Last night's NBA playoff games deserve comment, and in the wake of the Manny on 'roids revelation I doubt they will get the attention they deserve. Given my relatively limited interest in baseball I can ignore the Manny situation (I was with Simmons thinking he was just too dumb to figure out how to use them) and instead focus on the superior sport of basketball. And when I say basketball I really mean the Lakers-Rockets series. I spent most of the Celtics-Magic game watching LOST (AWESOME episode btw. The finale is shaping up to be as mind blowing as the rest have been), so I didn't get to see the Celtics blow the lead wide open. Just from perusing (which should mean a casual glance, but instead means detailed examination. I'm using my preferred definition in the hope that I can change the meaning of a word by sheer force of will) the box score it seems that Rondo had a fairly dominant game, and if I'd watched the whole thing I'd probably have more to say on the topic. However, I didn't so I wont.
I did stay up way too late last night watching the Lakers-Rockets game. If you read down a few posts you'll notice that I made a fairly (ok, ludicrously)bold prediction about the outcome of the series. Given the way the first game resolved itself I had a vested interest in the Lakers pulling out a victory. The scoreboard says the Lakers won by 13, but anyone who watched the game will know that it really was a lot closer than that. This Rockets team presents a ton of match up problems for the Lakers, and if Kobe isn't hitting ridiculously high degree of difficulty shots it could be a much tougher series than my pride is willing to accept.
Any one's that surprised at the chippiness of the game shouldn't be. You could tell that the League wanted the Lakers to win the game, and I predicted as much in my pre-game chat with my Dad, when I saw that Joey Crawford was one of the refs. Simmons called it earlier in the day on his twitter for Salvatore in Boston, but once I saw that assignment I was hoping Crawford would be in LA. Sure enough, there was his bald head at tip off. Now, if you don't follow the NBA you might not know that Crawford once challenged Tim Duncan to a fight, while Duncan was on the bench. This man is not a paragon of refereeing excellence. So is it any wonder that Derek Fisher did free safeties the world over proud when he leveled Louis Scola? Or that Ron Artest's throat attacked Kobe's elbow? There was no hope for this game from the start.
As a basketball game it definitely showed the contrasting styles of the two clubs. When the Lakers were able to break the game open and get the ball moving well they were superior. When the Rockets could slow everything down and play chest-in-your-face defense they were the better team. Fortunately the Lakers were able to dictate tempo more than the Rockets (and Kobe's holywtf?!?!!?_ shooting helped) and the Lakers were able to win a much closer game than the 13 point final difference would suggest.
As of this posting the NBA has yet to hand out any suspensions for game 3. The only player whose play is under review but wasn't ejected was Kobe, and I don't think the NBA is stupid enough to suspend him for a game (and seriously, what else are you supposed to do when a neck attacks your elbow like that?). I don't think anyone will be suspended from game 3, but I do think that there will be a silly amount of fouls called early, just so the refs can establish that they're in control of the game. Oh, and if you ever wanted to know a part of why Artest is the crazy man he is, well, check this out.
Anyway, it should be an enjoyable series. If the Lakers make it to the finals it will definitely not be the sweep-fest the Cavs are going to have. And if you're not seeing the parallels between these playoffs and the '91 playoffs where the Bulls romped through the East en-route to annihilating an aging Lakers team, well, I don't know what to do for you. All I know is that I'll definitely be watching game 3.... my birthday at 9:30 EST though, ouch, well, it'll be a experience!
As always, please sound off in the comments section! (really, 3 comments total is weak folks, you can do better!)
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