Post Game Thread Celtics lose Game 1 to Lakers 102-89 6/3/2010

[dboss]

Rebounding is fundamental. Gasol had 8 offensive boards last night. That was more than the total combined rebounds of perk and garnett (7 total between them)

More to come later.

dboss

[beat]

dboss

Tought to watch as the C's played hard, but not well. Could not string 3 baskets together as they could not get stops.

Ray cannot guard Kobe, as if anyone can. Need to make Kobe strickly a jump shooter which of course he is good at, but sending him or others to the line because he gets by his man just has to be stopped. Tony Allen didn't fare much better. Sort of reminded me of that damn oil well, we were trying to stop it but were NOT having any luck.

And his penitration had the ripple effect of getting guys out of position to rebound thus the offensive boards for the Lakers.

Bynum played about as well as I've seen him.

C's 1 for 10 from three.

We'll see how the C's respond.

beat

[cowens/oldschool]

We have to dig down and swarm,help and recover when ball swings to perimeter defensively.Considering how bad we played,Ray and Pierce 0-6 from 3,were some stretches of decent D,NEVER ran hard at them.One glimmer is Pierce could get by Artest no problem and expect him to get more shots,he can beat Artest with his first step,once he and Ray get hot with a few adjustments on D we can take care of these guys.KG missing a clear tip in and point blank bunny twice killed momentum as he converts those were down 9 instead of 11,then they score back to 13......just clean up a few plays were right there.We have to rebound,rebound,rebound.

[dbrown4]

Let's also get past history out of the way and its inherent contradictions.

All Phil Jackson coached teams playoff series record when winning the first game, 47-0. Celtics dead.

Phil Jackson has never beaten the Celtics in the finals. OK, this one is weak, 1-0? Still, Celtics alive. Add to this Kobe never beating the Celtics in the finals, 1-0.

Boston starting five playoff series record, 7-0. Celtics alive again.

When Celtics v. Lakers in finals and Boston loses the first game, Celtics are 4-1 (?) for winning the series. Celtics alive again.

I was so caught off guard by Stewart Scott when he said it because I was expecting another impossible Laker winning series statistic I barely caught it and I didn't rewind it.

Lakers played well. Boston did not. No flow. I think the Lakers caught us as well as themselves by surprise. We'll see the adjustments in G2. Most of the first half was disjointed with all the bench players coming in at the wrong times due to foul trouble. That was weird in and of itself but we still held tight. Just dropped the ball at the end of the 2nd quarter. That proved to be the margin of victory in the end. If that is LAL's best effort, we're right where we want to be.

Doc will have them ready. Just like his adversity speech in 2008 when PP went out with his injury. Have we come all this way for this, Paul said? I don't think so, Tim. All the pressure is on LA. Not us. Laker up 1-0. Nothing will change that.

[sinus007]

Hi,
Sad to say it but LAL beat Celtics fair and square last night.
Unfortunately, there were only about 2 players on our side who showed up: PP and a little bit of 'Sheed and Perk. On LA side almost everybody was alive and kicking. This disbalance shows up in every stat.
I hope that Celtics will wake up by Sunday.

AK

[bobheckler]

The Celtics were outplayed last night, pure and simple. We were beat in just about every facet of the game. A lot of that credit must go the Lakers execution on both sides of the court. Their defense was active and their rotations swift. Their shooting and passing off of double-teams was good and their rebounding was excellent. We got 8 offensive rebounds, 4 of them from our point guard. The Lakers looked like they spent the week getting ready. We looked like we spent the week sitting in a whirlpool.

1. This was one of the worst games I've seen KG play in a long, long time. It's like he played when he first came back from the surgery. He didn't defend Gasol well man-to-man, he didn't keep Gasol off the offensive boards, he didn't force Gasol to take shots he'd rather not take. He was ineffective.

2. Rasheed, on the other hand, really stepped up. He only played 18 minutes but was effective in them. His clean block on Gasol was sooo purty (I'm channeling jeb, now).

