I am obviously going to throw objectivity to the wind, but the Celtics are going to win this series.
I just don’t think that the Lakers are significantly better than the Pistons, and Boston just flat handled Detroit.
They’ve gotten their act together on the road, they’re still very strong at home, they had been playing at a higher level than the Lakers all regular season long, and the C’s have home-court advantage.
[quote]tmoney1 wrote:
Friday, May 30th Recap:
Stud of the Night: Paul Pierce. 27 points, 8 boards, and a HUGE victory on the road, and the C’s are heading to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1987.[/quote]
Stud of the night and his often-embattled coach.
[quote]Xeneize wrote:
tmoney1 wrote:
Friday, May 30th Recap:
Stud of the Night: Paul Pierce. 27 points, 8 boards, and a HUGE victory on the road, and the C’s are heading to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1987.
Stud of the night and his often-embattled coach.[/quote]
Nice pic. A HUGE sigh of relief from Doc and The Truth. Those smiles look like genuine smiles of relief.
[quote]tmoney1 wrote:
Xeneize wrote:
tmoney1 wrote:
Friday, May 30th Recap:
Stud of the Night: Paul Pierce. 27 points, 8 boards, and a HUGE victory on the road, and the C’s are heading to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1987.
Stud of the night and his often-embattled coach.
Nice pic. A HUGE sigh of relief from Doc and The Truth. Those smiles look like genuine smiles of relief.[/quote]
Thanks, TMoney. And agreed. One small note, I’ll be on vacation for a week or two, so pics from the finals may be scarce, but I’ll see what I can do. At least I’ll be able to sit and watch without having work get in the way!
[quote]Xeneize wrote:
Thanks, TMoney. And agreed. One small note, I’ll be on vacation for a week or two, so pics from the finals may be scarce, but I’ll see what I can do. At least I’ll be able to sit and watch without having work get in the way!
[/quote]
Nice job on ALL the pics for this thread, Xeneize, very much appreciated. Makes the thread a lot better.
Enjoy your vacation, you’ve deserved it. You’ve done enough for the thread with analysis/pics, don’t feel the need to do so while on vacation. And definitely enjoy watching the games without working, makes them much more relaxing and fun to watch!
[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
They’ve gotten their act together on the road, they’re still very strong at home, they had been playing at a higher level than the Lakers all regular season long, and the C’s have home-court advantage.
[/quote]
Home Court will definitely make things hard for the Lakers, but the Lakers have been playing stronger than the Celtics this Postseason.
It is a hard series to call. On the one hand you have the Celtics who stormed the regular season. Then you have the Lakers who have steadily and convincingly brought themselves together and have been dominating the postseason. The Celtics beat the Lakers both times during the season, but both times were Pre-Gasol, and both times were much earlier in the season. Lakers have come a long way since then.
After Kobe’s game 5 performance in the 4th quarter, it is difficult to imagine he will bring anything less than that to Boston, it is also difficult to imagine Boston being capable of stopping him. Bruce Bowen did a very good job against Kobe(notably in making things tough while keeping him off the line), does Boston have someone that can match up to that?
Still, Boston has been on the brink almost this entire playoff run. They have not broken down, they have not given up, and they have not gotten worn out. Boston may be lauded for their defense, but they are still more than capable of scoring convincingly(certainly more than the Pistons and the Spurs). Meanwhile, Lakers have been praised for their Offense, but have also shown unparalleled defensive acumen, though perhaps not as consistently as they might need.
I am rooting for the Lakers, but I have no delusions that this will be at all an easy series for them.
the Celtics barley made it out of a weak eastern conference. Also just getting by an injured frustrated over cocky pistons team.
Also regular season means nothing, Lakers have played better in post season dominating the toughest western conference in years-possibly ever-.
I call Lakers in 5
[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
I just don’t think that the Lakers are significantly better than the Pistons, and Boston just flat handled Detroit.[/quote]
So is Detroit significantly better than San Antonio?
