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^{(AP Photo/Winslow Townson)}
 

Los Angeles 88, Boston 98

Series thus far: Boston 1-0

1. The Buck Stops With Pierce

I firmly believe that Boston's postseason prospects took a dramatic leap forward when Paul Pierce went off for a monster performance in Game 7 of the Eastern semis versus Cleveland. Up to that point, the Celtics unbelievably still hadn't sorted out a pecking order for their offense.

I've generally been contemptuous of the way ex-players who do color commentary on NBA games, especially in the playoffs, constantly focus on pushing the alpha status of the stars, or, conversely, blaming those same stars when they aren't expanding that alpha profile to (in my view) too lopsided and thus predictable levels. But the greater point they are trying to emphasize is legitimate, and particularly acute on the Celts: There needs to be a consensus on the crunchtime assassin, the player considered first as you sort through your options. That doesn't mean the assassin takes the shot: He might be the decision-maker, or merely the effective decoy. But as things get increasingly tight and emotionally chaotic, you don't want three or four players thinking they are The Man, and, perhaps worse, all the role players unsure about how they prioritize their trustworthy options on offense.

I don't tend to watch a lot of coverage directly before or after games, so it is fortunate that I was able to catch what became for me a revealing interview with the Celts' "Big 3" right before the Atlanta series. The best question was simultaneously put to all three at once: If the game is on the line, who takes the last shot? Garnett and Pierce both said Ray Allen at precisely the same time--and at the same time Allen himself was saying Whoever has the best look. But then Allen went through his wretched shooting slump, and besides, as longtime go-to guys on their respective teams, Pierce and KG themselves didn't seem totally certain about how they pecking order lay. But then Pierce, despite the enormously taxing assignment of guarding LeBron, went off for 41 in a series clincher that blatantly carried the Celts to victory, the kind of performance that turns a player who is a crunchtime contender into the crunchtime assassin in the eyes of his teammates and, hopefully, himself. It was huge for Pierce, and huge for the Celts.

In retrospect, Boston was lucky to be able to survive in the postseason for so long before this role-defining performance. Part of it was that Atlanta and to some extent Cleveland just wasn't capable enough to capitalize. But let's give the bulk of the credit where it is due: Boston's defense covers for a multitude of their offensive sins. In fact, I'd argue that the phenomenal democracy, teamwork and ego-less trust in each other required to play the sort of suffocating D Boston deploys probably was a factor in their inability to create a pecking order at the other end of the court. Great defenses have no pecking order--they are, as the mostly accurate cliche goes, only as strong as their weakest link.

Now this alpha-dog thing can also get overblown, which is why I get impatient with Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley leaning on it for so much of their analysis. I'd argue that Kobe Bryant's ability to ratchet back his alpha tendencies played a huge role in the Lakers' revitalization this season, for example. But I don't think it can be overlooked that the Celts are a much more dangerous team now that it is clear that Pierce is the straw that stirs the drink for them on offense. We saw it in the clinching Game Six against Detroit, and we saw it last night in the all-important (for the underdog Celts, anyway) Game One of the NBA Finals.

By now, many of you are wondering how I'm overlooking Kevin Garnett. Granted, KG's break the gates in an aggressive and highly efficient and effective manner on offense gave Boston a great boost and launched their Finals with noteworthy confidence. And to clarify, I'm hardly knocking KG--I picked him as the league MVP (it was a mental tie with Kobe; you can go back in my archives and read the tortuous prose). But that's because Garnett was the league's greatest difference-maker on the most important end of the court--the defensive side. As a career 20 ppg scorer, KG is no slouch on offense, obviously--for one thing, he is a criminally underrated midrange jumpshooter. But, as has been said many times, whether in criticism, confusion, exasperation or resignation, Garnett does not have the natural temperament to be the assassin on offense--he's too selfiless, too legitimately team-oriented, and, by now, both too inexperienced for someone of his NBA tread (I think Bill Simmons initially made that point) and too laden with controversy (a la T-Mac) about his ability or lack of ability to handle the role. Bottom line, when Garnett missed eight shots in a row down the stretch last night, it wasn't a psychological buzz-kill for the Celts. But if Pierce had been missing those relatively open looks? Yeah, I think the concern would have been heightened.

