No Complaining…Just the FACTS.

I hate blaming the refs. So I won’t do it. It’s true, the Lakers lost that game, and that’s that. But I would like to provide a little bit of information for all the Celtics fans who say that their team was the more aggressive in the paint.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/shotchart?gameId=280608002

http://www.sportsline.com/nba/gamecenter/shotchart/NBA_20080608_L

Check either of these websites and the shot chart tells the story.
30 of the Lakers 83 shots were layups or dunks or right inside the paint. Boston had 18. If you consider the fact that they had a number of 2-shot shooting fouls, seventeen to the Lakers three, than you can safely assume that many of those were near the basket (since, the Celtics played “so” much more aggressively). In fact, just for the sake of argument, we’ll say that all of those shots were layups or dunks (which, of course is not necessarily the case). The Lakers two instances, were in fact, on layups (Kobe and Fish).

That gives both the Lakers and Celtics 32 shots at the rim. Of those 32, 16 were shot by Odom and/or Pau. They had a combined, grandiose total of 1 foul shot. One…

The Lakers outscored the Celtics in the paint 40 to 32.

Crap, I try and pride myself on writing fairly unbiased posts. I try, despite the fact that I am indeed a Lakers fan. But As I write this, I can’t any longer try and justify that the Lakers didn’t get hosed in the foul department.

I’ve read many posts by Celtics fans (including ESPN’s Bill Simmons who said the Cs played “perfect” bball) who believe that the Celtics simply outplayed the Lakers.

They say that the Celtics played more aggressively, were the better team.

The stats don’t tell that same story. Granted, stats don’t tell everything, but they are a good indicator of success.

The Lakers had less turnovers 13 to the Celtics 15. The Lakers had one less rebound 36-37, but did have one more offensive rebound 11-10. The Celtics shot 53 percent to the Lakers 49 percent, but took 15 less shots. The Lakers capitalized on all of their 10 freethrows, while the Celtics missed 11 of their 38. Think about that, the Celtics missed more freethrows than the Lakers took. That's ridiculous.

The Celtics did have terrific ball movement (31 dimes on 36 field goals), so it seemed as if their offense was so much more dominant. It really wasn’t.

In fact, the only other thing that the Celtics did better than the Lakers was shoot 3 pointers at a scalding 64 percent, though, it must be noted that 48 percent is not too shabby from the Lakeshow either.

That is not “outplaying” the Lakers by any stretch of the imagination. The only benefit the Celtics seemed to have was the freethrow discrepancy. In fact, it’s pretty amazing that the Lakers only lost by 6 points despite shooting 28 less freethrows. 28!

And for those people who want to point to the Jazz series, ask any player around the league how Jazz players, how Jerry Sloan-coached teams, play—hard and physical. And, if I do recall, that’s exactly how Paul Pierce said they were going to play against Kobe, that that’s the kind of team these Celtics are.

They play aggressive, physical defense.

Fine. Kobe didn’t get aggressive (perhaps because of the 2 very, very early, ticky-tack fouls) until the fourth quarter. He didn’t attack the rim and didn’t deserve any of the flop calls he was trying to get. But Pau Gasol? Lamar Odom? Those guys were getting hammered, absolutely hammered with the body, slapped on the forearms, elbowed and such and got one freethrow between them. On the flipside, Odom had 5 fouls. KG? 1.

It’s laughable really.

In fact, I would say that Pau outplayed KG and could’ve really outplayed him if he would have gotten, I don’t know, a couple more fouls. Pau shot 8-12 to KG’s 7-19. KG outrebounded him by 3, but also had 4 turnovers to Pau’s 1. And Pau had 4 assists to KG’s 3. Both had a steal, and KG had a block. KG shot 3 more freethrows despite shooting 17 jumpers. Gasol took 2 jumpers, both of which he made. The rest of his shot attempts were right underneath the basket.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it sure seems like the Lakers got screwed. I still say they win this series, but they need to get more calls—scratch that, any calls. Lakers in five was a premature ejaculation on my part. I was so convinced they were going to roll over the Celtics.

I just didn’t expect the more “aggressive” and “physical” team to have a whopping 73 to 38 edge at the line.