And I don't mean ominous for the Celtics, either. You can't get on the internet or turn on the TV today without tripping over a story about how Kobe Bryant almost burned a hole through the parquet floor last night and almost singlehandedly carried the Lakers to victory, but almost completely lost in the adulation for what was truly an impressive virtuoso performance was any analysis of how poorly the Lakers defended during that stretch of play. Kobe Bryant scored 19 straight points for the Lakers on 7-9 shooting, but a 1 point game turned into a double digit deficit for Los Angeles in the process, and nobody seems interested in discussing why. Were the Celtics just executing great offense and weathering the storm by getting lots of buckets, or was it something else?
I say that it is both. The Celtics showed great mental toughness and refused to wilt in the face of Kobe's greatness or overreact to his hot streak by leaving other Lakers open, but I also noticed something about this stretch that influenced the course of the game on both ends for the Lakers. During the 3rd quarter as Kobe hit ridiculous fall-away after ridiculous fall-away, I saw everyone else on the Lakers standing around and watching flat footed. LA would get the ball over half court, give it to Kobe (if he didn't have it already) and then go stand around far away from him and wait for the "Black Mamba" to strike. The fact that Kobe proceeded to stick just about everything he threw up there makes the point that this kind of offense is much easier to defend against totally moot, but the fact that this attitude permeated the Lakers' "defense" is worth discussing at length.
Basketball is a game of rhythm, and the players on the floor can lose their way quickly if they aren't involved in the flow of the game. When Kobe decided to take over the game offensively, he may have very well doomed his team to failure by removing all of them from the action and essentially releasing them from ownership of what was going on out there. If Kobe is going to do it all anyhow, why bother staying involved when I could passively watch the show from the best seat in the house? Despite the incredible production of Kobe for this stretch of the game, the Lakers' offense was incredibly stagnant and they let that infect their defensive game too. It's hard to stay focused on moving, rotating and running when half the time you're standing there and watching a teammate freelance for 20 seconds at a time.
Am I too harsh? Maybe. Am I simply a hater who is looking for any excuse to deride Kobe? Probably, but I still feel like my point here is valid. It's one thing to score 23 points in a row for your team by working within the flow of the offense and relying on your teammates to help you get open looks, but it is a completely different animal to pound the air out of the ball, take one screen from a teammate and launch an off-balance 20-footer with a hand in your face. Is it ridiculously impressive that Kobe scored so many points while averaging a 9.8 on the degree-of-difficulty scale? Absolutely, but the whole time it was happening I was saying to the Fox "it's ok, this is what we want. It's fool's gold, they won't win like this." And it's true, those shots are fool's gold. The Celtics gave Kobe those shots two years ago and won the title because of it, they're doing the same thing this year and Kobe is obliging them. This time around he's made more shots and his teammates have gotten better, but as long as the Celtics can get Kobe to take these shots, I like their chances to win the title this year.
Contrasting Kobe's all out barrage of shots, the Celtics once again played a balanced game and came away with a win, thanks to inspired play from Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, Tony Allen, Nate Robinson and Rasheed Wallace. Everyone chipped in on both ends and played a role in the Celtics' win, and despite some sloppy play and a late game scare, it was beautiful to watch. The Celtics need to take care of the ball and focus a little bit more on running better offense, but they are well on track to capturing the 18th title in franchise history. Prior to game 5, neither the Celtics or the Lakers had won back to back games in this Finals, so winning three in a row seemed ridiculous. After watching Kobe go into mamba mode for the past two games and seeing the way the Celtics have played, I think that Boston could very well wrap up this series on Tuesday. They pretty much have to, because as good as the Celtics have been thus far I don't know if they can win a game 7 in LA.
Though each game of the 2010 Finals has been maddeningly different than the previous contest, the correlation between winning the battle of the paint and the glass and winning the game has remained constant. Without a healthy Andrew Bynum, it seems as though the Lakers will have a tough time winning those battles and the ball games. Although the Celtics only won the rebounding battle by one board, they had a field day in the paint unlike any of the other games in this series thus far. Some of those points in the paint came in transition (which was great to see), but lots of them were made possible by the fact that the Lakers were missing Bynum's physicality and shot-blocking on the interior. Without their young and talented center, the Laker bench hurts (because Lamar Odom has to start) and their interior defense and offense struggles mightily.
As a Celtics fan I hope that Bynum is still hobbled after a long flight to Los Angeles and that the Celtics come out with twice the focus and intensity that they displayed yesterday. It is so on right now I am running out of hyperbole to conjure, so I shall leave it at that. You owe it to yourself to watch game six on Tuesday, so don't make excuses!
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