3. We were 1-10 from 3. If we're 4-10 from 3 (which was the Lakers' % and is very doable with Pierce and Allen on the team), this is a 4 point game. Yes, I know, losing by 4 is still losing, but when it's that close, strategies change and maybe you don't garbage time it as much and if Rondo hits 3 out of 4 fts, then it's just a 2 point game despite the Lakers out-executing us, out-rebounding us, out hustling us.

4. I thought the referreeing was pretty good, other than that take-down by Artest. Fairly evenly called, I think.

5. Our defense was NOT intense, NOT focused.

6. I thought Farmar and Brown came off the bench and looked very good. Both very active and aggressive, especially Farmar. His steal off of Rondo just before the half was pure hustle by him and pure unfocused laziness by Rondo. I wish somebody had gotten in Rondo's face and barked at him at halftime over his lack of aggression and focus, but judging by the way he played the second half, nobody did. And no, I do not think that hero shot at the buzzer makes up for his screw up.

7. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of Andrew Bynum's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

We need to win one in LA. It would have been nice to win the first and put the pressure on the Lakers, but it can be any of the upcoming ones.

It ain't gonna happen if we keep playing like last night. We NEED KG to step up on Gasol. We NEED to do better perimeter defense on Fisher and Farmar and Brown. We NEED to play defense like we did in Cleveland and Orlando.

bob

.

[dbrown4]

Well said, bobh. This was both a Celtics and Rondo mail-in, except for Paul and Rasheed. KG needs to go back to the tape on his conversation with Russell. That's all he needs to see. Actually, a personal follow-up meeting or call to (or from) Russell would be just as effective.

[Sam]

I don't look for excuses. I'm perfectly willing to take my lumps when they lose and admit they were beaten by a better team on that given day. And that was definitely the case last night.

And I'm also willing to give credit to the opponent where it's due. Although Phil seemed less than supremely happy with some of his team's play, it looked to me as though at least the first eight Lakers submitted games that adhered extremely well to a very good game plan.

Yes, there is a "BUT," and here it comes.

That having been said, and all credit having been given to the Lakers, the Celtics looked to me like a team that was stale and never caught onto the rhythm of the game until a little stretch in the fourth quarter. I'm sure they watched plenty of film, and I imagine they had at least three practices before this one. But they appeared to be a team that had just spent five days taking it easy to allow key people to heal rather than a team that had just spent five days honing their aggressiveness via spirited practices.

It seemed to me that they may have awoken to reality late in the game, when they made their little run and temporarily had the Lakers back on their heels. I also heard from someone after the game (Pierce?) that the locker room was an angry place after the game. Since they had no one but themselves to be angry at, I hope they're seething come Game 2.

As one of the announcers (admittedly a Boston announcer) suggested after the game, the Staples Center is not an inherently daunting place for a visiting team to play. But the key to controlling the crowd is to whack them early, maintain the pressure, and make the Lakers play catchup.

So here's hoping the Celtics have now had their collective bell rung and will henceforth in the series make it a point to be the leaders in aggression, physicality, and anticipation on the 50/50 plays. They've come a long way since mid-season. I maintain that they've continued to improve during the playoffs. I'm hoping the final step in that improvement will be to use Game 1 as a wakeup call and to begin every one of the remaining games loaded for bear.

Sam

[mrkleen09]

We got whooped, plain and simple.

Having said that, even with the Lakers playing great ball and the Celtics playing poorly - it was still close late in the 4th. That is a positive sign imo.

-Rajon Rondo is either hurt still, or is falling back into his play one game hard, cruise the next game mentality. IMO, he has not had a great game since Game 3 against the Magic - and if he is going to play like he did last night - not pushing the ball, not putting pressure on the LA defense, going for layups in situations where he clearly is going to get blocked - Celtics are in trouble. He needs to WAKE UP and take his game up a level.

-KG was off last night. His defense will improve on Gasol, and his offense will come alive at least a few times during this series.

-Paul Pierce scored well in stretches, but still made a lot of bad passing plays. He can clearly get what he wants on Artest - he needs to go right at him, get him in early foul trouble -and then PUNISH Luke Walton, who could never cover him.

