NBA Finals Preview 2010: Los Angeles Lakers vs. Boston Celtics
As everybody in the entire universe could have guessed, the Los Angeles Lakers are heading back to the NBA finals again! To everybody's surprise on the other hand (including myself), the Boston Celtics bounced out the Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Orlando Magic with relative ease. Both teams had very different roads of reaching the NBA finals this year, but their rivalry is all too familiar in the eyes of the everyday and even casual NBA fan. This rivalry dates back to the 60's and reached its peak in the 80's and has been renewed in the 2000's. Despite the fact that these two teams faced off in the NBA finals 2 years ago with the Boston Celtics winning the series 4-2, there are many things that are different about these two teams.
Let's first look at the Evil Empire of Inglewood featuring Dr. Phil. They are a much different team than two years ago. For starters, Andrew Bynum is gonna play in the Finals for once. Bynum's size, strength, and other Gorilla like qualities are what make the Lakers so dominate in the post. If he and his busted knee can hang on and play in this series, it will be huge for LA. His scoring ability and rebounding/defensive abilities are a huge bonus for the Lakers. Pau Gasol, who looks like Marv in Home Alone, and Lamar "Gumby" Odom add more length and size as well as quickness to the Lakers front line making them a Rebounding Machine. Not only do those guys rebound, but they also score a lot of points, and due to their size and strength they can really cause a lot of tough mismatches for their opponents.
Not only do they have Those 3 Giants roaming the court, but they also have Kobe "Air Japan" Bryant scoring at will and making the most ridiculous shots you will ever see in your life against hard-nosed defenders. He is the difference for the Lakers. He gives the defense nightmares because as badly as they wanna double team him, he has 3-4 other guys on the court who also really need to be guarded. He hits shots that really can discourage you as a defense. That's what he did to the Phoenix Suns. He hit shots in their face that they couldn't defend or stop. He gets to the line a lot (where he scores 21.4 % of his points), he's really aggressive, and he's more unselfish than in past years. Yet, he's still able to know when it is his time to take over.
The only other player on the Lakers who is even worth mentioning is Derek Fisher. That little snitch is death from the 3-point arch and his ability to hit big shots is remarkable. He rarely misses an important shot, and having him to worry about is a big problem. The only problem the Lakers have is their bench. The only players that your really need to worry about are #1. Kobe Bryant, #2 Andrew Bynum, #3. Pau Gasol, #4 Lamar Odom, and #5 Derek Fisher.
Now you might say that Ron Artest should be on that list. He would be if he had an IQ above 65. Ron's problem is that he is an idiot. He takes stupid shots, and doesn't think. You don't really need to guard him, and even if he's guarding you, you can easily get around him. He's actually a plus for the other teams on most nights. Every now and then he really steps up and plays well, but that is just because he played so poorly the previous 5 games, that everybody forgets about him. You can't forget about Ron Artest, but you can't focus on him too much. He isn't gonna beat you, he's only their to distract you from the 5 main players I just mentioned. He's a complete dope! Ron Artest plays on pure primate instinct, and that is it. You would think that this would enable him to be a Dennis Rodman or something, but Rebounding is an area where his primate instincts have miserably failed him. He averages a mere 3.7 rebounds a game, which is trash for somebody who isn't a reliable scorer. Sometimes I wonder why Phil Jackson plays Ron Artest. He doesn't shoot well, since his Field Goal % is a lowly 41%. Only Luke Walton, Shannon Brown, and Didier Illunga-Mbenga shoot worse field goal percentages than Ron on the team, and they suck! I mean those guys get sparing minutes. So with Ron's crappy % he's lucky he plays period, let alone start. If I was Phil Jackson, I would start Lamar Odom, and have Ron Artest come off the bench as a role player. Giving him the starting Job makes him think he's better than he really is. He acts like a complete space caddette on the court just chucking the basketball at the hoop like he's some sort of Chimpanzee or Gorilla who merely is curious to see the other humans get the ball.
