2003-2004 NBA Season (2 Viewers)

[Rob Tomlin]

And Rasheed--man, I'm just happy for the guy. I ALWAYS liked him, and most portlanders did too. But the press here just frigging CRUCIFIED him. Constantly. and now he's on the verge of getting a ring and all the sportswriters here are pissing their pants and whining about "Why does he talk to THEIR media? Why didn't he talk to us??"

Well, if you saw Rasheed's interview after tonights game, maybe Portlanders were better off without seeing him interviewed.

When asked if he played his biggest, most important game tonight, he said something to the effect of "no, I have had many bigger games, that question is just too 'broadband'"!?!?! And, of course, the entire interview was given with headphones on his head! :rolleyes

 

[Jan H]

No the officials didn't, Walter, that's not what I was saying. The calls go to the agressors. The Pistons clearly are.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

I will say this much, if any team can come back from down 3-1 in a series, I'd think that team would be one with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal on it. Not saying they can or will, but if ever there were going to be a team that could do it, I'd think it likely that thae team would have Shaq and Kobe on it.

This could be a big year for Larry Brown though, NBA title and Olympic Gold Medal assuming the U.S. can actually fill in the rest of the Squad with Duncan and Iverson.

One thing about the Lakers is, that I believe ownership is committed to winning and will do what ever it takes, so its not like the Lakers are headed back to the lottery or anything. I actually think a guy like Kareem Rush might turn in to something decent, but is hurt by the fact he's not getting any playing time.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

The officials cost the Lakers the game. Oh puh-lease.

Who said that, it certainly wasn't me. There is a huge difference in saying that a game is poorly officiated which I think is true, and that the officiating cost the team the game.

I think that tonight's game was poorly officiated and yet I don't feel that there was no way that the Lakers couldn't have won tonight's basketball game.

Huge difference IMO, and that's what I'm saying and others that its poorly officiated not that the officials cost the Lakers the game.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

The officials cost the Lakers the game. Oh puh-lease.

Walter, perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see anybody post this. The officiating was definitely horrible in my opinion, but I definitely wouldn't say that cost them the game.

In fact, if you read my prior post, you would see that I basically agree with your comment that Detroit was the more athletic, agressive team.

Complaining of poor officiating doesn't equate to saying it cost them the game. But it sure didn't help!

 

[Walter Kittel]

Perhaps I misunderstood. Detroit has dominated the series in terms of controlling the pace and flow of the game; I'm uncertain how well that translates to officiating but one of the big surprises of the series has been the reversal of the Laker's FTA per game ( league leading during the regular season as per ABC tonight ) vs. their FTA per game in the Finals.

While I do believe it is easier to slow down the pace of a game vs. forcing an up tempo pace; Detroit's ability to control this aspect of the game has been impressive. Regardless, I know its no fun when your team loses.

- Walter.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Walter, let me simply say this. I've seen some poorly officiated games that the Lakers won, I believe it was game 6 of the Timberwolves series with the horrible second quarter...and I called it what it is, which was poorly officiated. So for me anyway it works both ways, although I do have to say that I can see how it might be difficult to differentiate between the 2 comments. After all, you read a few posts complaining about poor officiating mostly from Laker fans after a game the Lakers lost, and given that it would be reasonable or at least not far fetched to think that these people blame the referees for the loss. But, in my case anyway, I wouldn't have been happy with the officiating even if L.A. had won tonight.

 

[Jan H]

Whoever controls the pace and flow of a series usually gets the calls. PJ doesn't like this fact (nor do Laker fans), because this is the first series PJ's had to coach since the Knicks series in '93 and '94, where the opponent has had much of the upper hand against his team's ability to dictate whatever goes on on the floor.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Apologies if I ruffled any feathers. As I stated before, it isn't any kind of fun when your team loses and things don't look too good for the Lakers going into Tuesday evening. Anyway that's it for me tonight. Gotta get some sleep.

- Walter.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

Which begs the question, Jan, what do you think of Jackson as a coach? Is he overrated considering the incredible talent that he has had on the teams he has coached to championships?

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Apologies if I ruffled any feathers. As I stated before, it isn't any kind of fun when your team loses and things don't look too good for the Lakers going
into Tuesday evening. Anyway that's it for me tonight. Gotta get some sleep.

Walter, no feathers ruffled on this end of things, as I said I could understand how one might think that was what we were saying.

Rob, I know you asked Jan...but I'll say this I'm torn on Jackson as we've discussed earlier in this thread.

On one hand he has never had to rebuild a team, and he picks his spots and so it makes me wonder how good of a coach would he be if he had to take over a team like say the Heat (going in to this season, not as they currently are).

On the other hand, number of rings Shaq and Kobe have without Phil...0, so that can not be ignored.

