The Matchup Celtics vs Lakers

TJ

Just what I though you would say'

im done

beat

dbrown4 wrote:That's not it at all. The Lakers and Kobe currently think the moves they have made will beat Boston this year or at least win a championship. They brought in Artest to shut PP down probably (or maybe it was for LeBron), put Bynum back in. Traded Ariza. It just looks and sounds very similar to "Let's get Wilt out here. That will finally be enough to beat the Celtics."

It's like Sam said earlier, somewhere in this thread or another. Tactically these two teams will do what they are going to do on the court and are very well matched up. But if we have an edge, I think it's in all the intangibles mentioned already. Motivation, tradition, history, team synergy, etc., I think we have the edge there. Will that determine the series, maybe, maybe not. But we're all looking for an edge and when all else appears equal, a slight psychological edge may very well be the tipping point. This series will be measured in inches, by razor-thin margins.

I think you and I disagree on the percentages of physical/match-ups vs. intangibles in determining the winner. Actually, we may even believe the respective percentages are the same, it's just the degree and inpact of how much each determines the outcome. For the Celtics, I just think there is a little more hidden than revealed, more internal than external that determines how they win.

I'm very confident if Magic were asked how his teams beat the Celtics, he would say it was a complete, over the top obssession for the top down to finally be the organization that would topple one of the greatest Celtic teams every assembled. The Lakers didn't want to just win another championship. They wanted to win another championship at the expense of Boston. And that is exactly what they did. Twice. Kobe has already stated he doesn't care who he plays in the finals. I just don't think this team of Lakers is obsessed enough to beat Boston the team or Boston the organization, that all. If they are and they win, congratulations. I'm wrong. We all want the trophy. As Doc said, nobody wants it any more than anybody else.

From 1987-2007 we didn't win any championships. Had some misfortune with Len Bias, Reggie Lewis. Tragic. What happened would shake any organization to its core. I think the intangibles swung the other way. Intangibles can and do have a negative side as well.

Well, the jury is still out, but if this current Celtic team pulls this out, for all the crap we've been through to get here, it's going somewhere in the top 3 greatest of all time Celtic teams for me, shell or not.

dbrown,

1) LA did not trade Ariza.
2) Just like using a positive Nate example when ignoring the fact that Finley has scored 3 points in 62 minutes, you cherry pick the intangibles idea. So, does Boston only have it when they win the championship?
3) Contrary to your idea, Magic didn't obsess over Boston, he focused on his opponent at the time. Kobe focuses on whoever the opponent is, whether it was NJ, Ind, Phil, Det, Bos or Orlando.

bobheckler wrote:I'm trying to stay out of this little brush fire that seems to have popped up, but there is one point that I think has not been addressed by anybody yet.

The Lakers are a slower team than they were in 08. More mature, mentally tougher, but slower.

Ron Artest is more of a halfcourt player while Ariza was a full-court greyhound. There has been a lot of discussion about whether Artest can/will stay in front of Pierce. There was no doubt Ariza could. Ariza played limited minutes in 08, Jackson making the dumbass coaching decision to keep Radman on Pierce, but if he was on the team now he'd be getting serious minutes and that's the matchup I'm referring to. It would take more than a single screen to rub off Ariza, maybe not so with the phyically stronger but slower Artest.

Fisher is a little slower.
Bynum is hobbled.

Gasol, Bryant and Odom are unchanged. Farmar is unchanged and Brown represents an upgrade in speed, if for no other reason, that he's getting more minutes.

Speed was an advantage the Lakers had over us in 08. Now? Not as clearly. In fact, if Kobe's guarding Rondo, who's going to keep up and match up with Tony Allen full court? If it's Brown, which would be a matchup that makes sense, then the Lakers outside shooting goes down (Fisher plays his role in the triangle perfectly. He's the outside player in the "2", often along with Bynum; while Gasol/Bryant and Artest are the "triangle").


bob

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bob,

Ariza played 35 minutes in the 2008 Finals. (Less then 6mpg). He was their third string SF. You can't use him in this conversation. Radmonovic was their starting SF.
Before last year, Ariza never showed that he could be given serious minutes because his offense was pathetic.
Both teams are slower then in 08. Pierce and KG are clearly not the same players and Artest has little speed.
LA faced probably the 2 fastest and most athletic teams in the NBA in OKC and Phoenix and how did that work out?
The lack of mobility of Rasheed, Perkins and BBD will be a relief for LA's bigs.

tjmakz wrote:

bobheckler wrote:I'm trying to stay out of this little brush fire that seems to have popped up, but there is one point that I think has not been addressed by anybody yet.

The Lakers are a slower team than they were in 08. More mature, mentally tougher, but slower.

Ron Artest is more of a halfcourt player while Ariza was a full-court greyhound. There has been a lot of discussion about whether Artest can/will stay in front of Pierce. There was no doubt Ariza could. Ariza played limited minutes in 08, Jackson making the dumbass coaching decision to keep Radman on Pierce, but if he was on the team now he'd be getting serious minutes and that's the matchup I'm referring to. It would take more than a single screen to rub off Ariza, maybe not so with the phyically stronger but slower Artest.