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, I also chafe at the melodramatization of merely piquant or poignant moments. Thus the Pierce-LeBron shootout had to be anointed as a Bird-Dominique redux and Pierce's return to the court after his unfounded fears that he had seriously injured his knee was hailed in terms only slightly less hyped than the great Willis Reed legend. So let's remember two facts: Pierce was sidelined with the knee injury for a grand total of 1:45--just 105 seconds--during which time the Celts outscored the Lakers 6-0. So, yes, losing Pierce for the rest of the game, let alone the series, would have been a steep challenge for Boston to overcome, but the net effect of the whole thing was great bonus to the Celts--players have sat because of foul trouble a lot longer than Pierce was in the locker room, so his actual absence was negligible in terms of court time, yet the psychological advantage of first facing the prospect of going into crunchtime without your assassin, and then having that daunting prospect suddenly vanish was all mental gravy. Cap that with Pierce bookending his injury with the mini-explosion to start the second half and the pair of treys that, to me, permanently shifted the momentum of the game over to Boston. For the third quarter, it rang up as 15 points on 5-5 FGs, two dimes, a rebound, steal and turnover in 9:27. It was Kobe-esque.

(Update: For those of you who usually don't read the comments, I urge you to scroll down at least this once and check out the rebuttal from reader drza44--at 3:19 on 6/6--who argues that if anyone is the Celts' crunchtime alpha scorer, it is Garnett, not Pierce. It's an argument more grounded in factual reality than the one I just offered.)

2. In Praise of Celtic Defense

Of the 15 players who attempted more than one field goal, 12 missed over half their shots. The accurate players? Pierce, who was incredibly efficient with 22 points on only ten shots (7-10 FG). But the other two, at 6-11 FG apiece, were Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. That's because the Celtics were determined to pressure the perimeter and the midrange between the arc and paint, a strategy that worked beautifully. I frankly don't know if Tom Thibodeau is the defensive genius he's reputed to be or whether Doc Rivers is unfairly shortchanged, but it is obvious that having a veteran team that hasn't won very often--an experienced, yet hungry team, in other words--is a great recipe for being to execute supple, seemingly complicated defensive sets and rotations with a minimum of blown assignments. I mean, Ray Allen is nobody's idea of a quality defender, but I counted at least three times when Kobe was spinning away from his man and turned right into a rotating Allen on the double team--twice it caused him to alter his shot. The Celtics defended the perimeter with dogged help for each other and they anticipated rather than reacted to Kobe off the dribble--kudos to whoever logged the film time to divine his tendencies and figure out ways to deter it. Kobe shot 9-26 FG and no more than a handful of those attempts were easy. It was a rugged night for the MVP, and I'd wager that in the next game or two he is going to be a lot more aggressive at drawing the foul rather than trying to get clear. When it comes to disarming assassins, how does a pair of free throws in the final 11:48 of this ballgame sound in terms of shutting Kobe down? Two points. Zero field goals after twelve seconds were gone in the fourth period.

Meanwhile, even without Kobe's 0-3 from behind the arc, the rest of the Lakers went 3-11 3pt FG. Contrast that with the Celts' 6-19 and the free throw disparity (28-35 versus 21-28) and that's the ballgame in a contest where the overall field goal percentage was a virtual tie (32-76 for the Celts, 32-77 for the Lakers).

Boston's luxury of not having to double either Gasol or Odom also has something to do with their superb perimeter and midrange defensive activity--the personnel is there. But the schemes were likewise very impressive. In fact, after watching Detroit miss a bevy of open looks in the previous series, I'd figured the Lakers' ball movement to be a huge advantage for this series. And it still may work out that way as the teams inevitably keep adjusting to each other. But Boston's team defense--I'll hand out an individual kudo or two in the next point--was simply marvelous in its forethought and coordination.

3. Kudos and Brickbats

How good was PJ Brown on Gasol after Kendrick Perkins got dinged and in foul trouble in the second half? The best bench guys deepen the personification of their team's identity and Brown, as well as Posey, definitely qualify: They are fundamentally rock-solid, defense-first, emotionally intense yet relatively unflappable players.

On the other end, what idiot was lauding the backcourt depth of this Lakers team just the other day? I didn't like the decision-making of Vujacic and Farmar in the previous postseason series but couldn't argue with the overall results. But watching Sasha bomb away, and clank, while a frustrated Kobe called for the ball with the Celts up just 90-85 with 2:34 to play, crystallized a game's worth of bad backup play from the gold and purple.

Actually there wasn't much backup guard out of the Lakers yesterday, was there? I guess I understand why Phil Jackson flipped Kobe over on to Sam Cassell after Sammy got hot on Derek Fisher in the first half--a temporary solution for a temporary brushfire--but why was Kobe picking up Cassell during Cassell's second-half rotation? Why not use Jordan Farmar for more than 7:11--at least let Cassell post Farmar up once or twice and see what happens. Because meanwhile, if Farmar could pick up where he left off offensively in the San Antonio series, Cassell would have been in a heap of trouble. Personally, I think the law of averages says that at this point in his career Cassell will follow a boon with a drought, which happened, as we saw, and would have with Fisher or Vujacic or probably even Farmar on him.