20 Second Timeout

Magic Roll the Dice, Go for Broke

In two separate transactions with the Phoenix Suns and Washington Wizards, the Orlando Magic shipped out Vince Carter, Rashard Lewis, Mickael Pietrus and Marcin Gortat in exchange for Jason Richardson, Gilbert Arenas, Hedo Turkoglu and Earl Clark. The Magic advanced to the NBA Finals in 2009 but after essentially swapping Turkoglu for Carter they lost to the Boston Celtics in the 2010 Eastern Conference Finals and they currently have just the fourth best record in the Eastern Conference; it is not surprising that the Magic decided to dramatically alter the roster surrounding MVP level performer Dwight Howard but it is far from clear that the Magic have improved their chances to win a championship .

Neither the Suns nor the Wizards will be factors in the championship chase this season, so let's focus on what these moves mean for the Magic. Carter and Lewis started for the Magic at shooting guard and power forward respectively, while Gortat is arguably the best backup center in the NBA and Pietrus is an excellent wing defender who also shoots very well from three point range, connecting at a career-high (and team-high) .391 rate from long distance this season. Neither Carter nor Lewis have been as effective or efficient this season as the Magic had hoped they would be but Arenas and Turkoglu are hardly setting the world on fire: Arenas is gunning away (17.3 ppg on .394 field goal shooting) for a losing team, while Turkoglu (9.5 ppg, his lowest output since 2003-04) has looked apathetic (and pathetic) since scoring a big free agent contract. Richardson is easily the most productive player from this group (team-high 19.3 ppg for the Suns this season, shooting .470 from the field and .419 from three point range) but the big picture problem is that Orlando will either have to play small ball (Howard is the only legitimate power player currently on the Magic roster)--not likely a winning plan versus Boston's army of bigs or against Miami's All-Star trio--or else package Richardson in a deal to add some bigs to play alongside and/or back up Howard.

The popular myth about Orlando's 2009 Finals run is that Turkoglu was the key player (other than Howard) because he made plays for others and took over in the fourth quarter but Turkoglu's importance has been exaggerated; if you either looked at the numbers and/or actually watched the games then you know that it was Rashard Lewis, not Turkoglu, who proved to be a matchup nightmare for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals. Even if you believe that Turkoglu was vitally important back then, there is every reason to think that Turkoglu has peaked--his age, the arc of his career and the way that his performance dropped after he got paid all indicate that his best days are behind him.

Arenas is vastly overrated as a clutch performer; even when Arenas was in his prime a few years ago I did not consider him to be an elite player and I confidently predicted that he would never lead a team past the second round of the playoffs. Arenas had some good games in Washington's first round loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2006 playoffs--which was four years and several injuries ago--but he also had some very inefficient games during that series: in three of those six games he shot .417 or worse from the field (not to mention his Karl Malone-esque choke job at the free throw line to close out game six of that series) and his career playoff field goal percentage is just .411. The theory/idea that he is going to create shots for himself and/or his teammates against elite teams during the crucible of playoff competition is unproven to say the least--he certainly will create shots for himself but it is doubtful that most of those shots will be good shots. Arenas' shot selection and matador defense will provide much fodder for Coach Stan Van Gundy's "Wired" segments during national TV telecasts!

Arenas is not a pure point guard nor is he a better player than Richardson at this stage of their careers so it will be very interesting to see how Coach Van Gundy constructs his starting lineup and overall rotation. In theory, Howard, Turkoglu, Quentin Richardson, Jason Richardson and Jameer Nelson should start with Arenas providing scoring punch off of the bench but that starting lineup is not only small up front but it is defensively challenged at multiple positions. It is also far from certain that Arenas will accept and/or be productive in a reserve role (he has started 453 of his 486 career regular season games).

It looks like the best case scenario is that the Magic turn into Phoenix Suns East--bombing away from three point range in the regular season only to get pushed aside by the Celtics or out "run and gunned" by the Heat in the playoffs--while the worst case scenario is that Turkoglu's complacency, Arenas' questionable attitude and the team's general lack of defensive focus results in the Magic fading completely from championship contention. A third scenario would be for the Magic to package Jason Richardson in a deal to obtain some bigs, enabling Coach Van Gundy to use a more orthodox starting lineup with a traditional power forward; if the Magic pull that off and if Arenas turns out to be a reasonably productive starting shooting guard then the Magic could potentially have enough size and scoring punch to deal with the Heat in the playoffs but they still would not match up well with the Celtics.

I don't blame Orlando's Otis Smith for proverbially "pushing his chips to the center of the table" and trying to win it all while Dwight Howard is in his prime (and before Howard potentially becomes a free agent) but I am very skeptical that these moves improved the Magic's championship chances.

Labels: Gilbert Arenas, Hedo Turkoglu, Jason Richardson, Marcin Gortat, Orlando Magic, Rashard Lewis, Vince Carter

posted by David Friedman @ 7:17 PM

10 comments

Maestro Bryant Orchestrates Lakers' Championship, Wins Finals MVP

"I don't have to hear that idiotic criticism anymore."--Kobe Bryant, the 2009 Finals MVP trophy by his side, at the press conference after game five of the NBA Finals

Kobe Bryant scored a game-high 30 points, led the L.A. Lakers in assists (five), blocked shots (four, tied with Pau Gasol) and steals (two, tied with Trevor Ariza) while also grabbing six rebounds and committing just one turnover as the Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic 99-86 to win the NBA Finals 4-1. Bryant earned Finals MVP honors after averaging 32.4 ppg, 7.4 apg and 5.6 rpg in the series; only Allen Iverson (35.6 ppg in 2001), Jerry West (33.8 ppg in 1965) and Shaquille O'Neal (33.0 ppg in 2001) averaged more points in a five game NBA Finals.

The Lakers won the championship one year after being bounced out of the Finals in six games by the Boston Celtics; don't underestimate the significance of a team having the mental toughness to pull that off, because the last time a Finals loser won the championship the next season was 1989, when the Detroit Pistons swept the Lakers after losing to them in seven games in 1988.

Lamar Odom contributed 17 points and 10 rebounds off of the bench after subpar performances in games three and four. Trevor Ariza added 15 points, five rebounds and two steals, while Pau Gasol had a very efficient stat line: 14 points, a game-high 15 rebounds and the aforementioned game-high tying four blocked shots. Game four hero Derek Fisher scored 13 points on 4-7 field goal shooting. Starting center Andrew Bynum played his usual limited minutes (16:54) but fired up 11 shots during that time, making just three of them. The Lakers' much vaunted depth was scarcely evident, particularly if you count Odom as a de facto starter (Odom played 31:43): only three other reserves played and they combined to score just four points.

Rashard Lewis led Orlando with 18 points, 10 rebounds and four assists but he shot just 6-19 from the field; the hero of the Cleveland series shot .405 from the field versus the Lakers, had just two good games out of five and shot 2-10 from the field in both game one and game four. Hedo Turkoglu, Courtney Lee and Rafer Alston scored 12 points each. Dwight Howard, who punished Cleveland inside to the tune of 25.8 ppg on .651 field goal shooting--including a playoff career-high 40 points in the clinching game six--finished with 11 points, 10 rebounds and three blocked shots. The Magic shot 8-27 (.296) from three point range and even that number is inflated, because it includes some late three pointers that boosted their percentage but did not really threaten to alter the outcome of the game.

Orlando Coach Stan Van Gundy mused earlier in the playoffs that most members of the media come to games with two preconceived storylines and that after a game is over they just run with whichever one fits. For instance, if a well-rested team is playing against a team that just finished a grueling seven games series then these writers have a "rust" storyline ready and a "rested" storyline ready and simply use the one that proves to be relevant. The storylines before game five for those kinds of writers most likely revolved around the Magic either being "resilient" (if they won) or "devastated by the game four overtime loss" (if the Lakers won). Reality is not so cut and dried. The Magic have long since proved their resiliency, so anyone who imagined that they would just meekly submit to the Lakers is not very intelligent. The Magic took a quick 15-6 lead and were ahead for most of the first quarter. Bynum shot 0-6 during Orlando's initial burst, prompting ABC commentator Jeff Van Gundy to note, "Sometimes you're open for a reason." Even more worrisome for the Lakers than Bynum's bricklaying was that Bryant reinjured one of the damaged fingers on his shooting hand when Lewis stripped the ball from Bryant--but, as is almost always the case with Bryant, the injury quickly became a nonstory and he did not miss any game time or seem to be the least bit impaired (Bryant has not missed a game in more than two years despite logging heavy minutes and enduring a host of ailments, including two significant finger dislocations on his shooting hand). As iron man quarterback Brett Favre once said about injuries, they are simply a case of "mind over matter": "if you don't mind, they don't matter."

Bynum finally scored midway through the first quarter when he got an offensive rebound/putback. Van Gundy observed, "Here's another byproduct of the double teaming of Kobe Bryant. Dwight Howard had to rotate out (leaving) the smaller Hedo Turkoglu on Andrew Bynum." This is a nuance of the game that many fans (and most "stat gurus") fail to understand; they look at Bynum's shooting percentage (when he is healthy) or the shooting percentages of Gasol and Odom and say that those guys should get more shots and Bryant should shoot less frequently--but the Laker bigs shoot so well precisely because Bryant creates easy shots for them but he cannot create 25 easy shots a game for each player. Meanwhile, Bryant's shooting percentage is dragged down by having to take shots at the end of the shot clock and in other scenarios when the offense has broken down. If Gasol, Odom or Bynum shot 20-25 times per game their shooting percentages would drop and the Lakers would not be as effective as they are with Bryant as the main scorer/facilitator and the other players in complementary roles.

Although the Magic clearly had the right mindset entering this game, the Lakers withstood the initial flurry and only trailed 28-26 by the end of the first quarter. Bryant's prowess as a closer is correctly respected and feared but in this series he also proved to be a good "opener," keeping the Lakers in contact in several first quarters when the Magic came out smoking and the other Lakers could not get much going; in this instance he had 11 points and one assist. Bryant rested for the first few minutes of the second quarter and the Lakers fell behind 34-28 before rallying to trim the margin to 34-31 just prior to his return. Then, Bryant almost immediately sparked the run that, essentially, decided the outcome of the game, registering three assists (all on three pointers) and nailing a jumper as the Lakers outscored the Magic 11-0 in 1:20, turning a 40-36 deficit into a 47-40 lead. Though the Magic obviously were still in contact, they did not seem to have quite the same spirit the rest of the way; after several rounds in the famous "Rope a Dope" fight, Muhammad Ali famously asked George Foreman if that was all he had and Foreman recalled thinking, "Yeah, that's about it" before Ali moved in for the kill. Something similar seemed to happen to Orlando in this game--not that the Lakers were intentionally using a "Rope a Dope" approach but rather that the Magic hit the Lakers with their best shot, the Lakers withstood the blow and then it seemed like the Magic grasped the disheartening reality of trailing 3-1 versus a team that has answers for everything that they do. The Lakers led 56-46 at halftime.