-Ray and Perk were never allowed to get into the flow of the game by the refs. Joe DeRosa is GOD AWFUL - and Joey Crawford is out to prove something every night. Kobe is hard enough to cover, but when you call every touch foul forget about it.

-Bench played ok in spurts. Sheed was big and I like his aggressiveness. He is not scared of Odom or Gasol - and he will prove to be big in this series. TA played good D in stretches. Nate looked aggressive too...just need him to score the ball a bit more.

Instead of being worried about what we cant do, I looked at last night as a long list of opportunities for the Celtics. If they pick up the defensive intensity, rebound better, and KG and Rondo kick it up a gear - Celtics are very capable of beating this team. And once some shots start falling and calls start going our way - the Lakers will begin to self destruct and WILT under the pressure. Just watch.

[bobheckler]

We got whooped, plain and simple.

Having said that, even with the Lakers playing great ball and the Celtics playing poorly - it was still close late in the 4th. That is a positive sign imo.

-Rajon Rondo is either hurt still, or is falling back into his play one game hard, cruise the next game mentality. IMO, he has not had a great game since Game 3 against the Magic - and if he is going to play like he did last night - not pushing the ball, not putting pressure on the LA defense, going for layups in situations where he clearly is going to get blocked - Celtics are in trouble. He needs to WAKE UP and take his game up a level.

-KG was off last night. His defense will improve on Gasol, and his offense will come alive at least a few times during this series.

-Paul Pierce scored well in stretches, but still made a lot of bad passing plays. He can clearly get what he wants on Artest - he needs to go right at him, get him in early foul trouble -and then PUNISH Luke Walton, who could never cover him.

-Ray and Perk were never allowed to get into the flow of the game by the refs. Joe DeRosa is GOD AWFUL - and Joey Crawford is out to prove something every night. Kobe is hard enough to cover, but when you call every touch foul forget about it.

-Bench played ok in spurts. Sheed was big and I like his aggressiveness. He is not scared of Odom or Gasol - and he will prove to be big in this series. TA played good D in stretches. Nate looked aggressive too...just need him to score the ball a bit more.

Instead of being worried about what we cant do, I looked at last night as a long list of opportunities for the Celtics. If they pick up the defensive intensity, rebound better, and KG and Rondo kick it up a gear - Celtics are very capable of beating this team. And once some shots start falling and calls start going our way - the Lakers will begin to self destruct and WILT under the pressure. Just watch.

mrkleen,

We agree, we got whooped, pure and simple. I don't think it was that close in the 4th. The final score was misleading. We were never in a position where one run could have given us a shot to win.

One of the reasons why our passing was so bad is because of the Lakers defense. They were switching quickly, they were in the passing lanes. They made the passes tough and we didn't adjust.

I agree with you about Artest and that I was giving Artest too much credit in my pre-game thoughts. I'm not sure Pierce can get anything he wants, but Artest wasn't a Pierce-killer last night. Still, his team defense, especially on the interior, was quite good.

Joe Crawford does act like he has something to prove every night and he has been like that his entire career. What he's trying to prove is that hometown fans and players aren't going to intimidate him. If there's one ref I want to be calling Celtic games on the road AND NOT calling them in the Garden, it's Joe Crawford. As far as Kobe goes, they called 4 fouls on him last night. In the six games against Cleveland did the refs blow a total of 6 fouls on LeBron?

Rondo blew a few bunnies, as did Pierce and Allen. Some of that is the intimidation factor by LA's bigs, who have exceptional length. We need OUR bigs to crash the boards when Gasol moves to stop Rondo etal. It's alright for Rondo to just throw it up off the boards and let KG/Sheed/Perk to go get it. That's what Jameer did with Howard. In other words, make them pay for poor perimeter defense just as they made us pay last night. We got 4 offensive boards from the second smallest player on our team. We need to get them from the biggest players on our team, like the way the Lakers did with Gasol. His offensive boards turned into layups because he was right there to put them in. Out of Rondo's 4 offensive boards, we got 1 point. One. One point out of 4 extra possessions. Out of Gasol's 8 offensive boards, LA got 8 points. That's the difference between a 6'1" guard getting the offensive board vs a 7'0" PF/C getting it.

