NBA Finals News Roundup — Part Three

ESPN

• Daily Dimes
  • June 8th — Game Recap for Game Two — click here
  • June 9th — Pre Game Three News — click here
  • June 10th — Game Three Post Game Coverage — Rafer redeems himself — click here
  • June 11th — Warm up for Game Four — click here

Some highlights from those articles

The Fatigue Factor For Kobe

Marc Stein, ESPN.com: Kobe’s gas tank.

I know he’s had a long year with almost no break after Beijing. I know he carries a huge, huge load and a big burden, too, trying to win this first post-Shaq title.

But I’ve got to be honest: Kobe’s fatigue has been a bigger story this postseason than I ever imagined, starting with that postgame interview when he was hunched over. Open displays of weariness and five missed free throws in a Finals game? From the NBA’s most maniacal gym rat?

Pau Gasol’s Touches

But just as the Lakers have a bad habit of forgetting to cover Rashard Lewis, they also tend to overlook their most efficient shooting option. Think the Magic hitting 62.5 percent of their shots in Game 3 was impressive? Gasol has done that over the entire series.He made 82 percent of his shots in Game 3 (9-of-11) … and that still didn’t qualify him to get the most shots on the team. Well, at least you can understand Kobe Bryant getting that honor. But Gasol didn’t even place. That spot went to Trevor Ariza, who took 13 shots in Game 3.

More ESPN articles

• Chris Broussard — Pressure doesn’t faze Pietrus — good article on Pietrus

Good recap of Pietrus’ game three performance

In a matchup with the earth’s greatest closer, Kobe Bryant, Orlando’s sixth man actually came out on top. Playing sticky defense on Bryant down the stretch, Pietrus helped hold the L.A. superstar to five fourth-quarter points on 2-of-6 shooting.

That by itself would’ve been plenty for coach Stan Van Gundy. But Pietrus provided a bonus, scoring 10 points in the fourth — more fourth-quarter points than any other player — to push the Magic to a 108-104 Game 3 victory that added some desired sizzle to these Finals.

But the soft-spoken Pietrus, who finished with 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting and added three steals, was not about to brag about his play against Kobe.

“I was just a lucky defender,” he said humbly. “I take no credit. You can always give yourself credit, but Thursday, he’s going to come out red-hot, so you can’t be giving yourself too much credit.

• Kobe Bryant and Courtney Lee heating up — Truehoop — click here

Nice words on Courtney’s efforts in the second half against Kobe

If he was tired, though, I wouldn’t wonder why. He had been extremely aggressive as a scorer and defender all first half. Then the 30-year-old Bryant waged a battle royale with 23-year-old Courtney Lee through the first eight minutes of the third quarter.

When Bryant caught the ball, instead of staying an arm’s length away, as many Magic defenders have, Lee got right up into Bryant’s rib cage. When Bryant drove, Lee worried more about preventing easy shots, and less about racking up fouls. (By the end of the quarter, Lee and Bryant would be the only two players in the game with as many as three fouls.) When Bryant posted up, Lee got low and used every bit of muscle he had to bump Bryant from his preferred spot.

After making eight of 15 in the first half, over the eight minutes of the third quarter, before Lee checked out for good, Bryant scored just two points, on free throws. Bryant fought and fought — into the post, around screens, through various sets. He touched the ball plenty, but didn’t even get a shot off during those eight minutes.

• No Golden Finishing Touch for Bryant — click here — Adande article
• Kareem criticizes Howard’s post game — click here

Kareem was quite complimentary about Howard’s defense and his rebounding, but less so on the offensive game

“He’s still offensively kind of raw,” Abdul-Jabbar said Wednesday. “He doesn’t have a go-to move yet. Right now, he’s kind of predictable.”

“Dwight is kind of limited offensively,” he said. “He does great right under the basket, you force him to do other things, he doesn’t have an answer for it yet. But I think that’s his challenge.”

Howard agrees

“Kareem is right, and he understands that in order to be a good player you have to add different things to your game,” Howard said. “I’ve tried to do the skyhook just like him, but he had more range and more touch. He was shooting skyhooks from the 3-point line, and I’m still working on it from the paint, so I’ve got a long way to go.”

