NBA

[Guest ooBah]

41-26 FT and still lost, wow.

Made me LOL. Go celtics! Allen was on FIRE and Rondo did his thing!

[Guest papasmurf]

dude RONDO is a BEAST~!! What celtics needs to do is pass it Rondo and then make openings for ray allen to pop in his threes.

[xkrndreamer]

couldn't contain allen and rondo

hopefully, the lakers can get two at td garden

[Guest ooBah]

couldn't contain allen and rondo

hopefully, the lakers can get two at td garden

pfft you wish nah jk I think anything is possible, especially since Lakers is such a strong team. But Celtics do have the advantage right now, and if KG or Pierce can finally step up in Boston, LA is in big trouble.

[velvet01]

dude RONDO is a BEAST~!! What celtics needs to do is pass it Rondo and then make openings for ray allen to pop in his threes.

you said it right! that was the night of Rondo and Ray Allen... but with the help of Sheed, TA, Big Baby and Nate. Hope PP and KG will come out in the next games at home.

[Guest melo.breeze]

boston is a better road team than they are at home, so the lakers shouldn't be too disheartened about that loss. anyways apart from the free throw disparity (which one can argue, boston didn't really get to the line because in the majority of the first half it was allen shooting three's, whereas LA banged in the post all game), boston just outplayed the lakers in every possible way. higher fg%, higher assist count, outrebounded them (rondo outrebounded both gasol and bynum ... beast), more transition points, if i'm not mistaken, despite gasol and bynum's great game, boston scored more points in the paint (which is suprising).

still not pleased with the officiating, 58 fouls in total for the whole game, both teams racking in 29 fouls each. a lot of the fouls being called are petty as well, this goes for both teams.

and can anybody clear this up for me. 4th quarter, score is 93-90, the ball goes out of bounds, obviously off of garnett's hands. officials look at replay, clearly ball last touched by garnett, yet still celtics ball ? is there some rule gasol violated or something for it to remain celtic ball ? with two minutes left in the game the lakers could've been 93-92, remain 93-90 or tied rather than being 95-90 at the end of that possession.

these two calls kinda peeved me ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpbHEZxPRec

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwk53CrzaEg

call me bias, but you can't sit there and tell me that those calls were legit. calls like this kept kobe from being aggressive and driving into the lane to split the defense all game.

[Ayame]

^ I'm a Celtics fan, but yeah those were bad calls (including the one where the ball went off Garnett's hands). I think there were bad calls for both teams though. I didn't agree with the foul on Pierce when he blocked Artest and didn't really agree with the foul on Ray Allen, when there was no contact between him and Kobe.

I mean honestly there's a load of fouls being called in the last 2 games. On twitter someone did say: "The Lakers & Celtics combined to shoot 79 FT in their 2 reg. season meetings. They've combined for 134 in 2 Finals games." So yeah. Crazy calls going on all over the place lol.

[Guest mofo]

go boston!

i hope boston can win the series.

[Guest res0nate]

About the Garnett-Gasol call, it wasn't concrete, for all we know, Gasol's fingers could have tapped it out as well, even though Garnett's hand was in front.

[Ayame]

Oh god. Garnett did much better than the last game but Ray going 0-13 tonight? ....

[Guest Clu3less]

i wish the celtics would stop playing so inconsistently.

how does allen go from making finals history in most 3 pointers to missing practically every single shot other than the free throws??

[xkrndreamer]

fisher came in the clutch once again

today solidified my respect for derek fisher

"it's just faith"

he's such a man of great character

doesn't trash talk, but just plays the game he loves so much

even after critics (sometimes me) complain about this defense

[Guest melo.breeze]

i hope pierce was telling 'the truth' and doesn't have to eat his own words when he said 'this series is not going back to LA' at the end of game 2. get it ? LOL !

[Guest ooBah]

fisher came in the clutch once again

today solidified my respect for derek fisher

"it's just faith"

he's such a man of great character

doesn't trash talk, but just plays the game he loves so much

even after critics (sometimes me) complain about this defense

Yeah. I really like Fisher. Great character, veteran, plays solid and he handles pressure well.

Disappointed in celtics this game, so inconsistent. Pierce didn't do much, Ray with a horrible performance, Garnett still showing he's too old at times.

[velvet01]

its mind boggling really how a star player of celtics team can be super hot in one game and stone cold in the next game. i mean, is there a switch or something that they can turn on and off per game? for every celtic game, the top scorer would be different from the last game (just bet ray allen, rondo, pierce or garnett). rondo and allen were the stars on game 2 and KG had a stellar performance on game 3... makes you wonder, where's the desire and effort from each star player per game? if all of them will come out each game, there's no reason why boston cant take the championship this year.

its only fitting to say that the team who wants it more will win the championship, and at the rate this is going, it seems like the lakers has it.

[Guest a-o]

still not pleased with the officiating, 58 fouls in total for the whole game, both teams racking in 29 fouls each. a lot of the fouls being called are petty as well, this goes for both teams.

I agree, it seems like you can't even lay your hand on anyone or impede someone's progress out on the perimeter. A lot of non-fouls as well near the basket. Both teams have indeed felt the officiating.

these two calls kinda peeved me ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpbHEZxPRec

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwk53CrzaEg

call me bias, but you can't sit there and tell me that those calls were legit. calls like this kept kobe from being aggressive and driving into the lane to split the defense all game.

