Lakers-Celtics Game 5: A (Reluctant) Review

Anybody who tells you jury duty is fun is lying through their teeth…and through their nose…but mostly just through their mouth. I woke up at 7:12 AM this morning and returned at 6:52 PM, even though the court house closed at 4:30 PM. But, to my extreme elation, I went unselected in the only draft wherein that is smiled upon by the undrafted specimen. After sitting through the preliminary procedures of four different trials and watching more than 200 names being pulled at random out of a box no bigger than a birdhouse, I felt like I had run across a battlefield infested with flying bullets and come out the other side completely unscathed. Then I looked back and saw the Los Angeles Lakers. They were all down.

Game 5 of the 2010 NBA Finals will forever live in infamy for Lakers fans, as well as anti-Celtics fans like me. It was, without question, one of the worst collaborative performances I have ever seen on a basketball court. And that was just the broadcast team (again, I apologize about the sudden change in font. I still have NO idea how to fix it).

I started taking notes just before halftime when Rajon Rondo pushed (I cannot emphasize that verb enough. PUSHED.) Ron Artest after the mercurial former defensive player of the year issued a hard foul on Kevin Garnett. Upon witnessing this PUSH, Jeff Van Gundy claimed that Rondo barely touched Artest—who, just so you don’t think I’m completely biased, flopped in such a way that made Vlade Divac’s renowned histrionics look Oscar-worthy—and then continued to insist this was the case despite multiple replays showing a deliberate PUSH and Mike Breen and Mark Jackson’s pointing the PUSH out to the visionless Van Gundy. Finally, the former Knick head coaching legend conceded, but only after five minutes of ludicrous conjecture. I still love you, JVG, but please, never do that again (the rest of this blog is going to make the sudden jump into journal form. Please stay calm).

-Just before halftime, Paul Pierce appears to be disgruntled as Rondo shuns him by moving the ball in the other direction away from the former Kansas Jayhawk so that someone else can take the final shot before the end of the second quarter. Pierce is immediately questioned by Doris Burke as to why he was so upset, to which the self-proclaimed best player in the NBA ardently and defensively responded “I wasn’t upset!” Three times. Thrice. He was definitely upset.

-Highlight as the halftime show returns depicts Rondo feeding Pierce for a layup. Pretty standard stuff except that Pierce blatantly takes two steps without dribbling the basketball before putting it in (Again, just so you don’t think I’m completely biased, Lamar Odom would later in the game complete the most blatant travel in NBA history never to be called, when he appeared to take at least eight steps toward the basket before attempting a floater. Don’t laugh, LeBron. You get away with this EVERY TIME YOU TOUCH A BASKETBALL).

-The Lakers are not smart with the basketball. Especially Gasol, who finally rebounds the ball, only to turn it over to Garnett in the Celtics’ zone. It is this recurring play that will eventually come to epitomize the series for Los Angeles.

-I’m starting to think the Celtics are just better shooters than the Lake Show, and with their field goal percentage at 97 tonight, they have the stat to back up this thought. I also wrote that the Lakers just look nervous. What happened since Game 3? Ironically, I watched none of it, having passed out on my couch. Has this ever happened to anyone else? Whenever you watch a certain team they ALWAYS perform poorly. Maybe I’ll take Game 6 off and give L.A. a chance. Not that it’ll make a difference for these boys in purple who are personifying Chuckie from Rugrats beautifully.

-Odom missed two consecutive free throws. It’s a free throw. There is NO ONE guarding you. Make the shots please, Lamar. You, too, EVERY OTHER LAKER.

-Has Rasheed Wallace made every three he has taken this series? And why have they all been from the top of the key? Why couldn’t he have just stayed with the Hawks for more than a day?

-Every time I think the Lakers are going to spark a come back, they do something stupid—i.e. Gasol’s pass to Farmer that resulted in a backcourt violation. Fun stuff. REALLY fun stuff.

-Kobe’s one-handed floater. There can be no question that he is the best player in the NBA. That’s right. It’s Kobe Bryant. Not you, Paul Pierce. Thanks for playing though.

-Nate Robinson makes a layup in more space than OUTER SPACE, and then Odom gets mad at Sasha Vujačić, for, well, probably being Sasha Vujačić. Both are guilty of appalling defensive jobs on that play.

-As a Knicks fan, I’m not even sure how I should feel about Nate Robinson’s spontaneously admirable play. Where the hell was it when he played for New York? While I’m happy for the man who was known more for his dunking and jarring in the Big Apple, I’m not happy for him at all. In fact, I think I might even resent him. And the Shrek-Donkey thing might be the end of me.

-81-73 Boston and Paul Pierce just missed the easiest lay-up in NBA history. Was it divine intervention? Could the Lakers really be coming back finally?!?! Of course not. It’s the Lakers.

-The Lakers must be the worst team in the NBA at passing the basketball immediately after grabbing a defensive rebound. Gasol just turned it over again.

-Oh good. A Celtics fan just threw something onto the court as Kobe was taking a free throw. Class acts, these Boston fans. And most of them have been loyal fans through and through. Sorry, by through and through I mean ever since they acquired KG and Ray Allen. I guarantee you most of the people in the building have no idea who Gerald Green is or was.

-Artest breakaway! And...!...instead of dunking it for an and-one he cowers away like a frightened child? At least he gets a couple of shots from the charity stripe though…and he missed them both. That’s a lot of fun isn’t it?

-The inbounds play to seal the win. The only question I ask is this: how many kids in Massachusetts are going be practicing the Rajon Rondo shot at recess tomorrow afternoon?

I had an epiphany last night while I was watching the Lakers put on their biennial clinic of awfulness: I am more passionate about Boston teams losing than I am about my New York teams winning, and I think that’s a problem. It’s a problem because as Boston finished off the Lakers with their epic inbounds play exquisitely executed and finished off by Rondo, I realized that I had put my hatred of one team above the game itself. In other words, my being prejudiced against the Celtics was causing me to miss the beauty of the sport itself: i.e. the Rondo finger-roll. So on the eve of the Celtics’ 18^th NBA Championship, I would like to apologize to Boston and its fans and say to them tonight that the Celtics are a much better team than the Lakers, and they play the game the right way: with focus, with zeal, with energy, and with aplomb (I’m making myself puke as I type this). And to Lakers fans, make sure you check out the first line of Sammy Adams’ newest track: Hey L.AAAAAAAAAAAAA.!!!!!!!….you’ve been makin’ me ANGRAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!! July 1 can’t come soon enough.