Mavs Finish Off Lakers with 122-86 Undressing
This series kinda reminded me of The Fall of the Roman Empire, only faster. Ends of eras are a bitch, aren’t they? Heck, losing is the easy part. Even if you lose by 36 points. No, it’s being embarrassed, humiliated, humbled. It’s being kicked to the ground by a kid who you thought was “soft,” then having him take your brown bag lunch and walk off with your girlfriend.
While everyone laughs.
During the last few years, when the Lakers were riding high, their reputation for arrogance was firmly established—spoiled rich kids whose daddy could afford better equipment and brand new uniforms. Now that they look pitiful, exposed, they are at least sympathetic.
First things first. Phil Jackson retires as the most successful coach in NBA history. Those records of his will be around for a few eons. I’m thinking of the 11 championships. So nice career, Phil! I’ve never been a huge fan, mostly because he always had the best team and that prevented me from giving him his due. My bad.
I don’t think he coached well this year. For one thing, he tired out his team during the last week of the regular season while jockeying for the #2 spot. The Mavs decided to risk losing the #2 spot and rest their top players even though it probably meant playing the dangerous #6 Trailblazers instead of the relatively weak #7 Hornets. The Mavs figured a rested team is better prepared to win no matter who it plays, and they were so right. By playing all of the starters 30-40 minutes during that last week or so, the Lakers succeeded in tying the Mavs, both finishing at 57-15, and won the tiebreaker with the better head-to-head record (2-1). And, boy, did they pay a heavy price for it.
The Lakers were tired!
Despite the ups and downs, they had a fine season. Every franchise would salivate at a 57-15 season. But like Ron Artest’s abortive dunk last night, the Lakers couldn’t finish. Over the last three seasons, the Lakers have played 77 playoff games, nearly another full season! Phil misjudged his team badly, especially with eight guys on the roster over 30 years old. He should’ve done what the Mavs did–given the subs a lot of playing time and rested his aging beat-up stars. And it’s not like the Lakers covered themselves with glory by beating the Hornets. So why not face the Blazers right away. The Blazers should’ve been Phil’s preference.
Phil also seemed to lose his hold on the team. The dissension, finger-pointing, “trust issues,” scapegoating and general headtripping somehow couldn’t be stopped long enough to play ball. The yada-yada during timeouts between Phil and Bynum and between Phil and Pau seemed so out of character for a mild-mannered guy in his last hurrah as a coach. Poking Pau in the chest?
The 57-15 record obscured a lot of problems–Bynum missing a lot of early games because he got his offseason surgery much later than he should have, the Khloe & Lamar dealie-bop, Artest’s subpar year, Kobe’s ongoing “to overshoot or not to overshoot” dilemma, Pau suddenly perceived as “soft,” Derrick Caracter getting popped for shoplifting T-shirts while the team is in New Orleans during a playoff game, Matt Barnes’ idiotic twitter to his “homies” that, because the Mavs were so soft, the Lakers were going to “punk” them. The Lakers–veterans, champions—immature?
And I have to call out Magic Johnson for telling Jerry Buss to “blow this team up.” The Lakers were down three games to none but it wasn’t over yet. Magic should’ve stifled that sentiment until the series was over. Not that he was wrong, but as a Laker executive he should’ve shown more restraint. No, a team has never come back from three straight losses but there’s always a first time, and Magic’s words couldn’t have inspired the players to feel that this was that time.
The Mavs shot 60%. Unheard of. Their 3-point shooting was 63% (20-32). They scored 60 points on 3-pointers, almost exactly half of their total points. Jason Terry hit 9 out of 10 3-pointers. Stojakovic hit all six of his 3-point attempts. Unreal.
The route was on from about the middle of the second quarter.
The Lakers shot 38% from the field, 5-24 on 3-pointers. Bynum had six points in 31 minutes on 2-7 shooting, six rebounds and one assist. Kobe had 17 points on 7-18 shooting with one assist in 37 minutes.
Pau Gasol led the team with six assists. Two other guys—Artest and Shannon Brown—had two assists each. Six other players had one each. Sixteen Assists. (The Mavs had 32 assists on their 44 field goals.) I could go on but the worst of the worst was two-fold: A) the shoddy, lazy and ridiculous defensive effort. Very bad. B) the cheap-shot takedowns by Odom and Bynum. Both occurred in the 4th quarter with the Lakers down by more than 30 points. It will take awhile for this Laker team to live down those two acts, and let’s not forget a similar one by Artest, for which he was suspended, which caused him to miss Game Three.
Or maybe it won’t take that long to live down because this roster is toast. They will have a hard time dealing some of those awkward contracts—especially Artest’s and Steve Blake’s. But Mitch Kupchak will try. Pau Gasol won’t be so hard to deal, even though he still has almost $60 million and three years left on his contract. True, he didn’t have a good series but most teams will be able to figure out why and won’t make the same mistake. Odom’s contract–$17 mil and two more years—make him rather easy to deal and that alone may make it happen.
Someone mentioned that if the Mavs go on to win the NBA title, the Lakers’ loss won’t seem so bad. That would’ve been true if Game Four had been lost respectably. It wasn’t.
Can’t wait to see what the post-Jackson era will look like.
Addendum: I forgot to mention the following Phil Jackson quote the morning after in an LA Times article by Broderick Turner: “I was talking to Kobe and we both agreed it was better to lose now than to get to the NBA Finals and lose.” Turner had no comment but I’ve got to say “Oh, really?” at the very least. Surely the greatest coach and the greatest player of the last decade understand that losing in the Finals to the championship team is still a great achievement. Better to get swept in the second round? Wow, that’s a rare form of post-game denial.