The NBA Finals kick off on Thursday night from Boston as the Celtics host the Lakers to start the NBA Front Office’s dream championship matchup.
Unfortunatly for NBA suits and NBA fans this won’t be a long series.
The Lakers are going to sweep the Celtics and take home the title. Yessir, the Lakers will defeat Boston 4 games to 0. Zero.
I’m thinking that most people are not going to agree with me here so let me explain my viewpoint on this before Celtics fans hunt me down. Also, let it be known that all season long I had zero faith in Los Angeles and had them losing to San Antonio, so it’s not like I’m a Lakers Lover.
The following are reasons I think the Lakers have this series easily in the bag.
1. I’m Tossing Out The Regular Season
I’m focusing that much time or energy on either team’s regular season. As we all know, both teams had fantastic regular seasons and were the best in their respective conferences.
The Celtics were the best defensive team, the Lakers had the league’s best player, etc, etc…the accolades go on and on.
The teams met twice in the regular season with the Celtics winning both games. The first game in Boston on November 23rd saw Boston win 104-97. The second game in Los Angeles also ended up in Boston’s favor 110-91 on December 30th.
Of course since then, things have changed.
The Lakers added a guy by the name of Pau Gasol, while the Celtics have since traded 32 year old Ray Allen for the 45 year old Ray Allen.
Also in those two games Kobe Bryant was 15-46 from the floor. If Kobe shoots his normal percentage, the Lakers suddenly look a lot better. Plus it’s not like it was good defense that shut Bryant down. The Celtics don’t have a player that can guard him. He was just cold.
I’m not knocking the Celtics D. I think it’s amazing. But for a player of Bryant’s talents, no D should stop him.
But yeah the regular season means squat. Just ask Cleveland who went 2-0 against the Spurs last year.
2. Boston Starting At Home Will Be A Disadvantage
I know this doesn’t make sense. But I can’t recall a team that has come to rely on its home court as much as this years Celtics team does.
But I think in Game 1, the Lakers are going to come out flying and jump out to an early lead that will leave Boston trailing all game long.
Game 2 I think will be closer, but I feel the Celtics will be rattled from losing at home and go out and shot poorly in Game 2 to leave Boston down 2-0.
From there, it will just be a formality as the Lakers will close out games 3 & 4 at home.
Yes, I know that Boston lost a home game to Detroit and were fine after that, but Detroit is not Los Angeles. The Lakers won’t let you off the ropes like the Pistons do every year.
Now, if it was switched around, I think the Celtics could start the series in LA, get crushed in games 1 & 2 and make some adjustments to win games 3 & 4 at home and make it a close series.
But with the series starting out east, the Celtics will be backed into a corner quickly and promptly dismissed at the Staples Center for the sweep.
3. Fatigue
Sure both teams will have had a few days off prior to the start of The Finals, but c’mon the Celtics have played 20 playoff games already. The Lakers have just 15 under their belt.
Those extra five games have already killed Ray Allen, so who knows how the Celtics would look in a series that got dragged out (but that won’t happen)
4. Kobe Bryant
As much as I love Kevin Garnett, the Celtics don’t have an answer for Bryant.
In the playoffs, superstars win championships. Kobe already has three rings, while Boston’s “Big Three” have a total of zero.
Paul Pierce is the only player on the Celtics roster capable of going “head to head” with Bryant in a scoring battle, but I can’t see Pierce getting an edge on Kobe.
I can’t see many folks taking the tandem of Garnett and Pierce over Gasol and Bryant. (Ray Allen is an afterthought now)
5. The “BCS” Strength Of Schedule….
Celtics lovers enjoy telling me that the Celtics were the better team all season and have home court and thus should be “favored” to beat Los Angeles. I mean they were a full NINE games better than Los Angeles this season right?
All you have to do is look at the competition the teams went up against.
The Lakers played in the best conference of all time. Ever. Period.
The Top 9 seeds in the West would likely have beaten the 3-8 seeds in the Eastern conference in a seven game series.
Then you head into the playoffs.