 

[Jan H]

No. This has been a year that any other coach would've died from a stroke from. Phil has done a tremendous job with all of the egos, infighting, injuries, and 'the Kobe thing'. Larry Brown was lucky that he coached the right team at the right time, and against the right opponent. Because frankly, I believe the Spurs or the T-Wolves would win this series.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Jan made the one point regarding Phil that I did not, and I give him all the props in the world for what he's done this year, and yet a part of me thinks maybe in some ways helped stir the pot a bit on some of these contraversies. That not withstanding, I still give him credit for not going insane and slaughtering the whole team in practice one day.

I was thinking about how well the Spurs or Wolves would do against the Pistons, and I thought Minnesota might have been interesting. Because they've got Garnet who is the big time player for that team, but if the Pistons played him like they did Kobe, Latrell Spreewell would be in the process of owning their asses. The Wolves have the depth that would've made it more interesting...the Spurs, I think would have the same problems as they had against L.A. and the same problems L.A. is having now, other than Duncan and maybe Parker they don't have consistent scoring.

 

[Michael D. Bunting]

This is sooo much fun watching the Pistons completely dominate the Lakers! Seeing the Lakers players complain on every foul has just been priceless to me and has been a long time coming (IMHO) if you ask me.

After game 5 on Tuesday, I guess we all will know who the 2nd best team in the NBA is, won't we? HINT: It ain't the Lakers...it's the Pacers...at least they took the Pistons to 6 Games And never were completely man-handled by the Pistons.

It's not over yet, but I don't think we'll be able to say that much longer now.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

And while I went to UCLA and am a huge UCLA fan, I love watching Michigan football and The Big House and their fans. So I would consider myself a UM football fan too (though I would never root for them vs. my Bruins) but I've never been to Michigan. I am looking to remedy that, though as one of the things I want to do before I die is attend a UM/OSU game at the Big House (rooting for the maize and blue, of course). Maybe Scott and I can work something out in the future...

Anytime, Carlo. I do not have season tickets, but I can usually come up with tickets to a game. The Ohio State game may be tough, though -- most of my connections want to hang onto those tickets for some strange reason . The Big House is quite an experience. You could always come to the Wisconsin game and help me chant "Overrated" at the Badgers -- boy, do I miss Ron Dayne.

I'm not ready to make plans for attending a victory parade just yet, but the Pistons have clearly been the better team so far in the series. They have been more aggressive, have hustled more, and play as a team with a single purpose. They have earned that advantage at the free throw line. Meanwhile, the Lakers have looked old and slow.

Regarding Malone's injury, while it may have made things different, Seth had an excellent point -- it's a lot to expect a 40 year old player to remain healthy for this long in the grueling NBA season. I think the chances of him being healthy after 100+ games was not that good.

Here's hoping this series is over on Tuesday -- if for no other reason that I want to start going to bed on time! These late finishes make it tough to get up for work the next morning.

 

[Johnny_M]

So, let's assume the Lakers lose the series. Where is Kobe next year?

Jail?

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I think that tonight's game was poorly officiated and yet I don't feel that there was no way that the Lakers couldn't have won tonight's basketball game.

The first triple negative of the playoff season! It's even more rare than a triple double. So, Casey, are you saying the Lakers would have lost anyway without the poor officiating?

 

[Seth Paxton]

I haven't found any serious issues with the calls, and I'm probably more neutral on the subject than LA fans think. My only interest in DET winning is that it proves that I was correct all along, and I also have respected the Pistons team despite Sheed for the last few seasons. They are the Pacers main rival so I don't root for them but when they play I appreciate what and how they do things.


Payton has been the most noticeable guy in foul trouble and it's well deserved. Fisher, Kobe, George, even Fox are playing just as physical as GP (or the Pistons) but are quicker, at least relative to who they are guarding. I saw plenty of Lakers bumping, pushing and pulling last night without getting called, and a call was not warranted in those cases either.

What I'm saying is that as physical as you may see it, I don't see it as being nearly as physical as the Indy/Det series and the refs called that one very well. Of course, just like LA fans now, plenty of local Indy morons blamed conspiracies, refs, or whatever, when the fact was that while Indy played them close, DET came away with the slight edge and moved on.



Anyway, talk about being right, looks like I might end up being right about a couple of things.

1) Some Lakers fans ARE going to have trouble just admitting to the LA loss and Detroit being better (not all, just some) which is exactly what I said many weeks ago. Of course back when no Laker fan thought it could happen there was a line around the block of people "willing to admit that Detroit is better IF by some miracle they actually win" - with NO excuses like injury (barring Shaq or Kobe), refs, didn't bother to try, NBA conspiracy or any other excuse that makes me immediately invalidate your opinion of NBA basketball.

2) See #1 and consider the attitude about good defense vs bad offense. How many games was LA supposed to be held at 80 or lower? And also just how low was LA's "great" defense supposed to hold the Piston's offense since Indy's "average" defense (statistically bolstered by playing in the East I was told) held the Piston's below 80 game after game?

3) LA vs SA - THE NBA Finals, why are we even bothering with any other games, especially teams from the LEAST. Wow, talk about really, really wrong. Let me correct this slightly - Indy vs DET = THE NBA Finals, why are we bothering with some lame representative from the NBA WORST.

