It’s Here! (Well, tonight…there…) The NBA Finals!
Paul Pierce is jacked up. Are you?
Do I see a clean Gulf of Mexico, side pony-tails, or smoking in the Garden? Whatever strange thing you see, we’ve traveled back in time.
The Celtics visit L.A. tonight to kick-off the NBA Finals. Lakers-Celtics, here we go again. As Kelly Dwyer from Ball Don’t Lie writes, everyone’s looking forward to this series.
Whether you remember 2008, 1987, or 1959, you’ve seen this before. Basketball’s two most storied franchises squaring off with nothing but the littered bodies of conference opponents strewn around them. This marks the 12th time these two franchises (not teams because it includes the Minnesota Lakers) have met in the league finals. So far, Boston owns the series 9-2, thanks mostly to a (super)man who’s last name is sufficient: Russell.
Kobe, Pierce, Gasol, Garnett, Artest, Allen, this series features basketball’s A-list as much as Hollywood’s. Should be a great match-up, a heavy-weight title fight with both sides in contention. We’ll look more at the history later, but let’s get this down on “paper” (so old-school around here) before the series gets underway.
As the National Post’s Eric Koreen points out, history is important but this series is unique.
Celtics win in six games and bring the title back to Boston. They’ve got just the right mix of new-school energy and old-school tenacity and their length actually matches up fairly well against the Lakers. They won’t panic when Kobe hits huge shots (he will) and will suffocate Gasol and Artest while depending on Rondo to lead the offense. The thought here is that Boston steals Game 1, loses Game 2 in OT, takes games three and four at home, gets rocked in game five, and closes it out in six.
What do you think of the Celtic’s chances? Post your predictions in the comments. New to M+JLS? Click here to start proving your life’s worth.
Tags: Kobe, NBA Finals, Paul Pierce
Winning one of the first 2 games in LA will be crucial for the Celtics in this series. Both teams have shown a considerable home court advantage throughout the playoffs, but the Lakers are somewhat susceptible coming off weaker defensive series. Case in point: Lakers averaged 113.5 vs. Suns, 109.2 vs. Jazz, and haven’t been held under 100 pts since winning game 6 against the Thunder 95-94. So basically they’ve won all run and gun shootouts, which will inflate a team’s ego and enable sloppy defense. The Celtics can take advantage by playing their standard hard defense (and a foul whatever moves strategy with the big men) and using more than 2 scoring options (unlike thunder, suns and jazz), then they will win one of the first 2. If that happens, boom 2008 all over again.