Also, I don’t see how they flat handled Detroit. It looked for a little while that Detroit was going to force a game 7.
[quote]tmoney1 wrote:
That Paul Pierce 3-pointer when Rip ran into him was sick, even though it got waved off. Upon further review, the ref made the right call, looks like The Truth leaned into Rip and gave him a shoulder bump before the shot.[/quote]
I just HATED that call.
As for this excellent NBA Finals matchup, I’m with Shizen on this one and the reason being all about crunch time. We know that Bryant will get scores late in the game, just like we know KG will pass the ball too much (or settle for turnaround fadeaways) late in the game.
And with Odom being long enough to bother Pierce, I just dont’ see BOS being able to consistently execute in crunch time.
Regardless of all this internet conjecture nonsense, I am ecstatic that we will get to see this series unfold.
[quote]Malevolence wrote:
tGunslinger wrote:
They’ve gotten their act together on the road, they’re still very strong at home, they had been playing at a higher level than the Lakers all regular season long, and the C’s have home-court advantage.
Home Court will definitely make things hard for the Lakers, but the Lakers have been playing stronger than the Celtics this Postseason.
It is a hard series to call. On the one hand you have the Celtics who stormed the regular season. Then you have the Lakers who have steadily and convincingly brought themselves together and have been dominating the postseason.
The Celtics beat the Lakers both times during the season, but both times were Pre-Gasol, and both times were much earlier in the season. Lakers have come a long way since then.
After Kobe’s game 5 performance in the 4th quarter, it is difficult to imagine he will bring anything less than that to Boston, it is also difficult to imagine Boston being capable of stopping him.
Bruce Bowen did a very good job against Kobe(notably in making things tough while keeping him off the line), does Boston have someone that can match up to that?
Still, Boston has been on the brink almost this entire playoff run. They have not broken down, they have not given up, and they have not gotten worn out. Boston may be lauded for their defense, but they are still more than capable of scoring convincingly(certainly more than the Pistons and the Spurs).
Meanwhile, Lakers have been praised for their Offense, but have also shown unparalleled defensive acumen, though perhaps not as consistently as they might need.
I am rooting for the Lakers, but I have no delusions that this will be at all an easy series for them.
[/quote]
It is a very tough series to call. I think it’s easily the most intriguing series we’ve had in a while.
It would not be stunning to see the series go seven, or to see either team win in four or five.
If I was a gambler, I don’t think I’d touch this series.
I’m a long-suffering Celtics fan, so I’ll just say that Boston has been the leader since November, and it’s time for them to bring it on home.
[quote]Eielson wrote:
tGunslinger wrote:
I just don’t think that the Lakers are significantly better than the Pistons, and Boston just flat handled Detroit.
So is Detroit significantly better than San Antonio?
Also, I don’t see how they flat handled Detroit. It looked for a little while that Detroit was going to force a game 7.[/quote]
I would say that Detroit is significantly better than SA at this point in the season. The Spurs’ bench players obviously hit a wall and just ran out of fresh legs.
Finley, Horry, Bowen, and Udoka were just complete non-factors offensively (even before the LA series), despite having numerous open looks. Ginobili was also clearly hampered by that ankle when slashing to the basket, effectively rendering him a spot-up jump shooter, which is not his game.
Duncan and Parker were doing just fine, but when their role players are not hitting threes, everything closes up inside for those two.
Obviously, a lot of that was due to LA being a better team than SA. But those old Spurs role players flat missed a whole lot of open shots.
SA was fortunate to still be playing after they escaped NO, and I just don’t think they had enough left in the tank to even make LA break a sweat. So yes, I think Detroit was significantly better than the Spurs last week.
And I say Boston handled Detroit because they demonstrated that they had an extra gear that the Pistons didn’t. They won two out of three at home and on the road (and in the regular season too, for whatever that’s worth). Even when the Pistons were clicking, they couldn’t pull away from Boston.