The Magic briefly got to within five early in the third quarter but then the Lakers went up 73-57 and were ahead by double digits the rest of the way. Odom hit back to back three pointers during that burst. One of those treys came after a double-teamed Bryant passed to Ariza, who swung the ball to Fisher, who kicked it to Odom in the left corner; Fisher got the assist but Bryant created the shot by drawing the double team.

Although the Lakers enjoyed a comfortable lead for most of the second half, Lakers Coach Phil Jackson did not take any chances with his inconsistent reserves and opted to give Bryant just 1:14 of rest at the tail end of the third quarter with the Lakers leading 74-59. Bryant returned at the start of the fourth quarter and then played the rest of the way, scoring nine points in the final stanza to make sure that the Magic did not pull off a comeback.

The relative lack of drama down the stretch gave Jeff Van Gundy and fellow commentator Mark Jackson plenty of time to wax poetic about Bryant. After Bryant hit a tough jumper, Jackson said, "I really don't think that people appreciate how great this guy is." When play by play announcer Mike Breen mentioned in passing how much better of a teammate Bryant has become in recent years, Van Gundy interjected, "I think it's overplayed how hard he was to play with. He plays hard, he works hard in practice; when he is single covered he takes a shot and when he is double covered he passes. I think that a lot of that (stuff) about him not being a good teammate had as much to do with the guys he played with."

Jackson added, "If you go out and compete the same way this guy competes in practice and in game situations he's not a problem to you because he is not talking to you when he demands that you raise your level of play."

Van Gundy concluded, "He will have problems with guys--and rightfully so, just like a coach would--who compete to a point but maybe not has hard as is necessary to win it all."

Over the years, I have caught some flak from uninformed hacks--some of whom write for prominent publications--for stating that Bryant is the league's best player because he has no skill set flaws; I don't say that as a fan but rather as someone who watches the sport with an educated eye--and I have talked to enough coaches, scouts and players to know that they are seeing exactly what I am seeing. As Mark Jackson said during the third quarter, "He has no flaws as a basketball player. People got upset with me for putting Kobe Bryant in the same discussion with Michael Jordan. At the end of the day, just look at this guy's body of work. Look at the great players and listen to the way that they acknowledge that he's the best. It's incredible." The disconnect between how some fans and self proclaimed experts perceive Bryant and the way that informed basketball people view Bryant reminds me of the disparate perspectives about Scottie Pippen: basketball purists understand just how great he was but casual observers act as if he was an innocent bystander to Michael Jordan's brilliance.

Julius Erving's words of wisdom after this year's Hall of Fame press conference proved to be prophetic when he answered a question about what separates Kobe Bryant and LeBron James: "The years of experience, the fact that there is no substitute for that. In terms of his individual ability, he does things in a little bit more of a traditional sense to get it done. LeBron is kind of like a bull in a china shop. He is a fantastic talent. I don't think he knows how good he is. Looking at him coming full speed at 270 pounds, that is like Shaq playing point guard. It's like, 'All you little boys need to move out of my way.' But, the combination of offense and defense, finesse and power, Kobe is the package--and I think that LeBron would probably admit that. Well, maybe because of their egos neither one would admit anything! But, that is part of it, don't give anybody any quarter or do anything that will put you at a disadvantage. Kobe's got the torch now and LeBron is next in line."

James was my choice for regular season MVP this year, narrowly edging out Bryant; though the national media selected James in a landslide, I concluded my article on the subject with these words: "This year's playoffs may reveal whether Bryant truly passed that torch to James for good in March or if Bryant merely needed to get his second wind in order to recapture the torch during the crucible of postseason competition." During the 2009 playoffs, Bryant averaged 30.2 ppg, 5.5 apg and 5.3 rpg while shooting .457 from the field, .349 from three point range and .883 from the free throw line, mirroring the outstanding numbers that he posted in the 2008 playoffs: 30.1 ppg, 5.6 apg, 5.7 rpg, .479, .302 and .809. Bryant led the NBA in total playoff points scored both years and had the highest playoff scoring average in 2008 (he ranked second to James' 35.3 ppg this year).

James certainly had a tremendous postseason but watching Bryant lead the Lakers to the title you could see the significance of some of the skill set advantages Bryant has over James--particularly the ability to consistently make the midrange jump shot: teams simply cannot ever concede that shot to Bryant and thus Bryant is very difficult to single cover in the 15-18 foot area, which opens scoring opportunities for all of his teammates. It is no accident or coincidence that Pau Gasol has played the most efficient ball of his career since joining the Lakers (see below for more on that subject) or that career journeymen like Trevor Ariza and Shannon Brown suddenly become much more productive playing alongside Bryant: Bryant's teammates know that they are going to be wide open and, just as importantly, they know exactly when and where they will be open and they know that Bryant is a willing passer, so all they have to focus on is knocking down wide open shots.

In many ways, Bryant saved his best for last in the 2009 postseason; Jerry West is the only player to match or exceed Bryant's scoring and assists averages in the same NBA Finals. West won the NBA's first Finals MVP in 1969 after averaging 37.9 ppg and 7.4 apg in a seven game loss to the Boston Celtics; West remains the only player to ever win that award despite playing on the losing team.

It is fitting that Bryant joined West on the list of Finals MVP winners and that he is the first recipient of that award since it was officially named in honor of Bill Russell, the greatest winner in the league's history (11 championships in 13 seasons) who, ironically, never won the Finals MVP (West won the first Finals MVP during Russell's final NBA season); no rational person can exclude Bryant's name from the short list of the greatest players in the history of the sport. When I wrote my five part series about pro basketball's Pantheon I limited the discussion to retired players but in part five I mentioned four active players who have performed at a "Pantheon level": Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Interestingly, prior to game five, TNT/NBA TV commentator Kenny Smith said that a fourth championship for Bryant would cement Bryant's place on Smith's list of the top 10 NBA players of all-time (this is the order in which Smith mentioned the names, though it is not clear if this is the order in which he ranks these players): Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant. It is difficult to take anyone's name off of that list but it is also difficult to leave out guys like Elgin Baylor and Julius Erving.

Bryant's Finals MVP caps off an extraordinary season in a special career: last summer, Bryant's clutch fourth quarter scoring carried Team USA to an Olympic gold medal, in February he shared the All-Star MVP with Shaquille O'Neal and then Bryant finished second to James in regular season MVP voting after leading the Lakers to the best record in the West for the second year in a row. Only Willis Reed (1970), Michael Jordan (1996, 1998) and Shaquille O'Neal (2000) won the regular season MVP, the All-Star MVP and the Finals MVP in the same season, so Bryant's second place finish and two first place finishes in voting for those three awards in 2009 are impressive. Bryant is also on a very short and distinguished list of NBA players who have won at least four championships, one regular season MVP and one Finals MVP: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal and Tim Duncan.

While this is Bryant's fourth NBA championship--not his first, despite what you might have heard--Lakers Coach Phil Jackson passed Red Auerbach by claiming his 10th NBA title and after the game he proudly wore a cap designed by his children and adorned with the Roman numeral "X." Jackson is renowned for his ability to make adjustments during playoff series and this year's playoffs provided more evidence of that, as the Lakers won two of the final three games in the Houston series and three of the final four games in the Denver series, including the last two. During this year's playoffs the Magic proved to be a team that provided a lot of matchup challenges but in game five the Lakers managed to simultaneously limit their three point shooters and hold Howard well below his usual scoring average, a most impressive defensive accomplishment that speaks both to Jackson's gameplanning and to how well his players executed what he designed. Of course, it helps to have a player like Bryant bringing those chalkboard designs to life while also exhorting his teammates to match his energy and effort even if they cannot match his skill: on one possession, Bryant very effectively double-teamed Howard on the left block and then sprinted all the way to the right corner to contest Lewis' three pointer and harass him into shooting an airball. Players know which players just talk about hard work and which players actually are willing to sacrifice, so when Bryant plays that hard on defense that attitude becomes contagious. As Van Gundy and Jackson noted during the telecast, Bryant's attitude and work ethic had precisely that kind of positive effect for Team USA, too.

While always giving Gasol the credit that he deserves for his well-rounded skill set, I have also insisted that Bryant has played a major role in bringing out the best in Gasol. Jerry West, who acquired Bryant for the Lakers and ran the Memphis franchise when Gasol was that team's number one option, recently said of Gasol, "His effort is certainly greater than it was in Memphis, I'll tell you that, and it's because Kobe Bryant has driven him to that point." Anyone who follows the NBA closely and understands the game realizes that even though the trade that brought Gasol to L.A. looks lopsided on the surface, the method to Memphis' "madness" is that the Grizzlies seriously doubted that Gasol could ever be the main performer on a championship caliber team; that is why they dumped his salary in exchange for young players and draft picks in order to basically hit the "reboot" button and start over. Gasol has found a perfect niche with the Lakers as the number two option; this is definitely not a case of the Lakers having two "alpha males," as Bryant rightly described the situation when he and Shaquille O'Neal were the two best players on three Lakers' championship teams from 2000-02: as Bryant said in his postgame press conference after game five, those teams were unique precisely because they had two "alpha males" instead of the more clearly defined hierarchy that typically exists on teams.

Although the middle three games of this series were close, the Lakers routed the Magic in L.A. in game one and then eliminated the Magic in Orlando with a decisive game five win. Not coincidentally, those were Bryant's two best games of the series, as he dropped 40-8-8 in the opener and 32-6-5 in the finale while only committing one turnover in each of those contests. A lot will be said in the coming days, weeks and months about how this performance will impact Bryant's legacy--and if it was not immediately obvious how foolish it was for John Krolik to suggest that Bryant's career would be defined by game seven versus Houston it certainly is glaringly apparent now; all of the excessive attention paid to Bryant's facial expressions was also silly: as West said, when it came time to win championships you did not see Michael Jordan laughing and giggling, either.

Perhaps Kevin Garnett, who had his own critics to answer after spending most of his career getting bounced in the first round of the playoffs, put it best last year as he exulted just moments after his Boston Celtics won the championship over Bryant's Lakers: "What can you say now? What can you say now?"

