Celtics/Lakers Game 1 Halftime Notes
Green Stripe Beer* Two of the Dime crew are at the Garden as we speak, and they’re telling us the atmosphere is bananas. (Exhibit A: the bottle pictured to the left.) Upwards of 50 variations of Celtics and “Beat L.A.” shirts were seen in the building pre-game, people with faces painted and green wigs, plus one guy rocking an Xavier McDaniel C’s jersey that might have actually been X-Man himself.
* In our Finals predictions from earlier today, Andrew said the point guard matchup between Derek Fisher and Rajon Rondo would be huge. At the moment Fish is leading the Lakers with 13 points, and Rondo has 10 points, making the Lakers pay for basically not guarding him.
* The Celtics were back-rimming a lot of their early jumpers. A sign of them being a little too jacked up to start? After a while they got it under control and settled into a more focused rhythm.
* If Sasha Vujacic really can’t guard Ray Allen (he got lit up for a couple early jumpers), that’s going to be a huge problem for the Lakers. Kobe already has to switch onto Paul Pierce alot, because Radmanovic can’t guard him either. They can’t afford to have whoever Kobe isn’t guarding consistently going off. Phil Jackson might take these first two games to try out a ton of different matchups and see what works and what doesn’t.
* Meanwhile, Pierce and Ray did a great job on Kobe defensively (8 pts, 3-for-10 FG’s), and then James Posey came in — the actual lock-down specialist — and looked too slow to hang with him.
* Is Doc Rivers going to continue to put Kendrick Perkins on Lamar Odom? In the first quarter Odom had an open jumper and Perk’s best move was to raise his arms despite being about 15 feet away from him. Doc’s fancies himself a defensive coach — he might wanna do something about that.
* KG didn’t seem to be feeling James Taylor on the national anthem. Garnett was sweating like he was in a sauna and bopping his head as if he was listening to a Beats By The Pound joint that was three times faster than Taylor’s pace.
* The Celtics really need to figure out how to guard the pick-and-roll in the second half, otherwise L.A. will extend this 51-46 lead and Kobe might go off.
June 5th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Yoooo says:
Larry Bird/ Magic split screen commercial wasn’t a good look. They look way too old.
Lakers too good man. Celtics can be competitive but I don’t see them winning this series
June 5th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
MoxWestCoastRep says:
Kobe hasn’t done squat and the lakers are up 5?!
Watch out for the Mamba take over in the 2nd half.
Lakers cruise, win by 12
June 5th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Andrew says:
The Celtics Bud Light looks extra delicious. Is the Jager in the back also decorated with Celtic regalia?!
June 5th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
JOB33 says:
Yeah i’m sitting here at work listening to the Finals on ESPN radio and watch the gamecast on and noticed that the picture they have for P.J. Brown still in his Bulls? uniform(was that the last team he played for). You’d think ESPN would at least have updated the picture.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Dennis Castro says:
Oh my god, Paul Pierce is an American hero! I can’t believe he actually had the courage to come back! ABC’s knob slobbing is getting to epic, stab myself in the eye proportions.
Holy f*ck that was annoying. And how funny was it when no one clapped for Perkins. If Perkins got a standing O, he would have probably thought the O was a donut and tried to eat it.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
MoxWestCoastRep says:
Fuck!!!!
June 6th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Remy Nguyen says:
Kobe was not himself. He better get his ass out of his ass.