• Kareem video — The Unstoppable Skyhook — click here
• More video — Game Four Preview — EA Virtual Playbook on Rashard Lewis — Magic On The Lookout for Kobe in Game 4 — Kareem’s Unbreakable Record

Forum Blue & Gold

Great articles and comments, as always, from Forum Blue & Gold.

• 2 Mo’ — click here
• Game Three Preview — click here
• The Practical Fan — click here
• Game Four Preview — click here

Yahoo Sports

• BDL’s Game Four Preview — click here
• Kobe Presses Issue While Running On Empty — click here — another Kobe is tired article

Here it was late in the fourth quarter, late in a Lakers comeback and Bryant was fighting fatigue, fighting himself. Bryant’s gone so hard, for so long, and maybe that’s an immense part of the reason Bryant was so hellbent on taking the life out of these Magic, the belief.Willing heart, wobbly legs.

Bryant tried to take it with a fury of fadeaway jumpers and long 3-pointers and magnificent drives, and it left him breathless on the back end of Game 3, left him gasping for air when he missed 11 of his final 15 shots and missed five free throws.

• Magic’s French Connection Doing Them Well — click here

“Obviously,” Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said, “the pressure doesn’t bother him at all.”

• Video — Barkley On Kobe’s + Phil’s Legacy
• Defining Pau Gasol’s martyrdom — click here — excellent article with some brilliant quotes from Pau Gasol. Well worth reading.
• LA Police Department already planning on Championship Victory Parade, after Lakers win the first two games.

SI.com

• Notebook: Gortat rules Poland — click here
• Phil: Lakers Defensive Lapses Must Be Fixed — click here

“We have to defend those guys,” Jackson said. “I thought that we were playing a little bit lax.”

“What they do is they execute well, and when they execute well, they give you an option,” Jackson said. “You either have to jam up the middle and hold up Howard, or else you have to give up an outside shot. Those are things that you have to make a choice between.

“It’s always about penetration, and if you get a team that’s making penetration either off the dribble or the pass, you’ll be in jeopardy. We have to slow that down, at least limit it at some level.”

Pay attention to that quote — “It’s always about dribble penetration.” — Orlando’s offense is predicated on dribble penetration, not post ups.

• Final’s TV Ratings Show Slippage — click here
• Magic battling dismal precedent – click here — Magic work hard to avoid going down 0-3
• Steve Aschburner — In A League Of Copycats, Magic & Lakers Will Be Hard To Duplicate — very good article, worth reading.
• Confidence Key To Shooting In Finals — click here

Fox Sports

• Burning Questions for Game Four — click here
• An article on Kobe failing in the clutch
• Charley Rosen — Magic Succeed With Speed

Lakers defenders bit on virtually every fake.

Their weak-side defense was nonexistent, with the Magic open on curls and pops all game long.

Their S/R defense was awful, with Andrew Bynum being one of the worst offenders.

Pau Gasol didn’t get enough shots (9-for-11) nor enough rebounds (3).

• Jason Whitlock — Howard and Alston Hold Key To Orlando Winning Series — click here

Sporting News

• Game Four Preview

Great quote from Kobe in that preview

On Wednesday, Bryant, who has been alternately surly and serene with the media throughout this series, took offense to the notion that he had “hit the wall” in the fourth quarter.

“As far as me hitting the wall, so what if I did?” Bryant wondered. “I didn’t, but so what if I did?”

What does it mean if you did?

“It means nothing,” he countered.

Because?

“Because I’ll run straight through it.”

• Alonzo Mourning — Bryant is the coach on the floor

“To tell you the truth, Phil doesn’t have to do anything but call time outs,” said Mourning, the former NBA star who helped lead the Miami Heat to the 2006 championship and twice was the league’s defensive player of the year.

“Kobe is the facilitator. He is the one driving the mission of this particular team right now,” Mourning said. “The communication level he has with his teammates out there, you can just see it.”

“I think Phil is just showing up, to tell you the truth, and Kobe is doing all the work to make this team successful.”