The rest of the Players on the Lakers are a Joke. Jordan Farmar is Gay, Sasha Vujacic (I don't care if I misspelled his name) is a WNBA prospect, Luke Walton is living off of his father's fame and glory, Shannon Brown only cares about Dunk contests and only plays well if you forget about him, Josh Powell doesn't do anything of importance, Didier Illunga-Mbenga is blind with those retarded looking shades on all the time, so he's a useless player, and Adam Morrison looks like he's just come back from a long hike in the woods and hasn't eaten anything in weeks. So yeah, the Bench is as useless as yesterdays garbage, and so the Laker Starters have to expound a lot of energy in order to win.
The Boston Celtics on the other hand are a more complete team. First off, they have a true Point Guard in Rajon Rondo. Something that the Los Angeles Lakers lack. Rondo is able to penetrate and attack the hole and get assists. Rajon Rondo averages 10 Assists per game in the playoffs. In the Playoffs, Kobe Bryant averages 6.2 assists a game, and he's the team leader in assists! Derek Fisher their "Point Guard" averages 3 assists a game. The Lakers don't have a distributer and the Celtics have one of the top 5 best distributers in the NBA! The Celtics also have a more balanced scoring attack than the Lakers do. Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Rajon Rondo can all go off at any given moment. Their scoring averages are all within 5 points of each other. Paul Pierce leading the charge in the playoffs with 19.1 points a game, and Rajon Rondo averages the least points of the bunch with 14.9. Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen are at 16.7 and 16.8 points a game respectively. The Lakers scoring attack is more skewed with Kobe Bryant averaging 29.4 points a game and Pau Gasol has 20 points a game, but the 3rd leading guy is Ron Artest who is a flaky scorer, who scores his points in chunks and then disappears.
Boston's Defense is much better than LA's Defense. The Celtics give up 91.4 points a game and the Lakers give up 101.7 points a game. Now, LA scores more points than Boston does because of "Air Japan", but Boston has the capability to make things very hard for super stars like Dywane Wade, Lebron James, and Dwight Howard. The Celtics know how to stop the middle very well and they rebound very well as well with Kendrick Perkins and Kevin Garnett. But so does the Lakers. LA averages more Rebounds a game than Boston by about 4 boards. But the Rebounding is a plus for Boston who had to Rebound against a monster like Dwight Howard, and so they'll be up to the task to stop Bynum, Gasol, and Odom from getting rebounds. The Lakers haven't had to deal with a team with the size and length of Boston all season. The Thunder didn't have length, the Jazz didn't have length, and neither did the Suns. But Boston has length, and that will be the difference for Boston as their advantage is that they can match the Length of the Lakers.
The Boston Celtics have a better bench than the Lakers. Their bench averages 26.4 points a game in the playoffs, while the Lakers bench averages 23.8 points a game. Half of those bench points come from Lamar Odom who might as well be a starter, and so the rest of the Laker bench production is 13 points. That aint much. The Celtics bench is more balanced than the Lakers. Glen Davis a real threat, Rasheed Wallace is dangerous when he gets hot, we haven't seen much of Nate Robinson, but he's a dangerous little guy, and Tony Allen and Michael Finley can go off and start to hit some huge shots. The Celtics have a better starting lineup collectively than the Lakers, and their Bench is better.
So why would somebody pick the Lakers? The Answer is Kobe Bryant. He is the best player in this series. There is no question that he's the most dangerous player in this whole series. If he plays at his best, their is no stopping the Lakers. But if Boston can tame him with their outstanding defense, then they should be able to beat the Lakers with ease. The Celtics are a more complete team than the Lakers are, and they have more guys that can do damage than the Lakers. The Lakers just have the most damaging player in Kobe Bryant. I should also mention that Pau Gasol is perhaps the 3rd best player in this series behind Rajon Rondo, but his defensive presence isn't very good, which is why Kevin Garnett is ahead of Gasol. Gasol aint a defensive player. He's an offensive weapon. Garnett does more than Gasol does on both sides of the Court.
