I think Phil Jackson is well aware of this issue, as he panicked enough to send Chris Mihm out there. The same Chris Mihm that has missed more games than shots this year (and missed more games than shots taken). Perhaps he was hoping for lightening in a bottle. Perhaps he was hoping to catch the Celtics off guard. Maybe his mentality was: Throw a guy out there that hasn’t played a meaningful game in a year and a half, and hopefully Paul Peirce, KG and Ray Allen will keel over in laughter long enough to give Kobe an easy lay-up (ala “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”). Wishful thinking. Mihm proceeded to look like garbage, airball a hookshot, make the team that made him a star (the Celtics) look even better and made the Lakers, who have unconditionally supported him through his injuries, look stupid for having done so. Then again, I am being harsh on the Mihm-ster. It is Phil’s fault for placing him in there. Writing a letter Bill Gates, requesting $100 (pinky to mouth) and then being surprised when hired goons show up at your place to kill your family (I speak from experience).
The Lakers are praying for Bynum to come back next year and be the player they are all sure he can be (and us fans hope him to be) because if he is, it is a unanimous decision by all sportswriters, fans, commentators and players, that the Lakers will go 82-0 via forfeit by every team in the league.
GAME 5
1st Quarter: The Lakers looked like the Lakers. Ball movement, cutting, Kobe hitting everything in sight, crisp passing, and had the Staples Center rolling. 39 points dropped on the Celtics in the first 12 minutes. Everyone hopes that this is the truest sign of the Lakers, but as we all know too well from Game 4, the Clippers then drugged the Laker team and proceeded to “play” as them for the next 30 minutes.
2nd Quarter: The basketball god (I call him Baske-pelligo, he’s Mexican) decide to rob the Lakers of a jump shot, and replace the ability to play good basketball, with the ability to not play defense. I say this every time I watch a game: Vlad Radmonovich is TERRIBLE. And sort of good. He will do something like hit a big shot or make a sweet pass, and he has sure hands around the basket. Then he will proceed to throw passes directly to the opposition, play absolutely ZERO defense and make a mockery of the game in general. I seriously never knew that Paul Pierce was the second coming of Michael Jordan, but in all honesty, his air-ness was in the house continually driving past Vlad and Luke Walton with the ease of an old person ducking out of tipping a waiter. The Lakers perimeter “defense” is atrocious looks much more like the current Berlin Wall. This quarter epitomizes the Lakers’ problems.
Halftime: There is so much Celtic ball licking going on, I figured the halftime show was hosted by a bunch of Dalmatians.
3rd Quarter: The Lakers took back the game here, and while it didn’t really feel like it, and you just knew the 14 point lead they built would not last, Laker fans were able to breathe a little easier knowing that once the Celtics stormed back, we could reminisce about a better time…like about 5 minutes earlier when the team actually had a 14 point lead.
4th Quarter: The Lakers seem to love drama, and missing wide open shots because this quarter had both. Between Paul Pierce slicing the Lakers defense up, and Kobe Bryant being locked up like a prisoner in Guantanamo, the Lakers as a team coughed up the comfy lead again. So basically over the last two games, the Lakers have lost leads of 24, 19, 17, and 14 respectively. If this series was one based solely on scoring per quarter, the Lakers would have wrapped this series up somewhere in the scoring realm of “infinity to two”. Big shots by Pau, Lamar and surprisingly not Kobe (except for that little breakaway dunk in the closing minute) sealed the victory.
So is it panic time? The answer is simply: yes. The Lakers do find themselves in a situation where they could be kicking themselves. The blew a gimmie in game one that should have been theirs, had a 98% comeback from 24 down in the 4th in game two, winning game 3, blowing a 24 point lead in game 4, and barely winning game five. A Laker hopeful could look at those games and say in all honesty, the Lakers had a possibility of winning the series already. This is basically what the Lakers did to San Antonio in the WCF one round ago, except now, the Lakers are the Spurs. They need to play with desperation, and within their offense. Playing in Boston will not allow them any favors. The talk has slowly gone away from the “refs are screwing both teams” to “Lakers blew the lead” and “Boston is pretty darn good”. This has become a great series, and even if it does not go the full 7 games, it is already a classic, despite the bore fest that game 3 was. The Lakers can seriously go into Boston with some confidence that they can win there, despite being unable to do so this year.
If I use my brain I say Celtics in 6, but my heart says Lakers in 7. I’ll go with my heart because that has NEVER let me down (sarcasm ON).
Also, Paul Pierce and Doc Rivers both talk like they swallow sandpaper before interviews…And Paul Pierce looks like a chipmunk with an overbite.
Keywords: Boston Celtics, Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers, Luke Walton, Pau Gasol