Fisher is a little slower.
Bynum is hobbled.

Gasol, Bryant and Odom are unchanged. Farmar is unchanged and Brown represents an upgrade in speed, if for no other reason, that he's getting more minutes.

Speed was an advantage the Lakers had over us in 08. Now? Not as clearly. In fact, if Kobe's guarding Rondo, who's going to keep up and match up with Tony Allen full court? If it's Brown, which would be a matchup that makes sense, then the Lakers outside shooting goes down (Fisher plays his role in the triangle perfectly. He's the outside player in the "2", often along with Bynum; while Gasol/Bryant and Artest are the "triangle").


bob

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bob,

Ariza played 35 minutes in the 2008 Finals. (Less then 6mpg). He was their third string SF. You can't use him in this conversation. Radmonovic was their starting SF.
Before last year, Ariza never showed that he could be given serious minutes because his offense was pathetic.
Both teams are slower then in 08. Pierce and KG are clearly not the same players and Artest has little speed.
LA faced probably the 2 fastest and most athletic teams in the NBA in OKC and Phoenix and how did that work out?
The lack of mobility of Rasheed, Perkins and BBD will be a relief for LA's bigs.

TJ,

Good point about Ariza in 08.

As far as OKC and Phx being the fastest and most athletic, that's true. But their athleticism and speed didn't translate into defense. They were pretty one-dimensional in their use of their athleticism and speed and their bigs weren't very big and LA, correctly, took advantage of that.

I'm not going to get into a tit-for-tat about who will be relieved and who will be crying before the tip-off of game 1. I'll leave that to you and some of the other posters.

bob

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This is an example of Sam's fear for this board during the finals - in reverse. When he asked us to please be mindful of dealing with each other in a respectful manner - I am sure he was mostly thinking of a bunch of Celtics fans being hard on Lakers fans. I am sure he had me in mind as well

Yet here on the eve of a momentous evening in Boston Celtics history, we have a Lakers fan trying to run roughshod over a Celtics board....check that again, this is a Boston Celtics Board - run by a Celtics historian and fanatic -and paid for through the support of other ardent Celtics Fans.

Still we are faced with TJ - nitpicking every point of every post over and over ad nauseum, to the point where people that have been here from the beginning - are tuning out.

Might I suggest that we simply ignore TJ and anyone else that is here with the sole purpose to be a troll and a pest - and enjoy the next 8 hours and beyond as our favorite team works to hang banner #18.

We have all been here for too long, and have put too much good work into hundreds and thousands of well conceived posts - to let someone chase us away from our own site.

kleen,

Here is my first post in this thread:

Are you looking for supportive comments from fellow Celtics fans or why a Lakers fan thinks the Lakers will win the series?
If you want to keep this more of a focus on the Celtics strengths and why you guys think Boston will win, I am ok with not contributing during this discussion.
Whatever we feel, if someone thinks it will go 4 or 5 games for either team, I think they are crazy.

If dbrown did not want to know my opinion, I would not have responded. Very few threads do I get involved with so I am not "taking over the board".

I don't need to accept your ideas and you don't need to accept mine. I am sorry that you cannot handle others ideas in a mature way.
If Sam or the mods want to end this thread, they can.

bob,

I meant no comparison to the defense from the bigs of OKC or Phoenix. Howard and Perkins have clearly played the best D of any big men in the playoffs. KG is a superior defensive player.
I do not feel Gasol or Bynum will have an easy time with them. Rasheed is a different story.
Boston's D is clearly the best in the NBA. Almost to historic proportions in some games.

Hi,
I'd like to return to the topic of this thread: matchups.
I think one of the main matchups will be Artest vs PP. From the Celtics side it's going to be mostly mental aspect: if PP can bring Artest to the "boiling" point without getting there himself, it'll disrupt his game on both ends and force Kobe to take over the game, i.e. hog the ball, which is exactly what Doc-tor has prescribed.
The other matchup is RR vs Kobe/Fish/?. If RR is flexible enough to adjust his game per whoever his current opponent then Celtics are in great shape.
Is it 9 o'clock yet?

AK

I think Bob put it best when he said it seems a little brush fire has erupted here (this comes from a Californian; they know about these things).

I want to personally ask the favor of everyone who's been going back and forth to kind of throw a little water on this before it escalates and we have to lock the topic.

Thanks in advance guys, I'm sure you're all looking forward to tonight as much as I am. I hope you're all able to be on the Game On! thread.

Regards

kleen/dbrown,

I will end my participation in this thread.
I hope everyone enjoys the game tonight.
It should be a great series!

TJ

I think that maybe you need to be refocused on the topic of our discussion. I believe the topic is “Does history or does not history play any role in this series?” You maintain that it doesn’t and I maintain that it does. That’s all our discussion is about. My comments are not intended as some backhand diminishing of the Lakers in any way; so that charge on your part was superfluous and not at all appreciated by me. I mentioned failed finals appearances only to reinforce the fact that the priorities of Lakers fans, like Lakers players, differ from the culturally defined championship tunnel vision of the Celtics and their fans.