Overall, I'm picking the Boston Celtics to win this series in 5 games. The Celtics will take game 1 or game 2 in LA, and then win 3 straight games in Boston. The Lakers haven't had much success on the Road this post season in games 3-4. The Thunder and the Phoenix suns won games 3-4 , and Utah lost by one point in game 3. So look for the Celtics to go into game 5 at home with a 3-1 lead. They'll close it out on their home floor, and end the conflict in 5 games by 20 points. Rajon Rondo will be the NBA Finals MVP, and will show that the Lakers lack of Point Guard is a huge FLAW in their team. Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol will have solid performances, but not spectacular ones. The Celtics will shut down Kobe enough to win the series, and that will stop the whole Lakeshow.
Ron Artest will literally throw away one of the games. He won't be able to control his Ape- Like Instincts at all in the game. His performance will be new evidence that man did evolve from Apes. Even though the very notion that man came from Apes is a stupid notion, it isn't far fetched at all to suggest that Ron Artest did. Sasha Vujacic will disappear since their is no Slovenian to anger him, Jordan Farmar will be so excited to be visting the Liberal North East that his whole preoccupation will be gay bars, Luke Walton will feel obliged to let the Celtics win since his dad played there, and Derek Fisher will reveal his true feelings for the Cardashians, which will ignite hatred in Lamar Odom, not because Derek Fisher wants to marry a Cardashian, but because he finds them to be nothing but great disgusting balls of pure filth and sleaze.
Not only will this all happen, but Phil Jackson will then find it appropriate to announce his return to Chicago to coach Lebron James! Kobe will find this all too exciting since he'll be able to prove that he can win a championship without Phil Jackson as well as Shaq, and so Kobe will boot the series, blame it on Phil, and then try to win it next season as the Player Coach! He'll try to show that NBA coaches are useless, and not needed. Jack Nicholson will also be a factor in this series as he always is. He'll find a way to get a Technical foul, and distract the Lakers even further.
Things will get so desperate by game 5 when they are down 3-1 they will rely on Voodoo- like hocus pocus to pull them through it. Phil Jackson will start to bring out all sorts of weird oils, lotions, and potions to get Karma back on their side and get rid of the "Kavorka". It will obviously not work at all, and actually cause the Refs to not call many fouls as they want the game to be over with so that they don't have to smell the horrid stench of the Lakers at the foul line. With a lack of free throw attempts, the Celtics will be favored to win easily as the Lakers on average score 17.6 of their points from the foul line. Kobe himself scores 21.4 % of his points from the foul line, and being the team leader that he is, he'll put on more lotions, creams, and oils than anybody else in an attempt to turn the Karma around. The refs will get one wiff of Kobe, and they won't want him at the foul line once. They'll let him get mugged, hacked, mutilated etc. It will be the most violent officiated game in NBA History. Bones will be broken, Noses will bleed blood the color blue, and players will urinate uncontrollably due to the violent blows to the groin area. Boston is a tougher team, and so this violence will actually be in their favor. They've endured concussions in the playoffs, and still gone on to win the series. They'll actually have fun as the game goes on. Glen Davis will avenge his concussion and knock Pau Gasol Unconscious to the floor leaving Gasol to only be able to Speak and Understand Spanish. Marquis Daniels will come back with anger to avenge his concussion, and knock out Kobe Bryant, which will lead Kobe Bryant to admit in the following press conference that he is much more loose sexually than Tiger Woods ever was. These Blows to the head will cause the Lakers to lose their minds, and the Refs won't call a darn foul, because the Lakers will smell so terribly.
Overall, despite the fact that this game will be done in 5 games, it will be a very entertaining series. You will laugh so hard when it's all over. Doc Rivers will cry at the end, and will have thoroughly out-coached Phil Jackson to the point that people will criticize Phil Jackson and taint his legacy. It won't even be funny. Phil Jackson's lack of ability to beat Doc Rivers will lead him to further his desire to Coach in Chicago and rule the East since Doc Rivers will be his #1 target next season. It will be the most bizarre series of all time, and truly cement the Lakers/Celtics rivalry as the most entertaining series in the NBA!