Labels: Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Lamar Odom, Orlando Magic, Pau Gasol, Rashard Lewis, Trevor Ariza

posted by David Friedman @ 5:00 AM

68 comments

Clutch Three Pointers by Fisher Lift Lakers to Commanding 3-1 Series Lead

Couch potato coaches have been calling for Derek Fisher's head throughout the playoffs but the much maligned 34 year old point guard drained two clutch three pointers--one to force overtime and the second to give the L.A. Lakers the lead for good--as the Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic 99-91 in overtime, taking a 3-1 lead and all but clinching the 2009 NBA Championship. Fisher missed the first five three pointers that he attempted but Kobe Bryant repeatedly tells his teammates that you cannot make big shots if you afraid to take them and Fisher proved that he is confident while also justifying the confidence that Coach Phil Jackson has demonstrated in Fisher. Bryant led the Lakers with a game-high 32 points and a game-high eight assists, becoming the only Laker other than Magic Johnson to have at least eight assists in six straight playoff games; Bryant has had exactly eight assists in each of the four Finals games, after posting eight assists in game five of the Western Conference Finals versus Denver and 10 assists in the game six series clincher. Bryant also had a strong performance on the boards, grabbing seven rebounds to rank third on the Lakers. Although Bryant shot just 11-31 from the field, he had a strong first quarter (13 points on 4-7 shooting) to keep the Lakers close when their whole frontcourt rotation was in foul trouble, he created open shots for his teammates down the stretch, he made the Lakers' first two field goals in overtime and he drew a double team before passing to Fisher for the key three pointer in overtime.

Pau Gasol added 16 points and a team-high 10 rebounds. Trevor Ariza had 16 points and nine rebounds, overcoming a sluggish first half to contribute 13 third quarter points as the Lakers rallied from a double digit deficit. Fisher finished with 12 points, four rebounds, one assist and no turnovers. Lamar Odom, who has apparently already met his quota for effective games in this series, had nine points, five rebounds and five fouls in 27:36; his versatility is often praised and certainly was on display in this game, though not in the fashion that is generally meant by that term: he showed the ability to miss out of control layups with either hand and repeatedly foul jump shooters. Starting center Andrew Bynum had six points, two rebounds and five fouls in just 15:40.

Hedo Turkoglu led the Magic with 25 points, getting the best of Ariza for most of the game, but he shot just 8-13 from the free throw line, including just 3-7 in the fourth quarter. Dwight Howard nearly had a triple double--16 points, 21 rebounds, a Finals single game record nine blocked shots--but he committed seven turnovers and shot 6-14 from the free throw line. The Magic led 87-84 with :11.1 remaining in the fourth quarter when Howard missed two free throws, providing Fisher the opportunity to be the hero. The Lakers hounded Rashard Lewis into scoring just six points on 2-10 field goal shooting, though he did have seven rebounds and four assists. Mickael Pietrus had a solid game (15 points), while Rafer Alston made some shots early in the game but did not play down the stretch and finished with 11 points; Jameer Nelson essentially replaced Alston in the second half and although Nelson created some scoring opportunities for his teammates (three assists) he never found his shooting touch (two points, 1-3 field goal shooting) and he made a critical error at the end of regulation by backing up and giving Fisher room to shoot the tying three pointer. Nelson also left Fisher to double team Bryant, creating the opening for Fisher's dagger three pointer in the extra session. Earlier in the game, Nelson got away with a missed defensive rotation when Bryant did not convert a wide open three pointer. Orlando Coach Stan Van Gundy is really in a no win position with his point guard situation: he obviously wants to play Nelson, the 2009 All-Star who missed four months due to injury, but Nelson is rusty and inserting him in the lineup has affected Alston's minutes/role and forced Anthony Johnson, an effective player for the Magic earlier in the playoffs, out of the rotation completely.

Howard played with remarkable tenacity and intensity in the first quarter, grabbing 11 rebounds, blocking three shots and playing a role in getting all three of the Lakers' primary big men (Gasol, Odom and Bynum) in foul trouble, as that trio compiled two fouls each in the first 9:12. The Lakers survived a stretch with Bryant anchoring a lineup featuring D.J. Mbenga, Josh Powell, Luke Walton and Jordan Farmar, trailing just 24-20 at the end of the first quarter. Bryant not only accounted for virtually all of the Lakers' points (13 points, one assist), he also was extremely active on defense, all but disregarding his man (Courtney Lee) in order to roam around and disrupt the actions of the Magic's principal offensive threats; Bryant poked the ball away from Lewis in the post (in the official play by play, Ariza received credit for a steal because he recovered the ball) and was very active on the glass--in addition to his two rebounds Bryant did an excellent job of sinking into the paint, putting a body on the nearest player and tipping the ball if he could not control it.

Bryant sat out the first 4:08 of the second quarter--the only rest he received all game--and the Magic extended their lead to 34-27. For the second game in a row, Bryant struggled to find his shooting rhythm in the second quarter after carrying the team with his scoring in the first quarter. ESPN's Jon Barry has been making a big fuss about Bryant shooting too much--a standard theme for Barry and Mike Wilbon, who apparently are neither watching these games nor looking at the box scores: Bryant was 8-15 from the field in the first half of game three and 3-10 in the second half, so perhaps Bryant did not shoot enough down the stretch in that game, because if he had attempted a few more shots and gotten hot the Lakers might have won. Bryant shot 1-5 from the field in the second quarter of game four, so the issue was not that he shot too often but rather that he simply did not pick up where he had left off in the first quarter: what many people apparently do not understand is that for this Lakers team Bryant not only fills the Michael Jordan scoring role but he also has to fill the Scottie Pippen facilitator role; Bryant talked about this a little bit after game three, noting that he has to strike a delicate balance between finding/maintaining his shooting rhythm while also keeping his teammates involved. That is not nearly as simple as it may sound on paper, but Bryant's playoff averages (30.2 ppg, .458 field goal shooting, 5.5 apg) and the fact that the Lakers are one win away from an NBA championship demonstrate just how effective and efficient he has been.

Lewis has been a key player for the Magic throughout the playoffs and in this series as well; in game four Bryant seemed to take a particular interest in defending Lewis: on several occasions, Bryant ended up guarding Lewis after switches and Lewis tried to take the smaller Bryant down to the low post but Bryant aggressively fronted Lewis with perfect defensive technique, denying the entry pass. On one remarkable second quarter possession, Bryant fronted Lewis, denied the pass and then beat Lewis to the rebound, which is very difficult to do against a bigger player who has inside position. That kind of rebound by Bryant is an example of why, in my skill set based comparison of Bryant with Lebron James (during the brief--and in hindsight, remarkably unusual--time that SlamOnline actually displayed an interest in publishing high quality basketball writing), I ranked Bryant as James' equal as a rebounder even though James has a higher rpg average; Bryant plays on the perimeter and does not have the same rebounding opportunities/responsibilities that James does, but when Bryant plays in the paint he is capable of rebounding with anyone at any time, a theme that we will revisit later in this game.

With Bryant neither shooting frequently nor accurately in the second quarter, the Lakers only scored 17 points and trailed 49-37 at halftime. Howard had as many rebounds (14) as the entire Lakers team and while Bryant had 16 points on 5-12 field goal shooting his teammates combined to score just 21 points on 9-30 field goal shooting. Turkoglu led the Magic with 15 points on 5-6 field goal shooting. It is interesting how things are perceived, because a lot of people say that Orlando beat Cleveland in the Eastern Conference Finals because Orlando enjoyed so many mismatch advantages but Turkoglu averaged 17.2 ppg on .390 field goal shooting versus the Cavs while mainly being guarded by Delonte West (who is listed at 6-3) and he is averaging 19.5 ppg on .491 field goal shooting versus the Lakers while mainly being guarded by the 6-8 Ariza; the reality is that five of the six Cleveland-Orlando games were close and could have gone either way and three of the four L.A.-Orlando games have been close and could have gone either way, but people try to concoct grand story lines based on the final results instead of taking the time to actually analyze what happened.

After the game, Bryant made a very interesting observation, noting that Pietrus has been defending him very well on the perimeter and that the Magic have been very effective at sending help because Bryant has been starting his move so far away from the hoop; Bryant adjusted to this by going to the low post more frequently in the second half, accepting the double team and thereby creating scoring opportunities for his teammates. Bryant assisted on a Fisher jumper to open the scoring in the third quarter and Ariza was able to drive to the hoop for a wide open dunk after Bryant drew a double team, passed the ball and forced Orlando's defense to rotate; Bryant did not get an assist but he created Ariza's scoring opportunity. Bryant then made a three pointer to cut the Magic lead to 51-44, Ariza scored on a runner and Bryant assisted on an Ariza three pointer to make the score 54-49 Orlando. After Ariza split a pair of free throws, the Lakers got a stop and posted up Bryant, who passed to Gasol, who then swung the ball to Ariza for a wide open three pointer that pulled the Lakers to within 54-53. Soon after that, Gasol failed to pass to an open Bryant and ABC commentator Mark Jackson made this comment during a stoppage of play: "On this possession, Kobe Bryant chastizes Pau Gasol: get me the basketball. When you get me the ball, the offense is easy. I will make the proper plays, double team comes and guys will have wide open shots. He is running the point guard from the scoring position. It shows you how great Kobe is. If you single coverage him, he is going to look to score. If you double team him the guy is making the proper play." Jackson's fellow commentator Jeff Van Gundy added, "That is why when people say I have to pass or shoot more--it's not about that. It's about making the right play." As regular 20 Second Timeout readers know, I have been making exactly those points--not just about Bryant but about basketball in general and how it should be analyzed--for years; the fact that Jon Barry and Mike Wilbon apparently are incapable of understanding this is why I keep lambasting their "analysis" and it is why I have no patience for amateur hour writers at various publications and websites who, quite frankly, have no idea what they are talking about when they write game recaps or try to make player comparisons. Mark Jackson, Jeff Van Gundy and Hubie Brown consistently note that Bryant does a tremendous job of reading the defense and making the right play, while the amateur hour writers get bogged down in the minutiae of counting how many times Bryant shoots or how many assists he has.

Ariza will be cited as a third quarter hero in most articles--and rightfully so, because Ariza certainly played well--but it is highly unlikely that too many people will mention that 10 of Ariza's 13 third quarter points were directly or indirectly created by Bryant drawing double teams. That is why the whole issue of just how talented the Lakers really are overall is a bit murky; Ariza has been a bench player his whole career until this year, Gasol never won a playoff game until he teamed up with Bryant and Fisher clearly cannot not create a shot for himself but all three players are playing vital roles on a very strong team: those players deserve credit for performing well under pressure but a lot of their scoring opportunities are created by the attention that Bryant draws. The casual fan is mesmerized by the assist totals racked up by Chris Paul, Steve Nash and LeBron James--three players who are excellent passers--but those players monopolize the ball to a much greater extent than Bryant does and are thus more likely to be in position to make the pass that leads directly to a score, while Bryant often makes the pass that leads to the scoring pass (though Bryant is on something of an assist tear, so to speak, in the past half dozen games).

