G5 no spin

[cranrab]

the celtic victories in this series can be summed up with 1 word: defense

when they play good D, they usually win.

tonight the celtics played good D and won.

pau gasol didn't contribute a lot on O, here are coach jackson's observations:

Q. What was going on with Pau out there? He was 4 for 11, a late put‑back. Seemed like he was getting a lot of shots blocked, too. What was going on with him?

PHIL JACKSON: He didn't have a lot of opportunities in the first half, and in the second half it looked like he broke away, went by Garnett, got to the front of the hoop, and he blocked it from behind. He had another one blocked. You know, until I see the edit, I can't make a comment on what happened out there, whether he was tentative or whether he had good defensive plays made against him. I thought Garnett made a couple good defensive plays.

 

[cranrab]

tobe had a hot Q3, which would undoubtedly make it's way onto ESPN.

some BGOL members, like eewwll (a pistons fan), diamels (a fakers fan), xfactor (unsure what team he follows, if any) and myself all expressed opinions that tobe's hot hand was not as helpful to team success as others would have you believe.

below are coach jackson's very tongue-in-cheek comments about tobe's Q3 performance:

Q. You're so big on team work, how did you think about using Kobe and kind of eliminating everybody else in the third quarter?

PHIL JACKSON: Well, he's the kind of guy you ride a hot hand, that's for sure.



Q. So you had no problem with that?

PHIL JACKSON: We were waiting for him to do that, and he came in at halftime and got his ankle retaped again and went out there and found a rhythm on the game.
You know, other than that, you look at the assists, we had 12; they had 21. That's a big differential in a game like this. It's a struggle.

coach jackson pointing out unassisted O?

coach jackson terming it "a struggle"?

certainly not the gushing endorsement of a legendary performance that faker fans will tell you that they witnessed.

 

[cranrab]

i have not been a fan of coach rivers in the past, nor am i now.

i've always felt that he was over-rated, and that he had a huge windfall arrive in his lap with the acquisition of ray allen and kevin garnett. after all, look at how horrendous the celtics were the year prior with paul pierce and rajon rondo.

but tonight coach rivers deserves an extra measure of recognition and praise for his discipline, focus, and ability to keep his players settled.

here is coach rivers on how the players became unsettled, but he did not allow them to panic during tobe's Q3 shooting spree:

Q. You've been saying all series that you were going to have to win a game when Kobe went off. Is it fair to say that this qualifies?

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I hope so. I think it was, what, 19 straight points? I'm not sure. It felt like more. You know, it's amazing what that does to your team. We were up, I think, 12 or 10 when he was making that run, and we had to use a time‑out to settle our guys down. What we talked about before the game, you could see they wanted to change the defense, they wanted to start trapping, and I just tried to keep telling them, it's only two points each time he scores. It's not ten. It's just like if someone else was scoring. As long as we were going to keep scoring the way we were scoring, we were going to be good. But it makes you question your defense because he was terrific.

I love that our guys for the most part, they held it in, they understood what he was doing, but we defended everyone else, and I thought it was big.

Q. Going back to that third quarter, you guys were scrambling defensively you said, but how were you able to keep yourselves so focused offensively? You matched every basket Kobe made.

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, that's the point I was trying to stress. It would have been one thing if he had been scoring and we had not been scoring, then it would have been an issue. But we were scoring and we had great rhythm and we had great offensive rhythm and you could see that. That's what made me tell them to just keep playing. I was very concerned when Kobe did that, that we were going to stop playing offense because we were so concerned defensively. Paul switched on Kobe and that's why I got Tony in, because I didn't like that because Paul was our offensive guy. I didn't need him using all his energy to guard Kobe. That's part of what we were going through. The scoring was huge for us.

Q. Some of what they were doing defensively they were sort of doing on their own?

DOC RIVERS: No, no, he was scoring. We wanted to change. We didn't change ‑‑ guys on the floor, they wanted to change it. If I thought he was beating us with our defense, with bad defense, but he was beating us with good defense and that's what good players do, and you've got to breathe through it.

 

[cranrab]

paul pierce offered an interesting contrast between the styles of basketball that the fakers and celtics play:

Q. Take us through your mindset in the third quarter when you and Kobe are playing dueling banjoes and he had the 19 and you had the 11. As a scorer were there any moments where you said, man, I've got to keep up with this kid? And second part of the question, they doubled you in free‑throw attempts, 26 to 13. Do you guys think you can go to LA and win knowing that they went to the line twice as much as you did?

PAUL PIERCE: The beautiful thing about this game, each game plays out a little different. Just because one thing happens one game doesn't mean it's going to happen the next.

As far as Kobe going at it, I wasn't in no personal duel with him. I really didn't even take the notice that we were going, I guess, back and forth at the time. I'm out there trying to help my ballclub to win. Kobe is doing what he does for his ballclub. He has to score the ball night in and night out.

