Some thoughts from last night’s game (in no particular order):
- Paul Pierce is making a case for being one of the elite players in the NBA. He never misses an open jumper, is aggressive with the ball and, going back to the Cleveland series, is surprising me with some great defensive play. The Truth was always a great player, you know, best player on his team and that good stuff, but never an elite, franchise-type player. Now he might be.
- Rajon Rondo might be a top 10 point guard in the league right now. He had 16 assists and only 2 turnovers last night. But I wonder how good he’d be if he wasn’t playing with three All-Stars.
- I’ll admit, Kobe had some sheisty fouls called on him.
- It’s surprising to see how badly Pau Gasol was abusing Kevin Garnett. Pau has absolutely been taking it to the Defensive Player of the Year.
- With that said, KG should be doing the same to Pau. Pau is not a great defender and KG seems to be settling for jump shots. He started taking it down low more but he needs to be more aggressive offensively. 9-22 in Game 1 and 7-19 in Game 2 is not gonna get it done.
- Amazing how Leon Powe scored 21 points in 15 minutes and shot three more free throws then the entire Lakers team. Just shows you how much more aggressive the Celtics were for the first 40 minutes of the game. Look for Leon Powe to score about 10 points the rest of the series.
- Luke Walton looks lost out there. I was always a fan of his game ever since he was at Arizona, but his lack of athleticism is really showing in this series so far.
- Kendrick Perkins is terrible.
- As is Sam Cassell.
- It was scary how close the Lakers got at the end. The Celtics clearly got complacent and thought the game was over. Reminded me of UNC’s Final Four game against Kansas.
- It’s going to be tough for the Lakers to win three straight at home but if they do and the series goes to a Game 7, I say they win. I think it’s safe to say they win Game 3 though.
