“Well, that wasn’t the prettiest basketball game I’ve ever seen in my life,’’ said Lakers mentor Phil Jackson. “But it was a good win for us.’’
Kobe Bryant had his nightly 30 points, but he is now at such a level that it could be described as routine, almost ceremonial (the last 3 were the game’s final basket with 3.6 seconds left). Kobe was Kobe, but the Celtics could live with that Kobe for six more games. What they can’t live with is a repeat of the dazzling performance put on by Kobe Bryant’s faithful Tonto, the estimable Pau Gasol.
The elegant Spaniard, not the fiery Kobe, was the clear Man of the Match with 23 points, 14 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 blocks, numbers that are nice on which to hang one’s hat, but which don’t begin to explain his enormous impact on this game. It wasn’t so much that he totally outplayed Kevin Garnett, although he did. It was that he outplayed the entire Boston front line en masse, giving the Lakers a welcome inside presence that made up for any issues they might have had in this tedious game.
The game was an eyesore for any neutral observer because referees Joe Crawford, Joe DeRosa (marking his return to action after being suspended for that silly ball-tossing incident in Orlando), and Derrick Stafford apparently had cut a side deal with somebody in which they got paid by the call. It wasn’t so much favoring one team or the other. Both sides had completely legitimate beefs. Both teams had key players on the bench far too long with bogus fouls. What their tight control of the game did was eliminate any possibility of a nice flow.
In such a game, somebody has to make something happen on their own. Last night, that team was the Lakers. They were able to get the ball to Gasol, and even when they couldn’t, he would find a way to get it himself. The Lakers had an astounding, and eye-opening, and humiliating 16-0 edge in second-chance points, and it seemed as if Gasol had a hand in all of them (which, of course, he didn’t).
“I hadn’t analyzed the box [score] before I was run out here,’’ Jackson said, “but 16-0 in second-chance points is pretty remarkable . . . that was a big part of the game.’’