Q. It seemed like this game from start to finish you had a little extra bounce in your step. Can you talk about how you came out tonight and stayed on fire the entire game.

PAUL PIERCE: I haven't really been frustrated with my offense in this series truthfully. Just trying to play a solid game, take what the defense gives me. Today Coach just put me in more pick‑and‑roll, I think. I was given more opportunity. If you have a chance to watch our team, we're not a team that goes out and highlights one player where he gets all the shots, scores all the points. We run more of an equal opportunity offense to if a guy gets going then we'll go to him a little bit more, and I just think that was the case today. He saw I made a few shots, they went to me a little bit more. I think that's something with our offense, when a guy gets going, you earn touches, and it's been like that. That's why throughout the course of playoffs you see different guys that's leading us in scoring each game.

So I think today I was able to get going a little more than normal in the first quarter and they just kept going to me, and it carried over for the rest of the game.

 

[cranrab]

on BGOL, tobe stan revisionists have fired up their keyboards and are trying to re-write current events.

unfortunately for them, true basketball fans actually watched G5, so we know better than to believe their bizarre deluded fiction.

for example, these faker fans claim that tobe needed to unilaterally start jacking shots up because the fakers were on the verge of being blown out.

but that scenario NEVER EXISTED.

for example, in Q1, tobe was 1-4 FGAs. to hear the revisionists tell it, the fakers as a team were playing horribly, and only tobe could save them.

the TRUTH is that Q1 saw the score TIED 6 times, including once in the FINAL MINUTE. Q1 ended in favor of the celtics 22-20.

2 whole points! certainly that's time to panic, right?

 

[cranrab]

how about Q2? did the fakers suffer a tremendous collapse in Q2 that justifiably triggered the unilateral abandonment of the triple post O?

of course not.

with more than half of Q2 over, it was a 1 pt game: 32-31 celtics.

with more than 2/3 of Q2 over, the fakers HAD A LEAD! 37-36 fakers.

the celtics went on to win Q2 23-19.

why? how?

well, you might start by examining tobe's O play. the chucker inexplicably starting hoisting bricks, going 3-8 FGAs in Q2, DOUBLING the amount of his FGAs from Q1.

4-12 FGAs going into halftime.

are the revisionists sure that tobe needed to rescue the team from their bad shooting, or vice versa?

 

[cranrab]

tobe had a hot streak of 7 FGMs in Q3. that certainly generated some buzz amongst his stans.

tobe eventually finished the game a far less impressive 13-27 FGAs overall.

it's pretty obvious that tobe stans are not actually basketball fans, because if they were, they'd be giving equal or greater praise to paul pierce, who started off 10-13 (76.9%) FGAs through the first 26 minutes of the game.

or they'd be giving equal or greater praise to rajon rondo, who finished the game 9-12 (75%) FGAs.

BTW, who was "guarding" rajon rondo in G5 again?

 

[RunawaySlave]

Didn't see much of the first half, but did see a nice chunk of the 3rd quarter. That man was jacking up some wild shots. A couple of 20ft bricks in there too. Neither for nor against Bryant, but him going on the the chuck wagon like that was definitely not good for the offense. But I had a good time watching Pau Gasol getting his shot thrown away too

Oh and for the record, been a Laker fan since the 70's with Happy Hairston and Gail Goodrich. Have also hated the Celtics since Dave Cowens was the center....but it was still fun watching Pau get his shot punched..After that, for the next few possessions, he only shot jumpers (when he did get the ball)

 

[cranrab]

But I had a good time watching Pau Gasol getting his shot thrown away too

it was still fun watching Pau get his shot punched..After that, for the next few possessions, he only shot jumpers (when he did get the ball)

off the top of my head, i can think of 3 different celtics who swatted pau gasol's FGAs.

kendrick perkins

kevin garnett

tony allen

tony allen's was probably the most electrifying for the crowd AND the team alike. that sort of help block out of nowhere provides a terrific boost for teammates.

 

[cranrab]

coach rivers switched up the screen roll action a little again in G5, this time including the guards.

in Q1, it was a blind back screen with tobe and derek fisher as the targets.

in the 2008 NBA finals, the celtics ran the same play with jordan farmar and sasha vujacic as the targets.

 

[RunawaySlave]

off the top of my head, i can think of 3 different celtics who swatted pau gasol's FGAs.

kendrick perkins

kevin garnett

tony allen

tony allen's was probably the most electrifying for the crowd AND the team alike. that sort of help block out of nowhere provides a terrific boost for teammates.

On that play when Gasol went by Garnett and he blocked it from behind, both he AND Perkins both blocked it....I was ready to turn off the TV happy right there

but it's difficult rooting FOR Celtics and rooting AGAINST Lakers