During a stretch in the third quarter, the Lakers missed a bunch of shots. The Lakers tracked down every offensive rebound and lose ball, and still managed to score. Its so demoralizing for a team to play such strong defense, only to give up an offensive rebound and bucket. Eventually, you just stop playing.
The 102-89 final makes the score look close. It wasn’t from about the two minute mark of the first half. Boston’s run at the start of the fourth was more of a “lets make the score respectable” than a realistic threat.
Big difference? I hate to say it, but the Lakers size made a wild difference to everything that the Celtics tried to do. It made it hard to attack the hoop, it allowed second and third shot opportunities, and it gave guys who disappeared in the Finals two years ago confidence that they can hang.
For the Celtics, this game reminded everyone why they wrote them off to start the playoffs. They looked slow, sloppy, and uninterested. I don’t think that they’ll look like that through the rest of the series. The long layoff hurts a team that playing on momentum. They managed to go from series to series to series in their run through the East. But the long layoff allowed them to tighten up. That stiffness hurt.
Finally, the Lakers did something that surprised me: they played tough. They attacked from the get go, they roughed up Jesus Shuttlesworth off every pick he was run off of, they didn’t allow the Celtics to get into any offensive flow. Part of that was the Lakers roughing them up, the other was the layoff, but if the Celtics come out flat and stay flat, this series will end fast.
Sunday will be the true answer. It’ll be hard for the Celtics to head back to beantown down two games. The Lakers have to watch out for their role guys, seeing a relatively easy game one win and Phil Jackson’s record in a series after winning game one (47-0) easing off the throttle. The Celtics will come out gunning, and the Lakers have to withstand the early run and respond.
