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The Lakers needed to win last night to force a 7th game in the NBA Finals, and they didn't disappoint, delivering a brutal 89-67 beatdown that evened the series at 3 wins apiece. In NBA playoff history, this is the 105th series to go 7 games, and the 17th time the Finals have gone the distance. It should be a fitting finish to the season, and the capper to a thrilling 7-game Championship series with a razor-thin margin between the two teams...
Or has it really been that razor-thin? In the series, the Lakers have outscored the Celtics by 20 points after 6 games. Is that a lot, or a normal amount for a 7-game series? How does that compare to the margins of past 7-game playoff series through 6 games?
With the Celtics up 3-2 against the Lakers, the 2009-10 NBA season comes to an end this week as the two teams head back to Los Angeles for the sixth and possibly seventh games of the NBA Finals.
Below, you can watch the video of the Top 10 Moments of the Lakers/Celtics Rivalry:
Now, below here are Mini Movies from Games 1-5. Here’s how you’ll enter. Watch the five movies and let us know if you think any of these moments might break their way into the Top 10. Leave your answer in the comments section. The winner will be picked completely subjectively based upon whichever answer we like best and will receive a free prize courtesy of NBA.com.
"In the first five games of the Finals—which continue Tuesday with Game 6 in Los Angeles—the Celtics screamed, threw up their arms or spun around in disgust (or all three) after 48% of the fouls they were called for, according to an analysis by The Count. We looked at every foul in the series that wasn't intentional, tracked the observable reactions and gave extra weight to the more blatant complaints. The Lakers expressed displeasure about 36% of the time, even though Kobe Bryant disputed half of his while Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce only bickered about one-third of theirs."
Last week, I took a look at Kobe Bryant's performance vs. the Boston Celtics in Games 1-3 of the Finals, and how it compared to his performance against them in 2008, as well as LeBron James' performance against them a month ago. With 2 more games having passed, it's time to update the numbers:
Last night, Kobe Bryant boldly attempted to take over Game 5 of the Finals, pouring in 23 consecutive Laker points in the 3rd quarter on a collection of the toughest shots you'll ever see. However, L.A. couldn't get stops during that span, and nobody but Bryant was scoring, so the Celtics were actually able to extend their lead even as Kobe's outburst was taking place. Bryant finished the game with 38 points, but half of them came in that 8-minute stretch during the 3rd quarter, and he couldn't will L.A. to a late-game charge even as Boston seemed on the verge of a collapse in the final minutes.
The frustration was apparent in Bryant's expressions and body language throughout the 4th quarter, as Kobe was unable to do any damage from the floor in the final 8 minutes of the game. But despite his failure to drive a stake into the Celtics' hearts in crunch time, Bryant's performance was still one of the most valiant in recent Finals history by a member of the losing team. According to Statistical +/-, here are the best individual performances in a Finals loss (minimum 30 minutes played):
Led by Glen Davis (18 pts, 5 reb) and a superb relief performance by the bench in general, the Celtics scrapped their way to a 96-89 win in Game 4 of the Finals, drawing the championship series even at 2 games apiece. Just how good were the Boston reserve corps last night? Since 1991, here are the teams that received the biggest Win Share boosts from non-starters in a Finals game:
This week, I was invited back to participate in NBA.com's Blogger Q&A series again. The guest was Charles Barkley, an inner-circle Hall of Famer and one of my personal favorite players (and announcers) of all time, so I asked Charles to weigh in on the Kobe-Pau Finals MVP debate (which may have been a bit premature in retrospect, as the Celts drew even in the series last night). As always, thanks are in order to the NBA and YouCast Corp. for putting together this opportunity.
During yesterday's Kobe Bryant discussion, an interesting point was raised about just what it will take for Laker second banana Pau Gasol to be named Finals MVP this season. My rhetorical question on the matter was this:
"I wonder if an established best player on a team has a sort of "incumbent effect" when it comes to Finals MVPs? In other words, how badly would Kobe have to play -- and how well would Gasol have to play -- for Kobe not to be named Finals MVP? [...] What kind of handicap does a 2nd banana have when trying to overcome the Alpha Dog for Finals MVP?"
Today I want to look at this phenomenon statistically, and see how often the winning team's agreed-upon "best player" won Finals MVP honors, how the second bananas' numbers compared to the Alpha Dogs' during the Finals, and hopefully determine what kind of handicap a non-"Alpha Dog " faces when vying for the award.
If you listened to any of the hype in the days leading up to Game 1 of the Finals, you know that this Lakers-Celtics series was going to be seen as a referendum on two things: how much Kobe Bryant (and the Lakers as a team) have improved since 2008, and which player is better in the Kobe-LeBron debate. Conveniently for the casual fan, the common opponent in all three cases (Lakers-Celts 2008, Celts-Cavs 2010, & Lakers-Celts 2010) is the Boston Celtics, a team that -- superficially, at least -- has changed very little in the past few years, making for an easy and seemingly valid measuring stick.
I won't debate the validity of this assumption any more than to point out that more has changed for the Celtics since 2008 than meets the eye. But say for the purposes of argument that the basic premise is valid, that you can straight-up compare Kobe '08, Kobe '10, and LeBron '10 on the basis of their performance against a common playoff foe... Who looks better after 3 games?
A few weeks ago, I looked at various players' career performances in "crucial games", which I defined as: "Game 3 or later in a 7-game series; Conference Semifinals or later; series tied, within 1 game either way, or an elimination game for the trailing team". But while that's a nice working definition, it's certainly far from universal; for instance, one commenter pointed out that an elimination game when down 3-0 isn't very "crucial" at all, because even if you win, it doesn't really do a lot to change the outcome of the series.
Now, I had been operating under the assumption that you still feel pressure as a player even when facing an insurmountable deficit (maybe you even feel the most pressure under those circumstances), but I can see where performing well in that kind of game doesn't really carry the same weight as the same performance in, say, a Game 7. It's a bit like that old criticism of Alex Rodriguez -- he only hits home runs when the score is lopsided (that isn't true, by the way, but it was an actual criticism they lobbed at A-Rod for a while before the Yankees won a World Series with him). A solo HR always counts for exactly 1 run, of course, but if you look at Win Probability Added, that HR can take on wildly different win values depending on the situation. The same goes for wins in a 7-game series -- winning Game 5 when it's tied 2-2 is more important than winning Game 5 when you're down 3-1.
During 
If you listened to any of the hype in the days leading up to Game 1 of the Finals, you know that this Lakers-Celtics series was going to be seen as a referendum on two things: how much 