June 10th, 2008 – Dr. Browntorious
The Staples Center will be an overwhelmingly welcome sight for the Los Angeles Lakers tonight. Everyone knows “there’s no place like home,” which is probably even truer during this epic playoff run than in most past years. During the 2008 NBA Playoffs we have seen the home team win a staggering 63 out of 82 games. 77% of the time the home team has won? Wow, what a staggering advantage for familiar surroundings! That’s a great sound byte and positive reinforcement for the fans in attendance at home games, as clearly the players feed off their energy and enthusiasm. I understand that there are a multitude of other factors at play including anything from home cooked meals and sleeping in your own bed, to preferable practice schedules and warm-up times. But at the end of the day there is no disputing that playing basketball in your city gives you the “house edge.”
The Lakers are down 0-2 after the first two games in Boston. Although they would have preferred to get at least one win on the road, Lakers and Celtics fans alike have got to understand that Boston just did their job. Now it’s the Lakers turn. If the Lakers can do their job and hold home court for the next three games, this series will once again be on track for one of the great finishes in finals history. Of course it is well understood that since Boston had the better regular season record and top seed for the entire playoffs, the Lakers at some point during this series are going to have to win at least one game on the road. But as long as they can hold home court and do their job, they will put themselves in a position to be there at the end. The Celtics may have the home court advantage over the Lakers throughout this series, but the Lakers have the ‘MVP advantage’ over the Celtics, Kobe Bryant. I am trying not to use too many “if’s” as the Lakers should be looking at this one game at a time, but from a fan perspective IF the Lakers can put themselves in a position to be there for a 6th or 7th game of a championship series, there is no doubt that the greatness and experience of Kobe Bryant in such situations will give the Lakers the “house edge”, even on the road.
On the flip side, if you are the Celtics now is not the time to start doubting your abilities to win on the road due to some poor road performances throughout the first two playoff series. If the Celtics really want those championship rings, they have to use their killer instincts and put the nail in the coffin on this one. Although there was a lot of hype around Game 1, given the current situation I believe that Game 3 of the NBA Finals will be the most critical game of the series by far for the Celtics. If they lose this one, and the Lakers pull to within a game of the Celtics it would serve two functions. The first is that in the eyes of the Lakers, for the first time this season they will have beat the Celtics. Psychologically putting a chink in the armor of the mighty Celtics could do wonders for re-instilling confidence in this Laker squad. The second factor would be the confidence of the Celtics. As much as an LA win would increase the confidence of the Laker players, it would also plant enough seed of doubt among the Celtics players to give Doc Rivers fits. Lakers down 2-1 or Lakers down 3-0, it may seem like only one game, but it makes a world of difference!
The Dr. Browntorious keys to Game 3:
- The free throw disparity between the Celtics and Lakers in Game 2 was 38-10. That’s right 28 more free throws for the Celtics! But Laker fans, you can’t blame all of that on the Zebra’s! The key to this game will be the offensive aggressiveness of the Laker players. Will Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, and Lamar Odom take it as a personal challenge to be more aggressive going to the cup, and getting to the charity stripe?
- After Game 2 a lot of people were talking about the Lakers needing to do a better job defensive rebounding to win this series as they gave up a lot of points on second chance opportunities. I think the bigger marker for Game 2 was the disparity in the assist category. The Celtics played a good team style offense with lots of ball movement and finished the Game with 31 assists. The Lakers largely played isolation, one-on-one basketball and finished the game with only 20 assists. The Lakers and Kobe Bryant need to be careful not to slip back into their old style of play from the previous two seasons, and get back to their high ball movement style from the 2007-2008 season. The Lakers are most effective when the ball moves 2 or 3 times then either a player drives and kicks or they find an opening for a clean look.
- Will Kobe Bryant come out at home shooting a higher field goal percentage? The best way for Kobe to shake off Ray Allen’s stifling defense is to attack the rim and try to get Allen in early foul trouble. The offensive player always has the first step advantage and if Kobe is aggressive it could pay huge dividends for the remainder of the game. No other player on the Celtics can bother Kobe’s shooting besides Ray Allen.
- Inexperience. There is no better place to gain experience about how to play in the NBA Finals, besides actually playing in them. There was a lot of talk about how Sasha Vujacic should have given up the ball to Kobe Bryant instead of looking for his own shot in the final minutes of Game 2. I’m not altogether convinced that Phil Jackson didn’t call for ANY of the perimeter players to take the shot if they felt they were open in that timeout, but either way unless you are 100% positive you are open your best bet IS to find Kobe Bryant in clutch time. With that said, you can be sure that mistake won’t happen again under similar circumstances the rest of the series.
- Kobe Bryant needs to get back to being a LEADER not a POUTER. The Black Mamba took great strides this year in the leadership department and making his teammates better. When things start to go south in future games, it would be wise for Kobe Bryant to hold back on the evil eye to teammates, and keep giving words of encouragement. There are just a few sports psychologists that would support that notion.
- Can the Celtics stay focused for 48 minutes? In both Game 1 and Game 2 we have seen the Celtics play amazing on both ends of the floor in spurts. On either end of those spurts they aren’t even playing mediocre; they are playing poor offense then turning around and giving up easy buckets on defense. Luckily for beantown their spurts of amazing play have built them enough of a cushion to absorb the Lakers rallies and hold on for wins. My recommendation is not to play with fire, try and stay focused for 48 minutes. It should be worth it to do so for a couple of more games and have that championship ring for life.
- Game 1 was highlighted by the Paul Pierce injury and comeback, Game 2 was highlighted by the amazing 15 minute performance by the young Leon Powe, but in my view the most unsung hero of this series has got to be Ray Allen. This guy is playing amazing defense on Kobe Bryant, contesting one shot after another, then turning around and hustling his butt off on the offensive boards and diving for every loose ball. He looks like ‘Bruce Bowen with a scoring touch’ out there.
- Kevin Garnett needs to find his shooting stroke. The Celtics have been winning so no one has been too focused on his struggles from the field, but in Game 1 he was 9 for 22 from the field, and in Game 2 he was 7 for 19. The Celtics got some big games out of Pierce, Allen, and the supporting cast in the first two games, but winning on the road is a whole other animal. If the Celtics want to avoid those scoring droughts that will undoubtedly come at the Staples Center they need to rely on “The Big Ticket” to shoot a better percentage from the field to keep them in the ball game.
I know everyone likes predictions, so not surprisingly Dr. Browntorious is going to have to go with the Lakers to pull it off in Lakerwood. Why? “Because there’s no place like home.”
Game 3 – June 10th, 9 p.m. EST in Los Angeles