As to whether Celtics fans would have preferred to finish second rather than to miss the finals, I’m sure that all of us would root for our team as long as possible in any given season. But the net result of the season—and its imprint on Celtics history—would be defined largely on whether or not the team won the championship. That's the cultural heritage. Red Auerbach never lit his cigar to celebrate coming close.

I think it’s wonderful that you like to watch non-Lakers games. I have no idea what it has to do with this topic. But, in response, I’m the kind of fan who generally can’t work up a lot of enthusiasm for games in which I have no team to root for. I was an avid enough tennis fan to have attended two of the four grand slams (in New York and France); but I have not watched a single professional tennis match since André Agassi retired. Different strokes for different folks. Some people are spectators; some are fans.

The fact that I’ve focused mainly on the Celtics in my basketball interests doesn’t mean I haven’t picked up a lot of other basketball knowledge during the 61 years I’ve been avidly following the Celtics. But, if there were any weakness in my assertion that history plays more of a part in defining the championship culture of the Celtics than is true for other teams, the weakness would have involved my statements about the other teams. You just proved my belief about other teams by quoting Kobe. If you’re somehow trying to infer anything about the Celtics and their motivation based on a quote by Kobe about himself (what a shock that he’d be talking about himself)…forget it.

I’ve never said the Celtics haven’t had great players. But there’s a common thread that uniquely defines their greatness and which is not nearly so prevalent among other teams. Every single one of them—every single one—very willingly lived his Celtics life by the Auerbach belief in egalitarian basketball with one goal in mind—to win the championship. That’s still the way they think and play. The culture is all about the team and all about the championshps. That’s why they haven’t had two consecutive games in these playoffs with the same scoring leader. That’s why they’ve never had a scoring champion. It’s an implicit pact of cultural solidarity that has never been matched in the NBA, and it permeates their motivation to varying degrees for every finals they enter. I'm not attempting to specify the degree to which it permeates this one...but you can be certain that it's omnipresent.

I'd appreciate it if you'd stick to the topic in your responses to me. Please do not confuse my comments and claims with those of other posters. I'm not talking about how good the Celtics are as opposed to the Lakers. I'm talking about ONLY the effect of history on the Celtics in championship finals.

Thank you,

Sam

Sam,

We haven't had the same two scoring leaders in consecutive games these playoffs? I hadn't realized that!

Oooh. I like that. Shows team involvement, recognizing the hot hand and having the playbook and team orientation that can feed it. Should make us more difficult to defend, since you never know who you will have to.

Wouldn't it be great if Perk scored 30? Ok, that's beyond fantasy and moving deep into psychosis.

I can't wait until tomorrow, when we'll be able to talk about things that actually happened. I'm afraid my imagination, when it's running free, tends to drift more in the direction of cowens' avatar. Who the hell is that woman, anyway?

bob

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Bob,

That's just what I heard on a sports show. Truthfully, I haven't taken the time to check it out. I knew it was true earlier in the playoffs, but I didn't realize it had extended to this moment.

Sam

To the Board:

Okay, enough of the subjective conjecture and abstractions. We're finally hours away from an event that we can discuss based on our various interpretation of FACTS. I'm hoping very much that the availability of facts (most of which we can see, record, replay, etc.) will result in board conversations that are a lot more dispassionate and less antagonistic.

In my previous post on the inherent dangers potentially facing this board leading up to this Celtics-Lakers series, I most definitely did NOT have one "camp" or one poster uppermost in my mind. This thread is an example of how any number of posters in both camps can be drawn into the kind of brush fire that can arouse emotions and result in unfortunate posting entries.

I have reread this thread and have deleted a number of entries that I felt went over the line. And, guess what? Sure enough, virtually all of them couldn't resist the temptation to belittle or call names. They made it personal. If one gets personal with someone, there will probably be a similar retort. Any point may be made without the added little personal "dig."

This thread is now being locked. It will still be possible to read it but not to post to it. It's time to move toward the showdown which, in a weird sort of way, will hopefully lead to more factual and fewer antagonistic assessments.

As I said earlier, this is a Celtics board. As such Lakers fans are simply going to have to put up with a lot of pro-Celtics stuff or even anti-Lakers stuff. And Lakers fans are also going to be sensitive to the fact that the Celtics fans on the board enjoy a certain sense of solidarity that may feel threatened by posts that would seem innocuous on a Lakers board. For their part, Celtics fans will have to recognize that Lakers fans have a right to be heard. But there's absolutely no excuse for making any of this sarcastically or antagonistically personal in either direction.

Some people have availed themselves of the Private Message function or my email address (SlipSamCelt@aol.com) with respect to this thread or something similar. Inputs from any of you are welcome.

Thanks for your help, and here's to a great series!

Sam