I agree about looking at the loss last night as an opportunity to improve areas we fell down in, and not just wring our hands about the results.

As far as the Lakers wilting under pressure goes, that's pure conjecture, but they certainly won't if we don't start applying the pressure.

bob

.

[dbrown4]

The good news is this egg laying was done in LA. We're not "supposed" to win on the road. If we had opened up in Boston and pulled this, we'd be in bigger trouble. We only need to win once, maybe twice on the road. Only one of those chances is now gone. 3 remain.

[LACELTFAN]

I don't think home court will mean nearly as much as finding the "on" button. If this team regains their playoff form, this will be a war...if not, well...let's not go there....GO CELTICS

[jeb]

The rebounding was big for the Lakers. That and they played so well across the board that the margin for error for us last night was nil. There was no room for error. Rondo when he was able to get by his man was picked up by one of their bigs and largely nullified. Ray was taken out of the game by fouls. I am not sure what the answer on Kobe is other than to go right at him on offense and make him use energy there.

It seemed pretty clear the Lakers were hopped up to shed the soft label and they did just that in fine fashion. I dont feel hopeless or overly worried but it is troubling how badly we were beaten in the 50-50 hustle area last night. To win a game there we shall have to bring a much better effort or theirs will have to taper off. I thought we brought a very good level of effort last night but they were just super human.

We sure dont want to go down o-2.

[dbrown4]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the 50/50 hustle stat all about? I heard them talking about it last night in the post game interviews and now here.

[jeb]

And Sam

Their locker room had damn well better have been an angry place. They got dominated last night and will again sunday if they dont pick it up across the board.

The Lakers are playing hungry and mean right now and we need to match them. We need to be hungrier and meaner and we need to win every 50-50 play.

[jeb]

dbrown

50-50 to me is loose balls, balls on the floor, rebounds where two players have an equal look at the ball stuff like that.

[dboss]

Time for me to contibute my 3 cents worth

The celtics did not get off to a great start but they were in a position to probably be down at half or close to being tied.

The laker put brown and Farmar in the game and doc had Finley in the game. They quickly scored on drives and then Rajon had the ball stolen. It happened so fast I am sure that Rondo did not see it coming.

In the 3rd period LA just kept hammering Boston on the offensive glass.

Boston never could seem to get into any kind of rythum and I doubt rajon could really push the ball because no one was willing to run and it seemed like LA was scoring on every possesion

Speaking of Rondo he had a solid game..just not spectacular. He had 13 points 8 assists and 6 rebounds. Fisher only had 9 points and 3 assists and the combo of brown and farmar had 10 pionts and 1 assist.

This game was lost because of fundamentals. We have seen this all year. boston is incredibly flawed when it comes down to basic positioning for rebounding. Part of it is due to the bigs rotating out but still much of it has to due with a lack of attention to putting a body between the defender and the basket.

On offense ray could never really get his game on becasue of foul trouble. Ray cannot check Kobe but he has to be smarter by avoiding fouls that happen before Kobe actually shoots the ball. The celtics need Ray to open things up. He needs to stay out of foul trouble.

KG played one of the worse games that I have seen him play. Defensively and on the glass he was horrible. Off balance and out of position. I'm sure he has to be seething. He also passed up several shots that he should have taken.

The Celtics need to stop giving nthe ball to players at the back end of the shot clock when those players cannot make anything happen. We saw this happen with TA and baby.

The Celtics did not move the ball well. If option 1 was not there they just settled for whatever shot they could get.

It is just one game but it certainly elevates the importance of game two.

I would like to see a bit more zone defenses called if for no other reason than to protect Ray and turn the lakers into a jump shooting team.

I would like to see a much quicker pace when Boston has the ball. Rondo needs to attack and the wings need to run the floor.

I would like to see Boston do a better job controlling their defensive glass. to give up 8 offensive rebounds to gasol is not acceptable.

I would like to see Doc put nate in the game immediately when the lakers go to a 2 point guard lineup.

I would like to see boston come out with a high level of energy and confidence.

A win on Sunday will set the record straight.

dboss

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