of the bloody sock and Schilling going the extra mile with it. Angelinos, however, remain skeptical about the whole episode and tend to see Pierce as a hot dog not a true hero.

Game Two. The big change at the start of the game was the Lakers drove to the Basket rather than taking outside jump shots. They had the early lead until the Celtics defense tightened and they began to score some points. The first quarter ended with the Lakers ahead 22-20. The other factor that became immediately obvious was the refs seemed determined to call a lot of tacky fouls with the vast majority charged to the L.A. club. They home team usually gets the majority of calls but in this game it was beyond reasonable. A foul was called every 20 seconds or so, allowing no flow to develop. By 9:40 of the second quarter the Celtics had forged ahead by 8 points as Leon Powe made 8 points in 3 minutes, 4 of them coming from free throws. Pierce ended the first half with 16 points. The halftime score was 54-42 in favor of the Celtics. As for the free throw count, it was 19 to 2 in favor of the Celtics. After the game Phil Jackson called that “ridiculous.” He also pointed out that Powe had more free throws than the entire Boston team, in the first half and in the game. He called that “unbelievable.” TV commentator, Jon Barry, skip over the rank foul calling in the first half, saying, “The big difference in the game was the Boston’s tenacious defense.”

The third quarter started out poorly for the Lakers who played as if discombobulated. The Celtics, scoring at will, went up by 24 points. The Lakers had no rhythn, too many turnovers, and had trouble rebounding against Boston who played more physical all night long. But with 4:29 left in he the third quarter they got the score down to a 9-point difference. But the Celtics came right back to boost the score to 79-59 in a two minute scourage of scoring. However, in the fourth quarter the Celtics grew complacent and the Lakers made a run at them and nearly pulled the game out. They scored 41 points in the quarter, 13 by Kobe Bryant, and the team as a whole sank 7 out 9 three-point shots to accelerate the comeback. But the Celtics sank some free throws at the end to clinch the victory, 108-102.

Pierce and Kevin Garnett combined for 45 points. Coming off the bench the surprising Leon Powe scored 21 points and played extremely well. Rondo had 16 assists. Pierce showed no aftereffects of his knee injury. Boston shot 53% through the game. The fourth quarter rush of L.A. upped their shooting percentage from 48% to 51%. Kobe had 30 points and Pau Gosal had 17 points and 10 rebounds. But the lack of free throws (30 to 10), too many turnovers, and a porous defense were too much to overcome.

The next three games will be in Los Angeles.

One other event this weekend is worth a mention, and that was the strange behavior of Big Brown, the horse that was supposed to be a cinch to win the Triple Crown. Instead he quit early on and came in dead last. Why is a real mystery? His owners and trainers looked him over afterwards and could find nothing physically wrong with him. It looks to me like he just did not want to do it on Saturday. He got blocked early in the run and then got to the outside, which should have been an ideal place for him to turn on the turbo jets. But instead he said, to hell with it, I am not up for this today. His jockey went with him, saying,"I had no horse today.” This is a horse that got a shot of a steroid once a month, but he hadn’t had one since April 15. He won the Preakness without a shot. There will be much speculation about the influence of steroids. Was the lack of it a factor in the horse’s withdrawal from competition? Is there such a thing as a psychologist for horses? If there isn’t, maybe there should be.