Bryant had eight points and four assists in the third quarter as the Lakers outscored the Magic 30-14 to take a 67-63 lead but arguably his biggest play does not even appear in the boxscore. Lakers Coach Phil Jackson was asked after the game to single out the turning point and he chose a play that happened at the 1:28 mark of the third quarter: Howard missed a reverse layup and seemed to control the offensive rebound but Bryant ripped the ball away from Howard and Howard retaliated by fouling Bryant, who sank two free throws (Bryant shot 8-8 from the free throw line in this game after his much discussed 5-10 free throw shooting in game three). The Team USA teammates exchanged words and if you can read lips you know that Bryant told Howard to shut the ---- up and play ball. Earlier I mentioned that Bryant's rebounding prowess is equal to LeBron James' and is underrated by the casual fan; not too many shooting guards are strong enough to take the ball away from Howard. Interestingly, in the official play by play this is recorded as a "team rebound," not a rebound (or steal) for Bryant. In any case, Coach Jackson said that Bryant's play "showed the grit that this team has tried to develop over the last year." You may recall that in game four of the 2008 Finals the Lakers squandered a huge lead at home to fall behind 3-1, so it is an interesting symmetry that this year Bryant made a tough, physical play that helped the Lakers rally from a double digit deficit on the road to take a 3-1 series lead.

Bryant fed Odom an alley oop pass for a layup that pushed the Lakers' advantage to six points at the start of the fourth quarter but the Magic kept their composure and made a run of their own, capped off with a three point play by Pietrus that put them up 76-75 at the 5:38 mark. Jumpers by Gasol and Bryant enabled the Lakers to go ahead 79-76 but then Nelson found Howard inside for a dunk, Turkoglu split a pair of free throws and Nelson passed to Howard inside again, this time resulting in a three point play that gave Orlando an 82-79 lead. Ariza answered with a three pointer--and this shot was one of the few that definitely was not created by Bryant; after a broken play, Ariza ended up with the ball outside of the three point arc with the shot clock winding down and he fired away and hit a very important shot, though Turkoglu responded with a three pointer to put Orlando up 85-82. After Turkoglu's runner at the 1:34 mark gave the Magic a five point lead it seemed like the Lakers were in trouble but Bryant drove to the hoop and spoonfed Gasol for a dunk to trim the margin to 87-84 with :31.9 remaining; that play will likely be forgotten in the wake of Fisher's heroics but if Bryant does not find Gasol then the Lakers would have lost in regulation. Of course, after Gasol scored the Lakers still needed to get a stop but their defense broke down and Howard caught the ball right underneath the hoop, poised to throw down a monster dunk until Bryant fouled him so hard--but cleanly, simply wrapping up the powerful Howard to prevent a three point play--that both players tumbled to the ground. Again, this is another play that the average fan will not remember, but part of the reason that the Cavs are sitting at home now is that they allowed Howard to have three uncontested dunks in the overtime of game four of the Eastern Conference Finals, resulting in Orlando taking a 3-1 lead in that series. Bryant forced Howard to make two free throws--and Howard whiffed on both attempts. After a timeout, Coach Jackson elected to inbound the ball in the backcourt, explaining later that he thought that if the Lakers advanced the ball then the Magic might simply foul immediately. Of course, the Magic trapped Bryant as soon as he caught the inbounds pass but this just created a three on two fastbreak after Bryant passed to Ariza and Ariza fed Fisher. Nelson inexplicably backed up inside the three point line and Fisher drilled the tying shot with :04.6 left.

The Magic called a timeout to draw up a play and then after Turkoglu was unable to inbound the ball they called another timeout. The next time, Turkoglu passed to Pietrus, who missed a jumper. That play was very interesting, because Bryant ended up guarding Howard in the post on a switch. Much like Bryant did with Lewis earlier in the game, Bryant fronted Howard and did a good enough job that Turkoglu did not feel like he could make the entry pass; then, after Pietrus shot the ball, Bryant did a good job of boxing out Howard.

Lewis opened the overtime by hitting a three pointer but Bryant answered with two jumpers. Neither team scored for more than two minutes until Howard split a pair of free throws to tie the game at 91. Ariza missed a layup but controlled the rebound and then Bryant missed a jumper but the Lakers once again retained possession. This time, the Lakers went back to Bryant in the post, Nelson doubled Bryant and Bryant passed to Fisher for what proved to be the game-winning three pointer. Throughout the playoffs some people have questioned why Coach Jackson did not replace Fisher with Jordan Farmar or Shannon Brown. Does anyone really think that Farmar or Brown would have made the two pressure three pointers that Fisher hit in this game? As Mark Jackson said, "The veteran coach stuck with his veteran player and Derek Fisher once again--old reliable, making plays, making shots."

Turkoglu missed a three pointer and the long rebound caromed out to Gasol, who went coast to coast for a dunk. After another missed Turkoglu three pointer, the Lakers passed the ball ahead to Gasol, who dunked despite a flagrant foul by Pietrus, who wound up with two hands and pounded Gasol in the back. Gasol did not take kindly to Pietrus' actions and immediately exchanged words with him. Both players received technical fouls. It will be interesting to see if the NBA upgrades Pietrus' foul to a flagrant two, which results in an automatic one game suspension. Some people made a big deal earlier in the season about a foul that Ariza committed versus Portland but Ariza was clearly going for the ball in that case and Rudy Fernandez just had an unfortunate, awkward fall--but Pietrus made a dangerous play while making no attempt whatsoever to go for the ball, which is precisely why the mild mannered Gasol reacted as immediately and as vociferously as he did.

The Lakers have been maligned for their inconsistent effort at times but they are now 7-0 in the 2009 playoffs after a loss; in other words, they have made it to within one victory of the championship without losing consecutive playoff games: that is impressive.

Labels: Derek Fisher, Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Lamar Odom, Orlando Magic, Pau Gasol, Rashard Lewis, Trevor Ariza

posted by David Friedman @ 5:59 AM

28 comments

Magic Set Finals Single Game Field Goal Percentage Record, Beat Lakers 108-104

The Orlando Magic set an NBA Finals single game record by shooting .625 from the field and had five players score between 18 and 21 points as they defeated the L.A. Lakers 108-104, cutting the Lakers' lead to 2-1. The 1991 Chicago Bulls had held the Finals single game field goal percentage record (.617), narrowly edging the 1987 Lakers (.615); both of those teams went on to win the championship, though the 1985 Celtics shot nearly as well (.608) in one game but still eventually lost to the Lakers. Dwight Howard led the Magic with 21 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. He also had just one turnover after committing seven in game two. Howard shot 5-6 from the field but his field goal attempts in this series do not accurately indicate how involved he is offensively because the Lakers are fouling Howard when he catches the ball deep in the paint; Howard shot 11-16 from the free throw line. Rashard Lewis also scored 21 points in addition to contributing five rebounds and five assists. Rafer Alston provided some much needed scoring punch from the point guard position with 20 points--but no one who understands basketball is surprised that Alston shot much better at home than he did in the first two games of the series on the road. Mickael Pietrus added 18 points, including what proved to be the game-winning putback dunk plus two free throws that pushed Orlando's lead to four points with :28.7 remaining. Hedo Turkoglu played the point forward role to perfection with 18 points, seven assists, six rebounds and just one turnover. The Magic only attempted 14 three pointers, making five, but they killed the Lakers with pullup midrange jumpers and scored some timely uncontested layups. The Lakers' matchup advantages and length on defense have been much discussed but the Magic hardly seemed overmatched or too small in this contest; in fact, they pretty much picked the Lakers apart--literally, by using pick and roll plays--from start to finish.

Kobe Bryant scored 69 points and had 16 assists in the first two games of the Finals. The last four players who reached both of those marks in the first two games of the Finals--Michael Jordan in 1997, 1992 and 1991 and Jerry West in 1969--won the Finals MVP, though of course West's Lakers lost the Finals in seven games to the Celtics despite his triple double (42 points, 13 rebounds, 12 assists) in the last contest. Bryant produced 31 points, eight assists and three rebounds in game three--and became just the third player to amass 100 points and 24 assists in the first three games of an NBA Finals series--but he shot 11-25 from the field and just 5-10 from the free throw line. When the Lakers win, their talent and depth receive high praise but when the Lakers lose the bulk of the attention is usually focused squarely on Bryant. All of the self-proclaimed experts surely have their "Michael Jordan would have never missed that many free throws" articles ready but students of basketball history recall that in the game before Michael Jordan hit "The Shot" over Craig Ehlo he missed free throws down the stretch that cost his Chicago Bulls a chance to win; so before Henry Abbott, John Krolik and crew carry on about how THIS was the BIGGEST game of Bryant's career, let's just see how the series plays out, instead of trying to write history before the history has even taken place.

After the game, Bryant said, "We lost this game on the defensive end. We had been playing very good defense and the team tonight shoots 62 percent from the field." Look at Orlando's team and individual numbers again: a Finals record field goal percentage spearheaded by five players scoring between 18 and 21 points, each of whom shot at least .583 from the field. That is just unacceptably bad defense; any good defensive game plan focuses on stopping certain things that the other team does well while potentially conceding other shot opportunities but the Lakers did not contain any of Orlando's key players. All season long I have written about how inconsistent the Lakers are defensively, in contrast to Kevin Pelton, who bizarrely claimed that the Lakers are using some kind of revolutionary defensive tactics, a contention that Lakers assistant coach Jim Cleamons flatly rejected when I asked him about it early in the season; Cleamons told me at that time, "The only thing we’re doing is what a lot of teams have decided to do: basically, playing a man to man defense that is actually a zone; we’re sending an extra defender over in situations that we feel threatened. There’s no big secret about it; that’s what we’re trying to do: give more help when we can and we’ve been fortunate thus far." Around the midpoint of the season, I spoke with Cleamons again and he provided this candid assessment of the Lakers' defense:

Anyone who watches film and is a student of the game would see that we don't play with the same intensity day in and day out, game in and game out. If you are going to be a championship caliber team, your defense is the one area that doesn't waver. We aren't good enough on a game by game basis to do what we need to do to say that we are going to be accountable in the end. Then, our rotations are not always what I like to call 'on point.' Sometimes, they are nonexistent, sometimes they are a little bit slow. If you are a good defensive team, then you play better on the defensive end than you do on the offensive end, because that (defense) is where you are really linked together; (in that case) the team has a feeling of when they have to help and a sense and a presence of how they need to get there so that when the ball moves and flows your defense is not always reacting. You are kind of ahead or you arrive right on the catch so the offense knows that you are there and there are no gaps in your rotations.