Detroit came far closer to losing to BOTH New Jersey and Indiana. So based on how LA's win was going to verify that the West teams were so much better, I'm gonna have to call on fairplay and logic and say that in fact it was the top West teams who are weaker than the Big 3 of the East (not the whole East, just the teams with good records).

Hell, NJ went 7, Indy had 2 chances to get a game 7 at home as well (game 2 & 6), plus added in an ass-kicking IN DETROIT. LA, the best team from the West, was 30 seconds away from being swept, SWEPT, in the Finals.



Of course LA can still win, but it would be the greatest comeback ever which still requires that Detroit be perhaps the better team. After all how can it be a great comeback if the favorite team barely does what they were supposed to do against inferior competition?

So all of the above points still hold even if LA comes back. At best LA can prove that the top West teams are EQUAL to the top East teams. It's already too late to disprove that the low East scoring wasn't great defense. And it's waaaayyyy too late to convince anyone that the Spurs gave the Lakers more trouble than the Pistons have.

 

[Seth Paxton]

On Phil and the Lakers in general. If you blame Phil now then you basically dismiss all that he has ever done. LA was NOT the top seed, had to win 2 series without home court to get to the Finals, had injury issues, and had more internal conflicts than any team in years...well, maybe not the Blazers of a few years ago.

You took the Shaq/Kobe "its my team" feud and ADDED to it a rape trial and Payton's complaining, as well as the incorrect expectations of having 4 HOFers on a team, despite two of them losing the big games IN THEIR PRIME.

Plus I just can't believe anyone would put that Lakers bench anywhere near a top tier bench. They are not. Look, its not about knocking LA or praising Indy or anything else, its about describing things how they are.

LA has great qualities, 3 especially in Kobe, Shaq and Phil. But just as it would be dumb to label Shaq's FT ability as great (or even good) it's wrong to label Luke Walton as anything more than Croshere with a slighty better dribble or Fisher as anything other than Hunter minus 2-3 years or Fox as a flat-out too old player that was really only a 7th man on the bench for most of his career anyway.

George and Rush are decent players but they both have limits to their games as most young bench types do, though George gives you a bit more overall. Neither is as good as Harrington or even Fred Jones to be honest. And Med is clearly not as good as Okur.

This is not to say that the LA bench can't contribute or that they don't belong in the NBA, its just that if you take Shaq and Kobe off this team you have the freaking Clippers. EVERYTHING feeds of the Shaq doubles or Kobe's ability to make almost any kind of shot against most teams, that's why they are stars.

But teams without a star like Detroit or Indy, both now seen as having stars thanks to the playoffs only, HAD to do it with deep benches rather than 1 or 2 dominating forces.

So anyway, Phil has almost pulled off another one IMO. The idea that he didn't adjust is wrong simply from seeing how much more effective LA was in game 4 vs game 3, primarily in how they defended DET and how they attacked the basket.

I hate Phil, but there is little doubt that he makes his teams much better. Cripes, it was just after game 2 that people were actually saying that Brown was the coach that blew it and PJ had once again gotten the best of a guy. Two games later the story has flipped 180 degrees.


If LA loses him after losing West you can probably expect things to get pretty ugly out there in a hurry. Just look at the results. PJ comes to LA and suddenly a 60 win team gets over the playoff hump and becomes almost a 70 win team even. West goes to Memphis and takes perhaps the worst team in the league and makes them a borderline elite team in all of 2 seasons (thanks partly to bringing in Hubie as well).

I was watching a tape of an old 500 (IIRC) and hit a news break in which they were talking about West just taking the job in Memphis, and the reaction at the time really was one of disbelief. How could West take such a horrible, hopeless position. It's easy to forget that most people thought that just a few years ago now that its worked.

Anyway, the point is that both PJ and West clearly make a difference. West has been gone for 2 years and LA has slipped a bit. I don't think any sane Lakers fan should want to find out what losing PJ could do for the situation.

LA would be better off trading Shaq or Kobe before losing Phil IMO.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Detroit came far closer to losing to BOTH New Jersey and Indiana. So based on how LA's win was going to verify that the West teams were so much better, I'm gonna have to call on fairplay and logic and say that in fact it was the top West teams who are weaker than the Big 3 of the East.

Could be Seth, but I do think you are ignoring match-ups in this purely comparison-based approach.

That is the kind of logic, where every year in college football, you can demonstrate that a Ball State would beat a USC.

Fraught with danger.

However, I do give the Pistons full credit for playing hard and playing well and playing well as a team.

Plus they (to me) are saving their best for the last games of the season.

While I still don’t think that they are as good defensively as the ‘Bad Boys’, I’ll admit that Bill Lambier never came out to pick up a perimeter player the way Ben Wallace does (of course with Joe, Zeke and company he may not have had to) and they are playing great team defense—really the best I’ve seen all year.