Renewing some old Aquaintances

(Laker fans, allow your memory to drift back in time to just over a year ago when Kobe Bryant embarked on one of the more quixotic and bizarre days in the history of sports talk radio. Last May, Bryant made three separate appearances on ESPN Radio starting with Steven A. Smith in the morning stating unequivocally that he wanted to be traded. He followed that up with appearances on the Dan Patrick Show and later still on the local L.A. affiliate ESPN 710 where he appeared to back down from his firm desire to not ever appear again in Laker Forum Blue and Gold. And now this, a year later: an opportunity to play for the NBA championship.)

We’ve hesitated writing anything on this subject as it is one in which we have yet to fully come to grips: Lakers v. Celtics for the Lawrence O’Brien trophy. Without delving into all the gory details it basically boils down to a throwback to high school/adolescent dread that we lived through during the 80s when these two Association flagship franchises hooked up 3 times for the NBA title. At the core is an emotion that the 2 titles the Lakers did win in ’85 and ’87 did not make up for the colossal disappointment of that 4-0 sweep the Lakers managed to choke away in seven games in the first 80s matchup in ’84 (curse you, Gerald Henderson).

And now we’re here. Well, almost here as the series doesn’t get underway until Thursday and which epitomizes the NBA’s inflexibility in scheduling resulting in a failure to take advantage of the momentum of the not-so-recently concluded Conference Finals. We imagine this is the result of existing in the cloistered bubble of the league offices in New York where its NBA 24/7 and where league officials reside in the assumption that their product matters… really, really matters.

With this long layoff, rust will be an issue for both teams but the advantage goes to the older Celtics who have looked positively listless at times during the playoffs.

We’re cautiously optimistic on the Lakers’ chances which is based on the matchup problems we believe the Lakers will have on offense vs. the Celtic D.

If the Celts start Kendrick Perkins instead of James Posey that means Paul Pierce will matchup against Kobe. We don’t care how much summer ball Pierce played against Kobe or how much Pierce made a commitment to defense this year, its still Paul Pierce, an average defender throughout his career against the game’s ultimate weapon.

Now, Boston has had success on defense by funneling everything into the middle and Kevin Garnett. Pau Gasol’s ability to step away from the basket to knock down mid-range jumpers will be key in getting Garnett away from the bucket creating an open flight lane for Kobe and Lamar. Lamar has to take advantage of his probable match-up against Perkins who does not possess Odom’s length, skill or athleticism.

We like Derrick Fisher matched-up against the young Celtic point guard, Rajon Rando. D-Fish has played admirably against two of the premier point guards in the game thus far in the playoffs in Deron Williams and Tony Parker and though both Williams and Parker may have accumulated some impressive stats at times, Fisher never let those two get into a flow or rhythm to where they were controlling or dictating the flow of the game for any length of time.

The L.A. Times thinks that Radmanovich will match up against Paul Pierce. We don’t like this. Vlade tries but his Euro-soul is not one that will be committed to keeping down the Celts' most versatile offensive threat. We like the length of Odom on Pierce and we’ll take our chances with Radmanovich on the bulk of Kendrick Perkins and Gasol on Garnett. Kobe will then match-up against Ray Allen’s corpse.

Since we don’t like the Lakers winning a Game 7 in Boston, its gotta be Lakers in 6.

By the way, we were wondering why it seemed FreeDarko simply refused to acknowledge the Lakers’ existence during the Western Conference Finals. Did they have something against them…? Were they also Kobe haters….? No, it turns out on both accounts. Bethlehem Shoals' offering on the strange mystery of these Lakers.