The Magic are a tough team to guard because they surround Howard with several players who not only can make three pointers but are also able to put the ball on the floor and either get to the hoop or pull up and shoot midrange shots--but the Lakers' defensive rotations in game three were late and/or incorrect. This is a problem that you could actually see starting to crop up in the second quarter of game two, when Lamar Odom fell asleep and let Lewis go off for 18 points, mostly on uncontested shots. The most effective defense against Orlando--the one that I have been mentioning since the Pistons beat the Magic in the playoffs last year--is to single cover Howard, foul him to prevent any dunks, and play the rest of the players straight up. Howard should only be double-teamed once he puts the ball on the floor, because that is when he is vulnerable to being stripped by smaller players and because he is not a great passer when he is on the move. Doubling Howard when he is holding the ball is not a good idea because that provides him with an easy read--and doubling Howard with a small player like Fisher when Howard is holding the ball is particularly pointless because Howard will simply throw the ball right over Fisher's head. However, Fisher has done a good job of trapping Howard when Howard is on the move, "digging" at the ball and creating a lot of disruption. The problem is that in the last game and a half the Lakers seem to have lost some of their discipline and focus defensively. Of course, the other obvious factor is that teams shoot better at home than on the road, so what Orlando did in game three is only surprising from the standpoint that the Magic set a Finals record.

Pau Gasol had 23 points on 9-11 field goal shooting but grabbed just three rebounds in 39:47. Trevor Ariza scored 13 points and had a team-high seven rebounds but shot just 5-13 from the field. Lamar Odom had just 11 points and two rebounds in 32:23, while Jordan Farmar chipped in 11 points in 15:56 off of the bench. Derek Fisher had solid numbers (nine points, two assists, no turnovers) but was burned repeatedly by Alston. If the Lakers truly are a deep team, nine-time champion Coach Phil Jackson apparently does not realize it because other than Odom and Farmar only three other reserves saw action and that trio combined to play fewer than 15 minutes--and listing Odom as a bench player is really just a matter of semantics because he plays starter's minutes and is usually on the court at the end, while nominal starter Andrew Bynum plays reserve minutes and has rarely had an impact during the postseason; Bynum had just four points and four rebounds in 23:20.

Despite Orlando's hot shooting, the Lakers actually led 31-27 after the first quarter, mainly because of a spectacular 12 minutes by Bryant, who had three assists in the first 2:57 and then erupted for 17 points on 7-10 field goal shooting. Overall, he accounted for 10 of the Lakers' 14 made field goals but ABC commentator Mark Jackson made an important point about how Bryant's impact extends beyond the boxscore numbers: "What people don't realize is that the reason why Pau Gasol is able to play one on one is Kobe Bryant is on the strong side so that eliminates his man's double teaming." That is why the Wages of Wins approach--which concluded that Gasol outplayed Bryant in the 2008 Finals even though anyone who understands basketball realizes that is false--is so deeply flawed: baseball is a station to station game with discrete actions that can be quantified but basketball involves a complex interaction of 10 players and sometimes one player scores an easy basket because the other team is focused on stopping his teammate. Along similar lines, Jackson's broadcast partner Jeff Van Gundy was amused by the idea that Bryant had a subpar game two: "When you get 29 points and eight assists and you're unhappy, you're really, really good." After Bryant concluded his first quarter onslaught with a four point play, Van Gundy concluded, "That could have been the best quarter I remember watching someone play in the Finals in recent memory." Bryant cooled off in the second quarter but he did execute a great shot fake to draw a foul on Pietrus, though in a bit of foreshadowing Bryant only split the resulting pair of free throws. Van Gundy said, "If you want to look at (a) textbook, fundamental shot fake--watch how hard he went on the dribble and then raised the ball all the way above his head, imitating his jump shot to perfection. Talk about his great athleticism--this is honed in the gym: two hard dribbles, great pullup shot fake." Why does this matter? Henry Abbott--and a lot of the "stat gurus"--contend that Bryant plays a more aesthetically pleasing game than other stars such as LeBron James and that the beauty of Bryant's game masks his flaws but Abbott is not just wrong about this, he is in fact completely missing the point: while James and some of the younger stars like Dwyane Wade may have more athletic ability now than Bryant does and are able to do some flashy and visually impressive things (such as the so-called "chasedown blocks") what Van Gundy correctly notes is that Bryant is in fact an extremely fundamentally sound player and that is the real basis of Bryant's greatness; NBA TV commentator Steve Smith--who played against both Bryant and Michael Jordan--recently said that he considers Bryant to be the most fundamentally sound player in the history of the game, possessing better footwork even than Jordan. Whether you agree or disagree with Smith's statement, the important thing to understand is that when actual NBA experts like Van Gundy and Smith watch a basketball game and analyze Bryant's skill set they are seeing a much different game than 99% of the people who write about basketball, which is why such a high percentage of what is written about basketball is wrong.

The Magic led 59-54 at halftime, setting a record for best field goal percentage for one half in any Finals game (75%). Why even mention Bryant's first half performance when the Magic had the lead, ultimately won the game and Bryant did not come through in the clutch? Simple--while so many people ramble on ad nauseam about how talented the Lakers are and how deep the Lakers are, the reality is that the Lakers are highly dependent on Bryant creating shots for himself and shots for his teammates. When Bryant is not able to do that the Lakers have problems. It is interesting how so many people (erroneously) call the Cleveland Cavaliers a one man team but apparently don't recognize just how dependent the Lakers are on Bryant. In the wake of Bryant's 21 point first half, the Magic understandably focused more attention on Bryant in the third quarter and he responded correctly by drawing multiple defenders--Bryant later said that the Magic threw the "kitchen sink" at him--and then passing to wide open teammates. Bryant did not make a field goal until the 1:20 mark of the third quarter but what was really odd was that he shot just 2-5 from the free throw line, including 1-3 after he was fouled while shooting a three pointer. As Phil Jackson said after the game when asked to explain Bryant's shooting, "We're all frail as humans." Meanwhile, the Magic received third quarter contributions from multiple players, with Howard scoring seven points, Alston adding six points and Turkoglu, Lewis and Courtney Lee also making shots.

The Magic led 81-75 after three quarters. In game two, Bryant played the whole second half and overtime but after playing Bryant for the entire third quarter Coach Jackson decided that he had to give Bryant some rest. As highly conditioned as Bryant is, people seem to forget that he is indeed human and that for this team he is asked not only to shoulder the Michael Jordan scoring role in the Triangle Offense but also the Scottie Pippen playmaking/ballhandling role. Coach Jackson said after the game that he had planned to keep Bryant out for at least five fourth quarter minutes to try to rejuvenate him but that circumstances did not allow him to do that; those circumstances were the fact that the Lakers looked dead in the water without Bryant in the game as the Magic built a 91-82 lead, their biggest of the series. Once Bryant returned, the Lakers mostly ran the Bryant-Gasol screen/roll action for the rest of the game and that proved to be highly effective, enabling the Lakers to tie the score at 99 with 2:41 left. Bryant only had five points and two assists in the fourth quarter but he played a critical role in the Lakers' comeback, as Mark Jackson noted: "Right now, Kobe Bryant is running the pick and roll as a decoy. He is a willing passer making plays." Here is what Jackson is talking about: after Gasol set a screen for Bryant, two Orlando defenders trapped Bryant, who swung the ball to the weakside where either Fisher, Ariza or Farmar were open. Those guys either took uncontested three pointers or fed the ball in the post to Odom, who could establish deep post position and go one on one because the Orlando defense had tilted to Bryant and was now in full rotation. It is this type of action that "advanced basketball statistics" completely fail to accurately describe, because other than a couple assists there is no boxscore record of Bryant's impact but he essentially created virtually every shot that the Lakers took after he returned to the game. One of the assist passes--a feed to Fisher for a three pointer that cut Orlando's lead to 95-93 at the 5:25 mark--merited special praise from Van Gundy, who does an excellent job of specifically explaining why certain plays are not as easy as great players make them appear to be: "That hook pass going to your left is an incredibly difficult pass. He made it on time and on target."

Bryant and Gasol did an excellent job of changing the angles of the screen and the way that Bryant attacked the defenders--and the other Lakers came through by knocking down shots but after exerting all of that energy to wipe out a nine point lead the Lakers simply did not have enough in the tank to finish things off; the final 2:41 represents a wasted opportunity for the Lakers, starting with a missed Turkoglu jumper that the Lakers failed to rebound, enabling Pietrus to crash the boards from the weakside and get a tip dunk. Bryant then missed a three pointer and Alston split a pair of free throws to put the Magic up 102-99 with 1:54 left. Gasol answered with a layup on a feed from Bryant but then Lewis hit a jumper with his toe on the three point line to make the score 104-101 Magic. Bryant drew a foul on Howard but only made one of two free throws. The Lakers got a crucial defensive stop as Gasol blocked Lewis' runner but the Bryant-Gasol screen/roll that had sparked the Lakers' comeback fell apart on the next critical possession, as Howard poked the ball loose from Bryant. Gasol recovered the ball while lying on the court but instead of calling timeout he tried to pass in tight quarters to Bryant and Pietrus came up with the steal. Bryant fouled Pietrus, who coolly knocked down both free throws. The Lakers missed four three pointers--and got four offensive rebounds--in the final 28 seconds before Bryant got an offensive rebound under the hoop and made a layup with just :00.5 left. Bryant fouled Lewis as Lewis caught the inbounds pass but with just :00.2 showing on the clock and the Lakers out of timeouts the game was already effectively over. Lewis capped off the scoring by making both free throws.

You can expect that the same people who were foolishly speaking of a Lakers' sweep just 24 hours ago will now overreact to this game and talk about how the Lakers are in trouble. The basic realities of this series have not changed. The Lakers have the best player, they own homecourt advantage and--when focused--they are quite capable of matching up defensively with the Magic, who needed record field goal shooting on their homecourt plus a highly unusual free throw shooting performance from Bryant to eke out a four point win. The next game will be completely different--the Magic will not shoot .625 from the field, nor will Bryant shoot .500 from the free throw line--but it most likely will again be very competitive. The Magic need to win three straight home games to have any realistic chance to win this series and it will be very tough for them to pull that off. The most likely scenario is that the Lakers will get one win in Orlando and then close out the series at home in game six.

Labels: Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Lamar Odom, Orlando Magic, Pau Gasol, Rafer Alston, Rashard Lewis

posted by David Friedman @ 4:03 AM

12 comments

Lakers Edge Magic in Overtime to Take 2-0 Lead

It was neither easy nor pretty but the Lakers displayed just enough grit, savvy and clutch play to defeat the Orlando Magic 101-96 in overtime to take a 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals. Kobe Bryant led the Lakers with 29 points and eight assists, adding four rebounds and two steals, but he also had seven turnovers in a game-high 48:30. Pau Gasol contributed 24 points and 10 rebounds; he scored seven of the Lakers' 13 overtime points, including a key three point play on a feed from Bryant to put the Lakers up 97-91 with 1:14 remaining. Lamar Odom made his presence felt with 19 points on 8-9 field goal shooting, eight rebounds and three blocked shots. Foul trouble limited starter Andrew Bynum to 16:24, so Odom played 45:43. Derek Fisher also did a solid job with 12 points, shooting 2-3 from three point range. The Lakers did not receive many contributions from other players--Trevor Ariza played good defense but shot just 3-13 from the field--but what their "Big Four" gave them proved to be enough. Although the Lakers are frequently referred to as a deep team, their four double figure scorers each played at least 41:04 in this game and three of the five reserves who saw action played six minutes or less. Odom is essentially a starter in everything but name or--more precisely--he is a finisher, since he gets the bulk of the minutes alongside Gasol instead of Bynum and is usually on the court in crunch time; therefore, the Lakers have a strong top five consisting of Bryant, Gasol, Odom, Fisher and Ariza but their reserves (Bynum, Luke Walton, Jordan Farmar, Sasha Vujacic and Shannon Brown) are not making huge contributions, though Bynum was effective in game one and Brown played well at times in earlier playoff series.