Basically, if both teams were giving “average” performances, Boston was outscoring Detroit by about five points per quarter. Detroit had to play a little above average just to stay even with Boston, and had to hit nearly every shot they took to build a little lead. When Boston turned up the heat, they left Detroit sucking dust.
Game 4, where Detroit won 94-75, demonstrates this perfectly. Detroit played an excellent game, had home court, and benefited from a rather cruddy Boston effort, and still only led by five points with a couple of minutes left.
They just couldn’t shake Boston until the C’s waved the white flag and cleared the bench in the final minute. That’s when Detroit’s bench hit a few shots to turn a respectable game into a blowout.
If you look back in this thread, I posted that I wouldn’t be too thrilled if I was a Detroit fan immediately after that game. Despite the fact that Detroit had just won by 19 to tie the series 2-2, I claimed that that game had proven to me that Boston was the better team.
The C’s then took two straight to win the series.
Basically, Detroit had to play uphill just to stay even in this series. That’s why I say Boston handled Detroit.
Curiously enough, I just so happen to be wearing a Gold rugby shirt with Green Shorts today.
[quote]Malevolence wrote:
Curiously enough, I just so happen to be wearing a Gold rugby shirt with Green Shorts today.[/quote]
HMMMMM, is that the inner Celtic fan in you coming out MV? Or just a coincidence?
My guess is that it is the latter.
What do you think about Flip Saunders getting fired?
From one point of view, he did an awesome job with the team, averaged 59 wins per year for three seasons, and basically didn’t mess things up and kept the chemistry of the team in tact.
On the other hand, losing three straight Eastern Conference Finals and four out of six isn’t cutting it. Detroit plays to win championships, not conferences.
As with the coaching position, they are the fall guy and take most of the blame, and this looks to be the same. Avery Johnson and Mike D’Antoni got the boot a few weeks ago when their teams didn’t fare well in the playoffs for many consecutive years, even though they had stellar regular seasons.
But championships are won in the postseason, not the regular season. Looks like this is the same. Winning isn’t cutting it anymore; you gotta win titles to keep your job.
Fair or unfair for Flip to be fired?
Thoughts/comments?
No I don’t think its unfair. Prior to Flip the Pistons had won one NBA title under Brown and played in a second NBA finals barely losing to San Antonio. The expectations are high in Detroit and losing three straight Eastern Conference Finals is pretty rough. He seems like a good coach but he really needed to break thru into the Finals. But, I wouldn’t have fired him unless I somebody else that I thought was better in mind and I can’t think of who that might be at this point.
Side note: Larry Bird doesn’t seem very geeked up about this series. That really cracked me up.
This is a very rough analogy, but it seems akin to OU firing Bob Stoops because he last won a title in 2000 and has lost a bunch of BCS bowls lately.
“Nevermind that about 115 D-1 schools would trade places with OU right now, you didn’t win a title in eight seasons despite being right on the cusp that entire span! There’s the door!”
Detroit is not Dallas or Phoenix, where it became apparent that major retooling was needed if they wanted to break through. Detroit needs just a little extra to bust on through, not an entire overhaul.
Maybe Flip wasn’t the answer, but I think it’s an unnecessary step backwards for Detroit to blow up the roster and try again.
I was surprised when Flip was fired, but I was flat stunned when Dumars announced that the entire lineup is on the trading block.
I hadn’t heard that. That is stunning.
I think that Detroit front office sees that the current Pistons have pretty much shot their wad and are on a downward trend. It’s a talented but mercurial bunch that can explode on an opponent or implode.
I think the writing is on the wall that if lethargy isn’t dealt with, the Orlandos, Cavaliers, even Wizards and Hawks and even Sixers will pass them by, as the Celtics already have.
Is it just me, or could today not get here soon enough? I’ve been waiting for this all week.
Let’s get it on!!!
Stoke