The Celtics have trouble eliminating an 8 seed that was under .500. The Celtics couldn’t even win a road game against Atlanta.
In the second round, the Celtics barely dismissed a Cleveland team that has Lebron James and no one else. The Lakers sort of have that. Except they have Kobe Bryant……and Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom.
Sure the Celtics played their best ball against Detroit, but I still wasn’t as impressed with them as I was with the Lakers.
The Lakers meanwhile tossed a Denver team featuring Iverson, Camby and Carmelo Anthony to the side with great ease.
On to Utah where The Lakers were given a good matchup with Utah (especially when it was 2-2) but the Lakers showed their mettle by closing out the NBA’s best home team in Utah.
The Western Finals saw the Lakers take out the Spurs in 5 games in a series that looked pretty easy for them.
So simply put, the Lakers have been beating better teams all season long, especially in the post season.
Oh yeah, I won’t even get into Phil Jackson vs. Doc Rivers….
There you have it. Lakers in a sweep.
5 Comments
June 3, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Now I’m not saying that the Celtics are going to win the Finals… but I think you are way off.
Now I am not saying that Ray Allen is going to light the Lakers on fire every game… but you make it sound like he’s going to shit the bed every game. He was in the worst shooting slump of his career, yes… but it looks like he might be coming out of it just in time. In the deciding games 5 and 6 against Detroit, he shot 15-27, 8-14 from 3, 8-8 on FT’s, and scored 29 and 17 points respectively.
Also, look how thin the Lakers are up front. They have Gasol and Radmonovic/Odom at PF… with Ronnie Turiaf coming of the bench and that’s it. Perkins had a huge series against Detroit and is a lot more physical than anyone LA has. Boston can exploit that especially if Radman is covering Perk. If KG can get Gasol in foul trouble… that could cause Gasol to move over and cover Perk which would allow KG to go off against Odom/Turiaf/Radman.
Also, LA is going to have trouble covering Pierce. Perice is so big and physical, and does a great job drawing fouls. Because of that, LA should be hesitant on putting Odom/Kobe on him because they won’t want either player getting in early foul trouble. And who is coming off the bench to stop Pierce… Luke Walton???
LA doesn’t have a James Posey to come off the bench and be a stopper.
As far as “Superstars win Championships”… Kobe won 3 rings as Shaq’s sidekick. In case you forgot… it was Shaq who would average something ridiculous like oh… 31-15, 30-15, 29-13. He also got the Finals MVP in all 3. Yea Kobe was also great… BUT, Shaq was THE superstar of those teams and made it a hell of a lot easier to win those Championships against the Pacers, 76ers, and Nets… some of the weakest Finals opponents ever.
June 3, 2008 at 11:33 pm
I think Boston is able to mix and match their front court matchups a lot better than LA… Boston can go small with Posey at the PF if LA goes with something like Fisher/Bryant/Walton/Odom/Gasol, throw PJ Brown and Leon Powe at Gasol… with PJ Brown playing well this postseason.
I think Boston has a great chance to crash the boards and get extra possessions on the offensive end
I could go on… I just think this is going to be a really good series that will go 6 or 7 games.
The only reason I’d give the Lakers the slight edge is the 2-3-2 format. If it was 2-2-1-1-1, it would be completely even…
In short..
Ray Allen is not dead, you’re underestimating the frontcourt matchup problems on LA’s defensive end, and Paul Pierce is going to give LA just as much of a headache as Kobe will for Boston… and Boston has the bench to sustain a level of defense that LA cannot match.
June 4, 2008 at 5:40 pm
One other Ray Allen note… since I really don’t agree that he’s done
Last 2 home games, 18-31, 7-10 from 3, 11-11 FT, 25 and 29 points.
With the crowd behind him and his confidence back, Pierce will be able to penetrate and kick and Allen will be able to knock down 3’s against this LA Defense
June 17, 2008 at 10:57 pm
I would just like to say that I was horribly, horribly wrong.
Granted the Lakers gave away more than one game in this series, but in the end the better team won.
July 11, 2008 at 12:49 pm
You are an idiot…truly.