Bryant's seven turnovers tied his playoff-high this season; oddly, in four of his past six playoff games Bryant has had exactly one turnover but in the other two games (game six versus Denver and game two versus Orlando) he had seven. Bryant had eight assists in each of his seven turnover games and the Lakers won on both occasions. The Lakers are riding a four game playoff winning streak during which Bryant has averaged 31.5 ppg, 8.5 apg and 5.8 rpg while shooting .494 from the field and .919 from the free throw line. It says a lot about just how well he has played during his career (and during these playoffs in particular) that both Bryant and Lakers Coach Phil Jackson said that game two was not a great performance by Bryant's standards--the latter qualifier being the key component of that statement. However, ABC commentator Jeff Van Gundy insisted that "great plays by Kobe Bryant down the stretch" played a vital role in the Lakers' win; Bryant shot 10-22 from the field and 8-10 from the free throw line, scoring 23 of his points after halftime. By my count, Bryant shot 8-14 on midrange shots; his ability to consistently make those shots--the one skill set attribute that LeBron James has yet to master--is why Bryant is particularly deadly in the playoffs because it forces even the best defensive teams to make the unenviable choice between being torched by Bryant or else sending a big to contest his shot, which then frees up Gasol or Odom on the inside (this is exactly what happened on the key possession in overtime, when Bryant dished to Gasol for the three point play that put the Lakers up six and all but sealed the win).

Rashard Lewis led the Magic with a game-high 34 points, setting a playoff career-high and establishing a new franchise record for most points scored in a Finals game. He also had 11 rebounds and a playoff career-high seven assists while shooting 12-21 from the field, including 6-12 from three point range. Hedo Turkoglu added 22 points, six rebounds and four assists. After Mickael Pietrus fouled out, Turkoglu played very solid defense on Bryant, using his length to contest Bryant's shots and even forcing a few turnovers by stripping the ball from Bryant or getting Bryant off balance by using his size. Dwight Howard had a very unusual stat line: 17 points, 16 rebounds, four assists, four steals, four blocked shots, seven turnovers. The only other player in NBA playoff history to amass at least 15 points, 15 rebounds, four assists, four steals and three blocked shots in one game is Hakeem Olajuwon but Howard's turnovers were costly; while Bryant had a lot of dead ball turnovers (balls that were thrown out of bounds, deflected off of his body, etc.), Howard lost the ball in live ball situations that enabled the Lakers to push the ball up the court in transition or semi-transition. Every turnover obviously signifies a lost possession but any good coach will tell you that live ball turnovers are worse than dead ball turnovers because of the pressure that the live ball turnovers put on your transition defense.

Other than their "Big Three," the only Magic player who made more than one field goal was J.J. Redick, who scored five points on 2-9 shooting in 27 minutes. Magic Coach Stan Van Gundy called Redick's number out of desperation more than anything else: Point guards Rafer Alston (1-8) and Jameer Nelson (1-3) combined to shoot 2-11 from the field, so Van Gundy experimented with various lineups, including using Turkoglu as his playmaker when Redick was nominally the point guard but was really in the game purely to space the court and make open shots (which he failed to do overall, though he did nail a big three pointer to tie the score at 84 with 2:21 left in regulation). Van Gundy joked after the game that he has pretty much exhausted every possible lineup combination at his disposal other than the super huge quintet of Howard, Lewis, Turkoglu, Marcin Gortat and Tony Battie (each of whom is at least 6-9). That may seem like a humorous throwaway line in a postgame press conference but if you really think about that what it means is that the Magic are really struggling to figure out how to match up with the Lakers; Orlando's shooting guards are too small to offer much resistance to Bryant, their point guards are neither making shots nor creating shots for others and the Lakers have prevented Howard from having a breakout offensive game.

The first quarter featured some of the ugliest, most disjointed play in Finals history, culminating in a 15-15 tie--the lowest combined first quarter scoring total in the NBA Finals during the shot clock era, which began in 1954-55. The Magic committed eight turnovers, while Odom was the high scorer with just five points. In the second quarter the Lakers began to find their rhythm offensively, while the Magic continued to struggle--except for Lewis. After the game, Bryant said, "We blew a lot of assignments tonight" and you can bet that right at the top of that list were the numerous times that Odom inexplicably allowed Lewis to roam unchecked behind the three point line; Lewis scored 18 of Orlando's 20 second quarter points, making four three pointers and single-handedly keeping the Magic in the game during the first half. During that run, Odom played what basketball aficionados might call "Carmelo Anthony defense" (or at least the defense that Anthony has played for the greater part of his career, though to be fair it must be noted that Anthony made strides at that end of the court this season): on several occasions Odom was neither close enough to Howard to form an effective trap nor was he within range to contest Lewis' shots. ABC commentators Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy rightly noted that Odom was truly in "La La land." There is a tendency to forget or discount what happened in the second quarter of a game that ultimately went to overtime but the reality is that without those "missed assignments" the Lakers would have had a double digit halftime lead instead of only being up 40-35. After the game, Coach Jackson mentioned that the Lakers need to get at least 20 good minutes out of Bynum, in part because they like using Gasol against Lewis defensively; when Bynum is on the bench then Gasol has to check Howard and Odom ends up chasing Lewis around on the perimeter. Despite all of the breathless talk about Odom's versatility--and he certainly played a good game overall and has played well in the past four games--his best skill set attribute is his ability to rebound, so the downside of having him guard Lewis is not only that Odom is not used to chasing perimeter players through screens but also that this takes Odom away from the paint, although in this game both Lewis and Odom rebounded well.

In the third quarter the Lakers did a better job checking Lewis but Turkoglu got loose for 14 points as the Magic enjoyed their best quarter of the series (30 points) to take a 65-63 lead heading into the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter was tightly contested, featuring several ties and lead changes, with neither team going up by more than three points. Howard, who shot 7-9 from the free throw line, made a pair of free throws to put Orlando ahead 81-79 with 4:13 left in the fourth quarter. Bryant split a pair of free throws at the 3:35 mark but after that the Lakers made their final 13 free throws in the fourth quarter and overtime, including four by Bryant to put the Lakers up 84-81. Redick answered with his clutch three pointer and then Lewis made a running bank shot to give Orlando an 86-84 lead with just 1:33 left. In the next minute, Bryant, Turkoglu and Gasol each hit shots. After Courtney Lee missed a layup, the Lakers had the ball with 9.1 seconds left and the score tied at 88. Bryant drove past Turkoglu into the lane but Turkoglu recovered and blocked Bryant's jumper from behind. Turkoglu controlled the rebound and the Magic called timeout with .6 seconds remaining. Then, after the Magic used a second timeout when they could not inbound the ball, Turkoglu threw an inbounds pass from halfcourt to Lee underneath the basket, but Lee's layup attempt dribbled off of the rim as Gasol came over with a late contest; Lee got open thanks to a very solid backscreen set by Lewis at the free throw line against Bryant, who admitted after the game that he had been leaning toward the perimeter, expecting the Magic to try to get an open look for one of their three point shooters.

The overtime started out like the first quarter in miniature, as neither team scored in the first 1:23. Gasol broke the ice with a pair of free throws but Howard countered with a three point play to put Orlando up 91-90. After the teams traded misses, Bryant hit a tough runner to put the Lakers ahead for good--but their lead was still tenuous until they got some breathing room by returning to the action that was so effective for them in game one, the Bryant-Gasol screen/roll action. Bryant used Gasol's screen to get free just to the right of the lane, while Gasol cut straight to the hoop down the middle of the lane, remaining parallel with Bryant; this was crucially important, as Bryant noted after the game: he and Gasol had talked about how to time this play perfectly to force Howard to either commit to stopping Bryant or else stay at home on Gasol, which would give Bryant an unfettered path to the hoop. Howard elected to confront Bryant, so Bryant delivered a slick feed to Gasol, who converted a three point play to make the score 97-91. The Magic pulled to within 99-96 after a left corner three pointer by Lewis with :26.2 left--using the same out of bounds play that they used to force overtime versus the Cavaliers in game four of the Eastern Conference Finals-- but Odom closed out the scoring by making two free throws.

The series now shifts to Orlando for at least two games (three if the Magic get at least one win). In response to a question about whether the Lakers could continue to put forth the energy that they did in the first two games at home, Bryant declared, "We're about to kick it up. You better believe it. We're close. You see what I'm saying? This is the Finals. We're going to be ready to go."

Naturally, the postgame press conferences would not be complete without questions about Bryant's facial expressions and general demeanor. Someone asked Bryant if he would smile now that the Lakers have a 2-0 lead and Bryant looked at the guy as if he should be committed to an insane asylum before stating flatly: "The job is not finished."

Labels: Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Lamar Odom, Orlando Magic, Pau Gasol, Rashard Lewis

posted by David Friedman @ 2:00 AM

15 comments

Brilliant Bryant Shreds Magic as Lakers Roll, 100-75

"You look thirsty, you ain't getting no mercy, mercy/
And ain't no way that you can rehearse for me/
Murder I wrote, murder I wrote is what I figure...
When it comes to this I never smile."--L.L. Cool J, "How I'm Comin'"

Kobe Bryant may not be smiling but L.A. Lakers' fans are wearing ear to ear grins after Bryant led the Lakers to a 100-75 victory over the Orlando Magic in game one of the Finals by producing a nearly perfect game: 40 points, eight rebounds, eight assists, two steals, two blocked shots, one turnover in 38 minutes. He single-handedly outscored Orlando's three primary offensive weapons--Dwight Howard, Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu--and scored or assisted on 24 of the Lakers' 41 field goals; the entire Magic team made just 23 field goals. ABC commentator Jeff Van Gundy--who must have had his heart in his throat watching Bryant trash the team that his brother Stan coaches--declared, "You know how they say one man can't beat a team? I beg to differ. One man can beat a team. This guy has dominated each offensive possession." Bryant shot 16-34 from the field (.471), which is marginally better than his regular season field goal percentage (.467), but what matters most is that he shot 15-27 and did not have a single turnover in the game's first 34:46 as the Lakers built an 80-56 lead; when I say that Bryant was "nearly perfect" I am referring to his decision making and the control that he exerted over the game: Larry Bird once said that he did not play basketball to score a certain number of points or make every shot but rather for those moments when he took over the game and knew that he was controlling the outcome. That is what Bryant did in game one and this is very significant because game one winners overwhelmingly tend to eventually win the playoff series, as Bryant knows only too well: the last two times he and the Lakers went to the Finals they lost game one and then lost the series. However, Bryant also understands that even though history is on the Lakers' side this is still just one win and the Lakers must continue to play hard and execute at a high level or the Magic could win game two, seize homecourt advantage and gain the opportunity to win a championship by sweeping the middle three games in Orlando. A stern-faced Bryant declared in his postgame press conference that the best thing that the Lakers could do now is forget about this game and focus on taking care of business in game two and he added that he had already delivered that message to his teammates.

