Comebacks are always described as "thrilling" -- and for Laker fans, they traditionally have been. The first Kobe-Shaq championship was triggered by an epic and thrilling 4th quarter, Game 7 comeback against a powerful Trailblazer team. The Lakers' latest championship happened because they made a thrilling 4th quarter, Game 7 comeback against the hated Celtics. Countless other times over the last decade, Laker fans enjoyed comebacks punctuated by Robert Horry 3s, DFish's 0.4s, Pao tip-ins, and Kobe theatrics -- all of which were thrilling.
We learned this past week that being on the wrong side of a comeback is anything but thrilling.
Laker fans have been spoiled -- when the Lakers have lost in the past decade, they have gotten blown out. Suns in Game 7, Celtics in Game 6 in Boston, Dallas last year. While those were humiliating and embarrassing, they were not devastating or heart-breaking. Nothing is as bad as having the win in hand, thinking "we about to win the series", "we are about to take home-court advantage", "we are about to even the series" -- and then blowing the big lead, every player blaming himself for that one play -- the missed free throw, the turnover, the brick, and every fan knowing they jinxed the team by having those "what we will do when we win" thoughts too soon. To all of you Celtics, Spurs, Mavs, Suns, Kings fans who have been on the wrong side of Laker comebacks: I feel your pain.
On second thought, strike the reference to any sympathy to Celtics fans -- you deserve all you get. See, for instance, http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Other thoughts:
1. We were all wrong. We thought the Lakers couldn't beat the Thunder. These comeback losses are so painful because the Lakers looked like they were equal to, if not better than, the Thunder. The Game 3 win was obviously fluky -- no team should be able to shoot 98% or whatever from the free throw line like the Lakers did. And why wasn't the headline the next day "Charity Begins at Home"? (You know, the "charity stripe"). Even with that, and tossing out Game 1 because of the rested young team against the tired older team, the Lakers out-played the Thunder in the two they lost, and played them even in the Charity Stripe game. And no one predicted that.
2. Unlike the Spurs - Clips theory, where someone (me) predicted a sweep (correctly). Even last night, when the Spurs didn't play that well, they wound up shooting 53% from the floor and 40% from 3, and now get to rest.
3. Speaking of predictions, Lebron predicted 6 titles for the Heat. Yesterday, they were down at halftime, on the road, in danger of going down 3 - 1, which would have likely meant going 0 for 2 on crowns since Lebron took his talents to South Beach. Instead, a thrilling/devastating comeback. Think about how good a game Lebron had -- 40 points, 18 boards and 9 assists. The 9 assists amazes because other than DWade, the guys he passes to aren't good enough to score. Other than the Big Two, the Heat went 11 for 30. Lebron and DWade combined for 15 assists -- the rest of the team had only 11 BASKETS for the entire game. As a statistician may say, that is not sustainable. Luckily for the Heat, they are in the Leastern Conference, with their main threat (the Bulls) gone.
4. In coaching parlance, the Lakers' fourth quarter offense continues to "suck" and the "suckiness" increases as the time diminishes in the quarter. They do nothing. They run no plays. They do not move. And because they do not move, they do not make shots, and when they miss, they do not get offensive boards: It is easy for the defender to block out his man when that man has just stood there watching Kobe for the last five or ten seconds. Even if Mike Brown has decided that the best offense is Kobe going one on one, he should have the other guys moving around and screening for each other, so that the defenders have to worry about getting screened and one of the Lakers just might have a chance to be inside his man and tip in the miss. And if Kobe decides to pass it, the player will be engaged enough to do the right thing with the ball. Unlike Gasol's terrible pass. (Even with everything else, Lakers are likely up 3-1 or tied 2-2 if their two best players hadn't thrown two of the worst passes ever.) Damn, it is frustrating to watch. (And it is not all Kobe's fault -- Brown ran the same 4th quarter offense with Lebron in Cleveland.) Watch the Spurs. Everyone moves, everyone is a threat, everyone is looking to set a screen and free a teammate, and everyone is fully engaged. Perhaps Pop is a better coach than Mike Brown.
5. Continuing the rant. Durant and Westbrook generally did not cover Kobe in the 4th quarter. That meant that while Kobe was using all that energy trying to score, Durant and Westbrook were resting. Anyone else think that the ability to rest on D might have been part of the explanation for their ability to make shots down the stretch?
6. Why did the Lakers-Thunder have to play back-to-back Friday and Saturday? That may partially explain the Lakers running out of gas the last 6 minutes on Saturday. The explanation given by the NBA was that because the Lakers - Denver went 7 games, this series had to be squeezed into less days. Riddle me this Batman -- how does that explanation comport with the fact that Lakers - Thunder Game 6 is scheduled for Wednesday, with Game 7 scheduled for Sunday, with three full days off between Game 6 and 7, and no games anywhere set for Friday night?
7. Laker fans have been spoiled in another way. Since 2000, Lakers have won about half the championships. The Spurs won most of the others. In each of the those years, every other team has lost its last game. Everyone except the champion cries in the locker room at the end of the last game. (March Madness may be worse -- 63 of the 64 teams lose their last game, and for many players, it is the last meaningful game they will ever play.) In this way, sports is like life -- no one gets out alive.
Though in sports, that one winning team gets its own version of immortality. Kind of like this moment (just so the Kings fans know I haven't forgotten them) -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?
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