Let's first look at the Evil Empire of Inglewood featuring Dr. Phil. They are a much different team than two years ago. For starters, Andrew Bynum is gonna play in the Finals for once. Bynum's size, strength, and other Gorilla like qualities are what make the Lakers so dominate in the post. If he and his busted knee can hang on and play in this series, it will be huge for LA. His scoring ability and rebounding/defensive abilities are a huge bonus for the Lakers. Pau Gasol, who looks like Marv in Home Alone, and Lamar "Gumby" Odom add more length and size as well as quickness to the Lakers front line making them a Rebounding Machine. Not only do those guys rebound, but they also score a lot of points, and due to their size and strength they can really cause a lot of tough mismatches for their opponents.
Not only do they have Those 3 Giants roaming the court, but they also have Kobe "Air Japan" Bryant scoring at will and making the most ridiculous shots you will ever see in your life against hard-nosed defenders. He is the difference for the Lakers. He gives the defense nightmares because as badly as they wanna double team him, he has 3-4 other guys on the court who also really need to be guarded. He hits shots that really can discourage you as a defense. That's what he did to the Phoenix Suns. He hit shots in their face that they couldn't defend or stop. He gets to the line a lot (where he scores 21.4 % of his points), he's really aggressive, and he's more unselfish than in past years. Yet, he's still able to know when it is his time to take over.
The only other player on the Lakers who is even worth mentioning is Derek Fisher. That little snitch is death from the 3-point arch and his ability to hit big shots is remarkable. He rarely misses an important shot, and having him to worry about is a big problem. The only problem the Lakers have is their bench. The only players that your really need to worry about are #1. Kobe Bryant, #2 Andrew Bynum, #3. Pau Gasol, #4 Lamar Odom, and #5 Derek Fisher.
Now you might say that Ron Artest should be on that list. He would be if he had an IQ above 65. Ron's problem is that he is an idiot. He takes stupid shots, and doesn't think. You don't really need to guard him, and even if he's guarding you, you can easily get around him. He's actually a plus for the other teams on most nights. Every now and then he really steps up and plays well, but that is just because he played so poorly the previous 5 games, that everybody forgets about him. You can't forget about Ron Artest, but you can't focus on him too much. He isn't gonna beat you, he's only their to distract you from the 5 main players I just mentioned. He's a complete dope! Ron Artest plays on pure primate instinct, and that is it. You would think that this would enable him to be a Dennis Rodman or something, but Rebounding is an area where his primate instincts have miserably failed him. He averages a mere 3.7 rebounds a game, which is trash for somebody who isn't a reliable scorer. Sometimes I wonder why Phil Jackson plays Ron Artest. He doesn't shoot well, since his Field Goal % is a lowly 41%. Only Luke Walton, Shannon Brown, and Didier Illunga-Mbenga shoot worse field goal percentages than Ron on the team, and they suck! I mean those guys get sparing minutes. So with Ron's crappy % he's lucky he plays period, let alone start. If I was Phil Jackson, I would start Lamar Odom, and have Ron Artest come off the bench as a role player. Giving him the starting Job makes him think he's better than he really is. He acts like a complete space caddette on the court just chucking the basketball at the hoop like he's some sort of Chimpanzee or Gorilla who merely is curious to see the other humans get the ball.
The rest of the Players on the Lakers are a Joke. Jordan Farmar is Gay, Sasha Vujacic (I don't care if I misspelled his name) is a WNBA prospect, Luke Walton is living off of his father's fame and glory, Shannon Brown only cares about Dunk contests and only plays well if you forget about him, Josh Powell doesn't do anything of importance, Didier Illunga-Mbenga is blind with those retarded looking shades on all the time, so he's a useless player, and Adam Morrison looks like he's just come back from a long hike in the woods and hasn't eaten anything in weeks. So yeah, the Bench is as useless as yesterdays garbage, and so the Laker Starters have to expound a lot of energy in order to win.