Bryant cracked a smile briefly when he said that his kids have been calling him "Grumpy" from the Seven Dwarves for the past week or so but then he looked serious again during the rest of the question and answer session. Bryant's visage has been getting a lot of attention recently but instead of focusing on how he looks it is more important to place his performance--not just in this game but in the playoffs overall--in proper historical context: Bryant joined Jerry West, Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal as the only players to have a 40-8-8 game in the NBA Finals. This is the first time that Bryant scored 40 points in a Finals game but it is the 10th 40 point game of his playoff career and his fourth 40 point game of the 2009 playoffs, with the Lakers improving to 4-0 in those contests; the three previous 40 point games came in a must win game two versus Houston after the Lakers lost game one at home, game one versus Denver and game three at Denver to reclaim home court advantage in that series after the Lakers lost game two at home. Bryant is convincingly putting to rest the nonsense about the Lakers being better off when he shoots less frequently.

However, as Jeff Van Gundy noted, Bryant is not only a dominant scorer; he also is creating open shot opportunities for his teammates and the remarkable thing about how Bryant is handling those twin responsibilities is that this is the eighth time in 19 playoff games that Bryant has had one or fewer turnovers, including back to back games against Houston--the team that supposedly had used advanced basketball statistics to come up with the perfect game plan against him--in which he did not have a single turnover. Bryant had five other playoff games in which he only had two turnovers each. This is just incredible decision making/efficiency by a player whose team needs him to simultaneously fill the Michael Jordan scoring role and the Scottie Pippen playmaking role.

Bryant received help from his teammates but considering his deft passing and the way that he draws double teams it must be said that he is helping his teammates to help him: Bryant creates open shots for them and they knock those shots down. Pau Gasol had 16 points and eight rebounds and Lamar Odom produced 11 points and 14 rebounds off of the bench. Andrew Bynum had nine points and nine rebounds but, more significantly, he made his presence felt in the paint versus Dwight Howard. Bynum collected four fouls in 22 minutes but, as I said in my Finals preview, foul trouble is not a factor for Bynum as long as he is productive in the 15-20 mpg that the Lakers need for him to play. Derek Fisher and Luke Walton each had nine points and combined to shoot 8-11 from the field, a welcome sight for the Lakers considering how much both players had been struggling with their shooting strokes.

In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Cleveland Cavaliers had the worst of both worlds defensively, as Dwight Howard put up big numbers--culminating in a 40 point, 14 rebound outing in game six--and the Magic's three point shooters bombed away with impunity; in game one of the Finals, the Lakers had the best of both worlds, shutting down both Howard and the three point shooters. Mickael Pietrus led the Magic with 14 points but he shot just 5-13 from the field, a percentage that the Lakers can live with every game. Hedo Turkoglu had just 13 points on 3-11 field goal shooting. Eastern Conference Finals hero Rashard Lewis scored just eight points on 2-10 field goal shooting. Howard added 12 points and 15 rebounds but he shot just 1-6 from the field; the Lakers prevented him from getting good post position and fouled him whenever he seemed poised to dunk the ball. The Lakers largely used one on one coverage versus Howard--enabling them to stay at home on the three point shooters--though they did often send a defender toward Howard once he put the ball on the floor; you may recall that this is exactly the strategy that I said that the Cavs should have used in the Eastern Conference Finals.

In my Finals preview I wrote, "I don't think that the Magic will be able to contain the Bryant-Gasol screen/roll nearly as effectively as the Celtics did in the 2008 Finals. Even though the Magic won both meetings with the Lakers this season...the Magic struggled to prevent the Lakers from getting good, open shots out of that set, so look for the Lakers to feature it repeatedly." Early in the game the Lakers tenderized the Magic in the paint by posting up Bynum--who scored eight points in the first 6:30--but they took control of the game in the second and third quarters by repeatedly running the Bryant-Gasol screen/roll action (a Bryant-Bynum screen/roll also proved to be effective on a few occasions). Eventually the Magic are going to have to trap Bryant hard but that could lead to Bryant having 10-plus assists if his teammates make open shots.

Despite the strong start by Bynum, the Magic led 24-22 after the first quarter. Orlando's All-Star point guard Jameer Nelson returned to action for the first time since February, with mixed results: in his first stint he played well and helped the Magic to build a 33-28 lead early in the second quarter but in his second tour of duty later in the game he was not nearly as effective. Nelson finished with six points on 3-9 shooting plus four assists. It seems like he can hurt the Lakers with his passing in screen/roll situations but it may be too much to expect him to regain his shooting stroke in this series after being sidelined for so long.

Nelson and the Magic built their five point cushion with Bryant on the bench but when Bryant returned to action at the 8:32 mark of the second quarter the tide immediately turned: in less than five minutes, Bryant scored 10 points and had three assists as the Lakers went on a 19-6 run. Bryant then had 18 points in the third quarter as the Lakers turned the game into a rout.

Although a team's basic identity will not change during the course of a series, each game has a unique rhythm and vibe to it. Even if the Lakers continue to play good, sound defense it is extremely unlikely that they will again limit Howard to just one made field goal or hold the Magic to .299 field goal shooting, so the Lakers must continue to crash the boards--they enjoyed a 55-41 rebounding advantage--and execute their offense efficiently; their main edges in this series are Kobe Bryant and homecourt advantage, so it is important for them to be ready to win a tough game two before heading to Orlando: the worst mistake that the Lakers can make is to become overconfident and complacent because of the large game one victory margin.

Labels: Andrew Bynum, Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu, Jameer Nelson, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Lamar Odom, Mickael Pietrus, Orlando Magic, Pau Gasol, Rashard Lewis

posted by David Friedman @ 2:49 AM

18 comments

Los Angeles Versus Orlando Preview

NBA Finals

Los Angeles (65-17) vs. Orlando (59-23)

Season series: Orlando, 2-0

Orlando can win if…they establish Dwight Howard in the post as a consistent 20-plus ppg threat while also making 9-10 three pointers a game with a three point shooting percentage around the .380-.400 range. Against the Cavs in the Eastern Conference Finals the Magic had wonderful ball movement that generally resulted in an open three point shot for Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu or Mickael Pietrus. They must continue to pass and shoot that effectively in order to beat the Lakers. Defensively, the Magic would like to hold Kobe Bryant to below .450 field goal shooting without allowing too many open shots for his teammates.

Los Angeles will win because…the Lakers will be able to single cover Howard in the post for key stretches, limiting Orlando's ability to go on huge scoring runs fueled by three pointers. The Lakers will put more pressure on Lewis, Turkoglu and Pietrus than the Cavs did, forcing them to either shoot contested jumpers or else put the ball on the floor and make plays. The Magic will have trouble containing Bryant, who is likely to post the highest Finals scoring average of his career, surpassing the 26.8 ppg he scored in the Lakers' 2002 sweep of the New Jersey Nets.

Other things to consider: Last year I picked the Lakers to beat the Celtics in the Finals not because I bought into all of the hype about how deep the Lakers supposedly were but because I did not think that the Celtics would have an effective answer for the Bryant-Gasol screen/roll play; that action was a major reason that the Lakers averaged 105.9 ppg on .478 field goal shooting while going 12-3 in the Western Conference playoffs in 2008 but the Celtics swarmed Bryant and forced his teammates to make plays, which they were not able to consistently do.

I don't think that the Magic will be able to contain the Bryant-Gasol screen/roll nearly as effectively as the Celtics did in the 2008 Finals. Even though the Magic won both meetings with the Lakers this season (see below for more details), the Magic struggled to prevent the Lakers from getting good, open shots out of that set, so look for the Lakers to feature it repeatedly. If the Magic respond by swarming Bryant--which they inevitably will have to do at some point--the onus will fall on Gasol to be aggressive while Lamar Odom dives strongly to the hoop from the weakside to either receive feeds for layups or crash the offensive boards and Derek Fisher, Trevor Ariza, Sasha Vujacic and Jordan Farmar spot up behind the three point line: ironically, a key factor in this series could turn out to be whether or not the Lakers give the Magic a taste of their own medicine by bombarding them with three pointers.

Andrew Bynum will probably spend most of this series in foul trouble but that is not a problem because the Lakers only need to get a good 15-20 mpg out of him. The Lakers must limit Howard's catches in the paint, foul him whenever he is close enough to dunk and then force Howard to guard someone (either Gasol or Bynum) at the other end of the court.

A major X factor in this series is the possible return of Orlando's injured All-Star guard Jameer Nelson, who was expected to be out for the season after injuring his shoulder. Nelson has been working out with the team and there is some speculation that he might play in the Finals. I saw Nelson shooting around at Quicken Loans Arena prior to game five of the Eastern Conference Finals. I did not think that he looked particularly sharp but I have not seen him shoot around often enough to really know if he looked better or worse than normal; he seemed to be in excellent condition and was not noticeably favoring the injured shoulder. He wore a regular game uniform with a shooting shirt over his jersey.

The Magic beat the Lakers 2-0 in the regular season, much like they defeated the Cavs 2-1; I dismissed their record against Cleveland because Nelson played in one Orlando win and the other win took place with Cleveland on a long road trip while the Magic were well rested. Similar extenuating circumstances apply regarding Orlando's wins over the Lakers. The first time the Lakers played the Magic (December 20, 2008) they visited Orlando the night after losing in Miami; Bryant scored a then season-high 41 points but the Magic won, 106-103. The Lakers kept Howard under control (18 points, 12 rebounds) but Nelson shot 11-16 from the field and torched them for 27 points. The Magic visited the Lakers on January 16, 2009; both teams were well rested and Nelson punished the Lakers with 28 points and eight assists in a 109-103 Magic win. Howard had 25 points and 20 rebounds but shot just 8-18 from the field and 9-16 on free throws. Bryant had the first of his two triple doubles this season (28 points, 13 rebounds, 11 assists); he led the Lakers in all three categories by wide margins and he really played a marvelous game even though he ended up shooting 10-26 from the field--he shot 10-20 in the first 46:44 and 0-6 in the final 1:16 as the Lakers tried to mount a late rally. After that game, I wrote, "Is it good to shoot 10-26 from the field or 0-6 in the last 1:16? Of course not--but a careful examination of those final six shots shows that Bryant made the right plays even though the shots did not go down." You can click on the link and read the rest of the post for a detailed breakdown of those late shot attempts but the point is that the Lakers were able to use the Bryant-Gasol screen/roll to repeatedly and quickly create high percentage shot opportunities, including a Bryant three pointer that went halfway down before coming out. The Magic had a lot of problems guarding Bryant in both games and the Lakers were in position to win on each occasion despite the trouble they had dealing with Nelson.