On the first call, I don't think Kobe shoved him, Rondo just sold it well. The two referees who had the best look couldn't really get a good sight of what was going on either. Kobe's back is in the way of the trailing referee, and for the baseline referee who made call, Rondo is shielding off Kobe's off-arm.

Anytime a guy falls to the ground or gets tripped up, especially near the sideline, more often than not, that guy gets the benefit of the call. It also looks like Rondo has possession of the ball and was trying to get it out to Wallace or Pierce, getting fouled on the pass, but in reality, he just made it seem like there was more contact than there really was.

On the second call, I thought it was a horrible call at first until I watched the second slow-motion replay in the clip. Kobe does drive his right shoulder into Ray's chest. The baseline referee who called it had a good look at the point of contact based on the perspective of the second slow-motion replay.

I kind of laughed when Jeff Van Gundy says Kobe might have gotten Ray's head, but it doesn't really look like it. To me, it looks like Ray is just putting on act in regards to moving his heads backwards and then covering his face as he falls to the ground, ensuring he gets the call if the referee overlooks the initial contact.

I agree, Kobe's foul trouble definitely took away from his aggressiveness down the stretch of game 2.

and can anybody clear this up for me. 4th quarter, score is 93-90, the ball goes out of bounds, obviously off of garnett's hands. officials look at replay, clearly ball last touched by garnett, yet still celtics ball ? is there some rule gasol violated or something for it to remain celtic ball ? with two minutes left in the game the lakers could've been 93-92, remain 93-90 or tied rather than being 95-90 at the end of that possession.

About the Garnett-Gasol call, it wasn't concrete, for all we know, Gasol's fingers could have tapped it out as well, even though Garnett's hand was in front.

I agree, watching it live, it really did look pretty close to call, but even after watching the clip on YouTube, it was to hard tell as well.

After initially watching the clip, it looked like it was off KG because of his hand motion at the very end, but that wasn't until well after the ball went off Gasol/Garnett's fingertips. Gasol's fingers are tangled with Garnett's, and you can even make the argument that Gasol's fingertips are ahead of Garnett's, but from the quality of the video, it's hard to make out just whose fingertips touched the ball last. Both their fingers don't disentangle until the ball is out of both their grasp.

Link to the clip (from the same uploader as the previous 2 clips):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_zNYzYPGNA

for every celtic game, the top scorer would be different from the last game (just bet ray allen, rondo, pierce or garnett). rondo and allen were the stars on game 2 and KG had a stellar performance on game 3... makes you wonder, where's the desire and effort from each star player per game?

You can also interpret that as a strength of this Boston team where anyone is capable of having a great game from a scoring standpoint, but I take it you were implying that we've yet to seen a consistent, collective effort out of this team where they're all clicking. I agree, I think some of that can be attributed to the early foul trouble on some key players and having to sit for stretches along with the Celtics riding the hot hand.

Ray for the most part is a guy who's going to play off others unless he's playing with the second unit, and in games 1 and 2, KG was really just limited to being a spot-up shooter. To me, I think Pierce really needs to start getting more involved and have the ball in his hands a bit more, even at Rondo's expense. The kind of performance and attacking mentality KG had in game 3 was good, albeit the moving screen, after they got the ball back after Pierce's missed free throw. Rondo's been good with his aggressiveness and decision making. Like you were alluding to though, they just need to find that balance and level of aggressiveness. All of these guys can create their own offense/shots if they wanted to.

EDITED - the quote formats with the new forum update.

[Guest melo.breeze]

boston bench balled hard tonight, good game, as always a few questionable calls from both sides, but boston just outplayed the lakers in every aspect of the game. props to big baby, he totally dominated pau and odom making them look soft. bynum's presence in the paint was definitely missed.

lakers also need a lot more bench production. analysts and commentators keep mentioning tony allen's great job on kobe keeping him under 50% shooting in second halves of games the entire series, but what they fail to mention is that kobe plays entire second half with no rest, the man is spent by the time it hits the fourth quarter (man has played 40+ minutes entire series minus that game he was in foul trouble). same story today, kobe and pau played the entire second half, they just looked tired the whole 4th quarter. bench players need to step up to give the key starters rest.

this series going 7 !!!

[velvet01]

boston bench took care of game 4! BBD was simply amazing!!!

[Guest Wgsquallx2002]

boston bench took care of game 4! BBD was simply amazing!!!

Game 5 is going to be interesting!

[Guest xsilentangel]

Some of you are upset over the calls on the Lakers, but some of the calls on the Celtics were ridiculous too.. The fouls on Sheed were dumb and I actually thought his reaction after the 3rd bad call (of course, a technical foul) was fitting. Gasol's flopping is really annoying too. Call me bias but everyone calls Pierce an actor for the wheelchair incident back in 2008 but Gasol flops in nearly every game.. Game 4 was great; I loved the energy of the bench.. I just hope the starters can show up if the bench doesn't. Ray Allen hasn't been shooting well at all.. but I got faith in him. Pierce should've gotten the ball more in Game 4 though. For nearly 10 minutes he didn't even get a shot off.. and he was very hot before that. Rondo needs to step it up. He hasn't been his superior self lately. He looked rather tired in Game 4, luckily the bench got the momentum going.

Go Celtics!