Shane Battier adds

Battier said Bryant has slowly risen to a new level since Shaquille O’Neal left the team in 2004.

“There’s been a lot said about Kobe and how important these finals are for him. I think it is finally his team,” he said. “He was always sort of Robin to Shaq’s Bat Man.”

“When you are the main catalyst on a team and you win a championship, it sets you apart. Kobe knows that. The basketball world knows that. It really is what is driving him at this point.”

Alonzo is pulling for the Magic to win

Mourning said he’s cheering for the Orlando Magic to bounce back from a 2-1 deficit Thursday night and win the title because of his long relationship with coach Stan Van Gundy and longtime friend Patrick Ewing. But he said he doesn’t see them pulling it off unless they step up their defense and especially clamp down on Bryant.

“Once you get to the finals you’ve got to establish a defensive presence and use your defense to stimulate your offense,” Mourning said.

“It sort of puzzles me with Stan because he was under the tutelage of Pat Riley, who is obviously a huge defensive advocate, that he would take a more aggressive approach, especially with the pick and roll play,” he said.

“When I see the way Orlando is playing that pick and roll, it is just ridiculous — slacking back on the screen and giving Kobe air space. You’ve got to get Kobe to turn his back on a hard trap, get the ball out of his hands and deny the ball back to him. By then, time is off the clock and somebody else has to make a decision. … I like Orlando’s chances if they play it that way.”

• Kobe insists he isn’t wearing down — click here
• Sean Deveney — Magic Players See Different Side of Van Gundy — click here

Fun start to the article

Calm, cool, collected. That’s Lakers coach Phil Jackson. Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy is, um, different. Asked after the Magic’s Game 3 win about his ability to keep his composure, he said, “I do not think in my entire life I’ve ever demonstrated composure, but thank you very much.”

It continues with some good quotes from the players

“It took a while to get used to, with all the yelling and screaming, and him being a firecracker coach,” said Orlando forward Rashard Lewis. “When he talks, it almost sounds like he’s yelling. He doesn’t mean anything by it, it’s just how he coaches. You can’t take it personally. You’ve just got to listen to him, and kind of let it go through one ear. Sometimes you might have to block it out a little bit. He’s not doing it on purpose, it’s just the way he coaches the game.”

“I think now he has a clearer understanding of the different personalities as a head coach as opposed to being an assistant, and I think he’s adjusted to that,” said Orlando point guard Rafer Alston, who played for Van Gundy in Miami. “I think down in Miami he had us all as the same person, and he came to find out that Dwyane Wade was totally different from Rafer Alston and Rafer Alston is totally different from Lamar Odom and so on. That’s one way I see his adjustment from then until now.”

And while most of us see Van Gundy as a somewhat hyper, frequently self-effacing and generally very, very loud guy, his players see something a little different. “He is very motivated,” said forward Hedo Turkoglu. “Sometimes, it seems he has more desire than the players, he is such a competitor and he gets so emotional. … But, if he yells, then he also talks to you, he is very patient.

“We all get sometimes, out of control. He does it in a good way.”

• Dan Shanoff — Howard better off for skipping college — click here

But would Howard be a better pro player for the experience? No way. In his 5th pro season, Howard was 1st-team All-NBA, Defensive Player of the Year and — of course — led his team to the NBA Finals.

If Howard had gone to college, he would have just completed his rookie NBA season. There is no way he would have been nearly as good as he is now, after five years of being exposed to pro basketball. He got better, faster, with greater long-term upside.

Some ugly words on the college game

The reason is simple: College hoops coaching is not about getting the player ready for the NBA; college hoops coaching is about getting the coach his next big contract. Or the school their next big donation.

If a high school or college player wants to best prepare themselves for the NBA, they are better off being tutored by pro coaches, whose entire job is based around making those players successful in the NBA.

Hoopshype

• Roland Lazenby — Protecting Kobe from himself — click here
• Eddie Johnson — The To-Do List
• Roland Lazenby — It’s That Old Zen Again

RealGM Links

• Gasol says Howard is getting away with too much physical play in the paint — click here

Game Three End Of Play Quotes

This will follow later