The Boston Celtics on the other hand are a more complete team. First off, they have a true Point Guard in Rajon Rondo. Something that the Los Angeles Lakers lack. Rondo is able to penetrate and attack the hole and get assists. Rajon Rondo averages 10 Assists per game in the playoffs. In the Playoffs, Kobe Bryant averages 6.2 assists a game, and he's the team leader in assists! Derek Fisher their "Point Guard" averages 3 assists a game. The Lakers don't have a distributer and the Celtics have one of the top 5 best distributers in the NBA! The Celtics also have a more balanced scoring attack than the Lakers do. Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Rajon Rondo can all go off at any given moment. Their scoring averages are all within 5 points of each other. Paul Pierce leading the charge in the playoffs with 19.1 points a game, and Rajon Rondo averages the least points of the bunch with 14.9. Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen are at 16.7 and 16.8 points a game respectively. The Lakers scoring attack is more skewed with Kobe Bryant averaging 29.4 points a game and Pau Gasol has 20 points a game, but the 3rd leading guy is Ron Artest who is a flaky scorer, who scores his points in chunks and then disappears.
Boston's Defense is much better than LA's Defense. The Celtics give up 91.4 points a game and the Lakers give up 101.7 points a game. Now, LA scores more points than Boston does because of "Air Japan", but Boston has the capability to make things very hard for super stars like Dywane Wade, Lebron James, and Dwight Howard. The Celtics know how to stop the middle very well and they rebound very well as well with Kendrick Perkins and Kevin Garnett. But so does the Lakers. LA averages more Rebounds a game than Boston by about 4 boards. But the Rebounding is a plus for Boston who had to Rebound against a monster like Dwight Howard, and so they'll be up to the task to stop Bynum, Gasol, and Odom from getting rebounds. The Lakers haven't had to deal with a team with the size and length of Boston all season. The Thunder didn't have length, the Jazz didn't have length, and neither did the Suns. But Boston has length, and that will be the difference for Boston as their advantage is that they can match the Length of the Lakers.
The Boston Celtics have a better bench than the Lakers. Their bench averages 26.4 points a game in the playoffs, while the Lakers bench averages 23.8 points a game. Half of those bench points come from Lamar Odom who might as well be a starter, and so the rest of the Laker bench production is 13 points. That aint much. The Celtics bench is more balanced than the Lakers. Glen Davis a real threat, Rasheed Wallace is dangerous when he gets hot, we haven't seen much of Nate Robinson, but he's a dangerous little guy, and Tony Allen and Michael Finley can go off and start to hit some huge shots. The Celtics have a better starting lineup collectively than the Lakers, and their Bench is better.
So why would somebody pick the Lakers? The Answer is Kobe Bryant. He is the best player in this series. There is no question that he's the most dangerous player in this whole series. If he plays at his best, their is no stopping the Lakers. But if Boston can tame him with their outstanding defense, then they should be able to beat the Lakers with ease. The Celtics are a more complete team than the Lakers are, and they have more guys that can do damage than the Lakers. The Lakers just have the most damaging player in Kobe Bryant. I should also mention that Pau Gasol is perhaps the 3rd best player in this series behind Rajon Rondo, but his defensive presence isn't very good, which is why Kevin Garnett is ahead of Gasol. Gasol aint a defensive player. He's an offensive weapon. Garnett does more than Gasol does on both sides of the Court.
Overall, I'm picking the Boston Celtics to win this series in 5 games. The Celtics will take game 1 or game 2 in LA, and then win 3 straight games in Boston. The Lakers haven't had much success on the Road this post season in games 3-4. The Thunder and the Phoenix suns won games 3-4 , and Utah lost by one point in game 3. So look for the Celtics to go into game 5 at home with a 3-1 lead. They'll close it out on their home floor, and end the conflict in 5 games by 20 points. Rajon Rondo will be the NBA Finals MVP, and will show that the Lakers lack of Point Guard is a huge FLAW in their team. Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol will have solid performances, but not spectacular ones. The Celtics will shut down Kobe enough to win the series, and that will stop the whole Lakeshow.