It may seem strange that I just touted the beginning of the Dwight Howard era yet now I am picking the Lakers to beat the Magic but those are not mutually exclusive propositions; often a great player must first lose in the Finals before eventually triumphing: that was the case for Isiah Thomas, Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O'Neal, three legends who lost in their first trip to the Finals but went on to win multiple championships. The Lakers have homecourt advantage and a hungry superstar with championship experience who presents a serious matchup problem for the Magic; those factors will be the primary reasons that the Lakers will prevail.

Labels: Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu, Jameer Nelson, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol, Rashard Lewis

posted by David Friedman @ 4:03 AM

9 comments

Dominant Howard Ends Cleveland's Dream Season, Lifts Orlando into the NBA Finals

Dwight Howard had the best game of his young playoff career and as a result his Orlando Magic defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 103-90, winning the Eastern Conference Finals four games to two. Howard scored a playoff career-high 40 points, shooting 14-21 from the field and 12-16 from the free throw line, and he also had a game-high 14 rebounds. Howard even dished off for four assists and although he only had one blocked shot he stayed out of foul trouble while still being a major defensive presence in the paint. The Magic shot 12-29 (.414) from three point range, with Rashard Lewis (18 points, 3-7 shooting from three point range), Mickael Pietrus (14 points, 4-7 shooting from three point range), Rafer Alston (13 points, 3-7 shooting from three point range) and Hedo Turkoglu (10 points, 2-6 shooting from three point range) leading the long range barrage. This was truly a case of the Cavs suffering from the worst of both worlds, because they neither contained Howard nor did they corral the Magic's many marksmen. As TNT's Kenny Smith said after the game, the Cavs were frequently caught in "no man's land" defensively, not really doubling Howard aggressively but straying too far away from the perimeter players to contest their shots.

LeBron James posted his worst performance of the series, "worst" being a relative term because 25 points, seven rebounds and seven assists while shooting 8-20 from the field would be a very good game for just about anyone else--but James averaged 38.5 ppg, 8.3 rpg and 8.0 apg in this series, so his game six numbers are indeed subpar by his lofty standards. James just did not seem to have his usual explosiveness, often settling for jump shots (he shot 2-8 from three point range). Delonte West added a playoff career-high 22 points on 9-19 field goal shooting, battling for 46 minutes despite the painful hip pointer that he suffered in game five. Mo Williams finished with 17 points on 6-12 field goal shooting but those numbers are very deceptive because he only had three points on 1-5 shooting in the first half as the Cavs fell behind 58-40. Anderson Varejao got into early foul trouble but still contributed 14 points and a team-high eight rebounds. No other Cav scored more than four points.

Since Orlando won 4-2 and cruised to victory in game six, revisionist history will ignore what actually took place in those six games and instead emphasize the popular pre-series topic of the numerous matchup problems that the Magic posed for the Cavaliers. There is no denying that the Magic present some challenging matchups but that is true of any team that advances this far in the NBA playoffs. Howard obviously had a decisive impact in game six and during the series he averaged 25.8 ppg and 13.0 rpg while shooting .651 from the field. Rashard Lewis exceeded his regular season scoring average and field goal percentage in addition to hitting two clutch three pointers, the first of which won game one and the second of which helped to force overtime in game four, enabling the Magic to eventually take a commanding 3-1 series lead. Hedo Turkoglu did not put up jaw dropping shooting numbers in this series but he used his playmaking skills to find open shooters as the Cavs scrambled defensively on the perimeter. Still, one glance at James' numbers in this series shows pretty clearly that he represened the single biggest "matchup problem" for either team; if Cleveland's other players had just performed slightly below their normal levels--as opposed to significantly worse than they played in the regular season--then the Cavs would have won this series despite the efforts of Howard, Lewis and Turkoglu.

Game six was a disaster for Cleveland but that should not obscure the truth that this was a tightly contested series featuring three games that were decided with the ball in the air as the final buzzer sounded--and that simply would not have been the case if Orlando really enjoyed decisive matchup advantages, nor would the Cavs have been able to build double digit leads in several games if they were as thoroughly outmatched as some people suggest: take away the two Lewis three pointers referenced above and the Cavs could have won this series in five games. I don't mean to suggest that the "wrong" team won, nor am I trying to justify my incorrect prediction that Cleveland would defeat Orlando. Rather, I am simply pointing out that the sky is not falling in Cleveland and that it is wrong to declare that the Cavs are a one man team, something that has become fashionable to say in the past week or so. The Cavaliers posted the best regular season record in the NBA in 2008-09 (66-16), leading the league in defensive points per game (91.4) and scoring differential (8.9) while tying the Celtics for first in defensive field goal percentage (.431) and ranking third in rebounding differential (3.3)--and you cannot accomplish those things without having a deep, talented team.

The story of the Eastern Conference Finals, from Cleveland's perspective, is twofold: (1) several players who performed at a high level during the regular season and in the first two rounds of the playoffs did not play well versus Orlando; (2) the Cavs regularly built big early leads only to squander them quickly and then execute poorly down the stretch once the score became close and either team had the opportunity to win. During the offseason, the Cavs' brain trust must figure out why so many players simultaneously regressed during this series and why a team that typically executed very well during the season repeatedly executed very poorly in critical late game situations. To put it bluntly, anyone who is either calling for Coach Mike Brown's head or suggesting that James' entire supporting cast must be replaced is an idiot: Brown's strategies have transformed the Cavs into one of the league's best defensive teams and have already resulted in one NBA Finals appearance and two trips to the Eastern Conference Finals in four years. Brown has won at least 50 regular season games in three of those seasons and his career playoff record of 36-24 is outstanding.

LeBron James did not shake hands with the Magic players after the game, which obviously is a departure from normal protocol; Isiah Thomas and the Bad Boys Pistons are still remembered--and not fondly--for snubbing the Chicago Bulls in a similar fashion after losing to the Bulls in the 1991 playoffs and Thomas later said that what he did was wrong and he told his son not to follow that example. It will be interesting to see if James eventually apologizes for this and it will also be interesting to see what kind of spin the national media puts on James' actions.

James compounded his hasty departure from the court by leaving the arena without speaking to the media. James has not made many missteps in his public life but that is a low rent move out of the Brett Favre-Kevin Garnett school: those are guys who are glad to speak with the media when things are going well or when getting their message out to the public suits their purposes but when things are going rough or their team loses then they are nowhere to be found; that is not an example that James should seek to emulate. James' former teammate Eric Snow, currently a commentator on NBA TV, called James' disappearing act "unfortunate" and said that part of being a leader is doing the "hard things" such as swallowing your personal disappointment and speaking with the media after your team has been eliminated. Instead, James hid from the scrutiny, leaving it up to his teammates to take the heat not only for the loss but also to explain how James is feeling. Mo Williams did a good job of deflecting a question about James and instead speaking about the disappointment that all of the Cavs feel--but as the team leader it is James' responsibility to deliver that message in person in his own words. As NBA TV's Rick Kamla noted, Kobe Bryant--who obviously is one of the fiercest competitors in the world--faced the media right after the Lakers got blown out by 39 points in a game six elimination contest in last year's NBA Finals; James should have followed Bryant's lead in that regard. Also, Julius Erving suffered some heartbreaking losses before he won an NBA championship but the one thing he never lost was his class and dignity; he always congratulated his opponents and he always went well beyond the call of duty with the media.

The Magic flew under the radar for most of this season: first the defending champion Celtics stormed out of the gate by going 27-2, then the Lakers took center stage by sweeping their regular season engagements with the Celtics and the Cavs and down the stretch the Cavs moved to the forefront by claiming homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Magic cruised steadily along right behind those teams but were dismissed by most observers after All-Star point guard Jameer Nelson suffered a season-ending shoulder injury; Orlando responded by acquiring Rafer Alston from the Houston Rockets in exchange for Brian Cook. The Magic inserted Alston in the starting lineup and hardly missed a beat. The Rockets are of course well known for their heavy reliance on "advanced basketball statistics", so it is more than a little ironic that the Magic obtained from Houston the starting point guard in the NBA Finals while only giving up a little used journeyman forward.

There has been a lot of talk about the basketball statistics revolution, but Orlando Magic Senior Vice President Pat Williams recently told me, "There is certainly nothing wrong with advanced science but I am still a firm believer in judging horseflesh, you know? Dollar Sign on the Muscle, the old baseball scouting book. You've got to line guys up, you've got to evaluate, you need tons of experience from doing it for many years. You have to go into the gym and you have to study the product. Given a choice of the modern way or the old fashioned way, David, I'll go with the old fashioned way." Williams said that the Magic do not rely on advanced basketball metrics when they make player evaluations. Indeed, I recall that after the Magic signed a $118 million dollar contract with Rashard Lewis many "stat gurus" said that this was a classic example of a team vastly overpaying a player. I also thought at that time that the Magic paid Lewis more than he is worth but--unlike the "stat gurus"--I understand how the NBA business actually works and I made the point that sometimes if you are trying to win you have to "overpay" to obtain the player you want to get; otherwise, you end up holding a pile of cash but not making your team any better. There are a finite number of players available at any given time and if even one other team is willing to "overpay" to get the guy who you want then you either have to "overpay" or else end up with nothing. The Magic were not able to obtain a traditional, muscle-bound, enforcer power forward to pair with Howard, so they decided to build their team in the mold of the 1995 Houston Rockets and surround their superstar big man with three point shooters plus a versatile swingman who can shoot, rebound, defend and be a playmaker (Houston had Clyde Drexler in that role, while the Magic have Hedo Turkoglu).

Howard is averaging nearly 16 rpg during the playoffs; no other Orlando player is averaging even 6 rpg and collectively the Magic have been outrebounded slightly by their opponents--but they more than make up for that by taking care of the ball, shooting an excellent percentage from three point range while attempting a large number of treys and feeding the ball into Howard, who is shooting better than .600 from the field in the postseason. The big difference between the Magic and other teams that have tried to win by playing at a fast tempo while shooting tons of threes is that the Magic play outstanding defense, anchored in the paint by Howard, the Defensive Player of the Year.

Labels: Cleveland Cavaliers, Delonte West, Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu, LeBron James, Mo Williams, Orlando Magic, Rashard Lewis

posted by David Friedman @ 1:03 AM

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