The Kansas City Star
Posted on Tue, Jun. 17, 2008 10:15 PM
The Celtics’ Paul Pierce, who scored 17 points in the game, shot the ball over the Lakers’ Ronny Turiaf in the first half of Tuesday’s game six in Boston. The Celtics won the game and their first title since 1986.
BOSTON: It’s funny the generalizations we can make without creating a fuss.
Now that the Boston Celtics have exposed the Los Angeles Lakers as frauds, much of the NBA offseason will be spent discussing why it’s nearly impossible to win pro basketball’s most prestigious title with a roster polluted with non-American players.
Oh, of course, this discussion will only transpire after we in the media finish blaming Kobe Bryant for not dragging LA’s collection of soft, spot-up shooters to the championship. The first rule in the NBA is to blame Kobe for whatever goes wrong.
Plenty went wrong for the Lakers on Tuesday night at TD Banknorth Garden. The Celtics closed out the NBA finals with a finishing kick below the belt that probably wouldn’t even fly in the UFC, blasting the Lakers 131-92.
Yeah, the Lakers quit. They had no interest in extending this series to seven games. I’m not sure they wanted to leave Los Angeles on Sunday. They did everything they could to lose game five, but the Celtics wouldn’t cooperate.
Anyway, Kobe will get blamed for all of this. He’s an easy target, far more inviting than Phil Jackson, who is 3-8 in his last 11 NBA finals games.
After we’re done trashing Kobe and ranting that a Michael Jordan-led team would never get humiliated in an elimination game, we’ll turn our attention to Pau Gasol, Vladimir Radmanovic, Sasha Vujacic and the overall lack of toughness that is a byproduct of a roster that is too international.
We Are The World works in the music industry and bombs in the NBA, or at least that’s what we’re going to hear until the Olympics tip off.
The Celtics just won their 17th title with an all-homegrown playoff roster of brothas. Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Kendrick Perkins, Rajon Rondo, James Posey, P.J. Brown, Eddie House, Leon Powe, Glen Davis, Tony Allen and Sam Cassell developed the toughness and tenacity that lifted the Celtics on American playgrounds.
We may no longer make the best cars, but we still produce the toughest and most reliable NBA players. No one is going to question that after this series, no matter what happens in the Olympics.
A team of Americans defend, take charges and refuse to surrender the lane to high-scoring shooting guards.
When Kobe tried to get to the rim, he found Allen, Posey, Pierce, Garnett, Perkins and head coach Doc Rivers all standing in his path. When Pierce played pick-and-roll, slashed to the bucket, Vujacic, Radmanovic and Luke Walton grabbed Pierce’s free hand and escorted him to the basket.
That was the difference in this series. Pierce and the Celtics went anywhere they wanted on the court. International players are more fundamentally sound than our players at the offensive end, but they can’t match American players’ mental and physical versatility on the defensive end.
Tuesday night in the clincher, when the Celtics built a 23-point halftime lead, Garnett finally took full advantage of his freedom to roam the low post, scoring 17 first-half points on eight-of-12 shooting.
Gasol was overwhelmed. Phil Jackson tossed little-used reserve Ronny Turiaf on the court, trying to give the Lakers some in-the-paint toughness and energy. It was too Turiaf, too late. Boston was off and not to be denied.
I changed my return flight from Friday to this morning at halftime. Boston’s commitment to defense made a Lakers rally an impossibility. You don’t cough up 20-point leads when the identity of your team is defense.
Nope, offensive teams blow 24-point leads, because offensive teams have shooting slumps. Defense is pretty slump-proof. It’s dependent on effort.
Boston’s effort was superior in this series from the opening tip. Boston’s best player (Pierce) asked to guard Kobe Bryant in the second half of game four. Pierce didn’t shut down Kobe. The significance was that Pierce wanted the challenge of defending Kobe. Pierce bought into the message Doc Rivers preached all season.
“We play defense, we’re going to win a world championship,” Rivers said he told his team during their first meeting. “And that’s exactly what they did. They were phenomenal all year. They played like a team all year.”
To reach Jason Whitlock, call 816-234-4869 or send e-mail to jwhitlock@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com
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