Ron Artest will literally throw away one of the games. He won't be able to control his Ape- Like Instincts at all in the game. His performance will be new evidence that man did evolve from Apes. Even though the very notion that man came from Apes is a stupid notion, it isn't far fetched at all to suggest that Ron Artest did. Sasha Vujacic will disappear since their is no Slovenian to anger him, Jordan Farmar will be so excited to be visting the Liberal North East that his whole preoccupation will be gay bars, Luke Walton will feel obliged to let the Celtics win since his dad played there, and Derek Fisher will reveal his true feelings for the Cardashians, which will ignite hatred in Lamar Odom, not because Derek Fisher wants to marry a Cardashian, but because he finds them to be nothing but great disgusting balls of pure filth and sleaze.
Not only will this all happen, but Phil Jackson will then find it appropriate to announce his return to Chicago to coach Lebron James! Kobe will find this all too exciting since he'll be able to prove that he can win a championship without Phil Jackson as well as Shaq, and so Kobe will boot the series, blame it on Phil, and then try to win it next season as the Player Coach! He'll try to show that NBA coaches are useless, and not needed. Jack Nicholson will also be a factor in this series as he always is. He'll find a way to get a Technical foul, and distract the Lakers even further.
Things will get so desperate by game 5 when they are down 3-1 they will rely on Voodoo- like hocus pocus to pull them through it. Phil Jackson will start to bring out all sorts of weird oils, lotions, and potions to get Karma back on their side and get rid of the "Kavorka". It will obviously not work at all, and actually cause the Refs to not call many fouls as they want the game to be over with so that they don't have to smell the horrid stench of the Lakers at the foul line. With a lack of free throw attempts, the Celtics will be favored to win easily as the Lakers on average score 17.6 of their points from the foul line. Kobe himself scores 21.4 % of his points from the foul line, and being the team leader that he is, he'll put on more lotions, creams, and oils than anybody else in an attempt to turn the Karma around. The refs will get one wiff of Kobe, and they won't want him at the foul line once. They'll let him get mugged, hacked, mutilated etc. It will be the most violent officiated game in NBA History. Bones will be broken, Noses will bleed blood the color blue, and players will urinate uncontrollably due to the violent blows to the groin area. Boston is a tougher team, and so this violence will actually be in their favor. They've endured concussions in the playoffs, and still gone on to win the series. They'll actually have fun as the game goes on. Glen Davis will avenge his concussion and knock Pau Gasol Unconscious to the floor leaving Gasol to only be able to Speak and Understand Spanish. Marquis Daniels will come back with anger to avenge his concussion, and knock out Kobe Bryant, which will lead Kobe Bryant to admit in the following press conference that he is much more loose sexually than Tiger Woods ever was. These Blows to the head will cause the Lakers to lose their minds, and the Refs won't call a darn foul, because the Lakers will smell so terribly.
Overall, despite the fact that this game will be done in 5 games, it will be a very entertaining series. You will laugh so hard when it's all over. Doc Rivers will cry at the end, and will have thoroughly out-coached Phil Jackson to the point that people will criticize Phil Jackson and taint his legacy. It won't even be funny. Phil Jackson's lack of ability to beat Doc Rivers will lead him to further his desire to Coach in Chicago and rule the East since Doc Rivers will be his #1 target next season. It will be the most bizarre series of all time, and truly cement the Lakers/Celtics rivalry as the most entertaining series in the NBA!
posted by Ben Parker at 7:09 PM
1 Comments:
Yes, well I can now see that after all of your final predictions come true we'll need to call you the "Nostrodamus of the NBA". What carnage, I can't wait!
Especially to see Phil Jackson take his deserved beating.
From your blog I wonder if Artest be the missing link? Scientists should take note.
Farmar is gay for sure, the ears are a dead giveaway...
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