One of the greatest rivalries in basketball history is back again. Celtics vs Lakers. Bill Russel vs Wilt Chamberlin. Bob Cousy vs Jerry West. Sam Jones vs Elgin Baylor. Larry Bird vs Magic Johnson. Kevin McHale vs Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Paul Pierce vs Kobe Bryant. Kevin Garnett vs Pau Gasol. Spanning from 1959 to 1984 the Celtics won 8 straight finals battles against the Lakers. Magic Johnson changed all that, propelling the Lakers to the next two finals victories over the Celtics. Now they meet for an 11th time (probably the most of any two teams ever, but I am too lazy to look it up).
The Celtics opened up a quick 2-0 lead in the series, so as we have been doing all playoffs, this seems like an appropriate time for Tasty Booze to make their obvious playoff predictions. However, this one isn’t as easy as it looks. You have a great team going against the best player in the league on his home floor for the next 3 games.
Initial Observations:
- The Celtics are good
- Lamar Odom sucks
- Leon Powe and Rajon Rondo complete the “Big 5″
- The two guys above may prove more valuable then Ray Allen
- The white triplets, Gasol + Radmonovic + Vulucic, need to step it up
- Seriously, those guys have the same mom
- Kevin Garnett shoots from 18 feet WAY too much
- I never understood why he stayed out there so much
- Paul Pierce is a god
So no wonder the Celtics are dominating. Their players are awesome and the Lakers players are the opposite of that. Unfortunately for the Celts, Phil Jackson is smarter than you. And eventually he is going to figure out how to “MJ” Kobe. Once this happens (likely tonight), the Lakers are going to get their confidence back, Luke Walton and Ronny Turiaf will hopefully stop pretending they are basketball players, Kobe Bryant is going to continue elbowing Ray Allen but with no fouls being called, Rajon Rondo is going to get nervous, Lamar Odom is going to go back to quietly getting 16 and 10 instead of loudly thinking he is better than he is and getting 12 and 8, and Paul Pierce will show more of his Antoine Walker side.
The result. Lakers take 2 out of 3 at home. Celts win it all in game 6.
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Sounds like a pretty fair analysis. I missed games 1 & 2 due to my lack of cable but I am going to catch game 3 tonight.