Category: General NBA insight

Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald reports:

Glen “Big Baby” Davis and Nate “Little Baby” Robinson made for quite a tandem last night at the Garden.

The teamwork … the chemistry … the pacing.

The timing.

And that was just during the postgame press conference. During the actual game – that is, Game 4, NBA Finals, in which the Celtics [team stats] claimed a 96-89 victory over the Lakers – well, yeah, sure, Big Baby and Little Baby were pretty good there, too. Taking over the floor in the fourth period, Davis wound up with 18 points in 22 total minutes. Robinson scored 12 points, including a pair of treys. They rocked the joint.

Now it should be understood that Davis and Robinson never much knew each other before the late-season trade that liberated Robinson from the New York Knicks, the Celtics parting with the popular Eddie House, a hero of the ’08 championship run. Davis and Robinson were never college teammates, and never paired up in one of those glitzy, all-star high school tournaments. They never were cabin mates at the Five-Star, All-Around-the-World, You-Can-Be-a-Star Basketball Camp.

Yet when Robinson, ex-Knick, showed up in the room and the people in charge of these things stuck him next to Davis, it was box-office magic.

Jeff Miller of the Orange County Register reports:

There’s a whistle and the Lakers complain.

There’s another whistle and the Celtics complain.

Sometimes there’s a whistle and both teams complain. And both coaches and benches and, who knows, maybe even dance teams.

Hey, NBA Finals. Put a sweat sock in it! Shut up and play already!

Is it just us or have the Lakers and Celtics taken crying to new and off-putting heights in this series? We know Big Baby is playing, but we didn’t realize a bunch of babies were, too.

Frankly, these Finals need to be burped.

“You have big, beasty, angry guys all on edge and slightly out of control,” Lakers guard Shannon Brown said. “You’re getting poked and grabbed. Your butt’s getting blindsided. I would say it’s pretty normal, actually.”

Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald reports:

While Lakers guard Derek Fisher drew raves for his hounding of Allen in Game 3, and his ability to fight through screens and draw fouls in particular, Doc Rivers wasn’t amused.

“Derek? Besides flopping, he doesn’t do a lot extra,” said Rivers, who spent most of the morning talking about fouls and how the first three games have been officiated. “He plays hard. He’s been in the game long enough to understand. I thought he got away with a lot (Tuesday) night. I thought there was a lot of holding going on and a lot of flopping going on, and finally he showed that last one.

“But he’s good at it, he’s always been good at it. We knew that going into the series. He’s one of the best charge takers in the game. He’s always been that. And some of them are charges and then some of them are flops, but all of them are tough to call.

“It is a brutal call to make, it really is a tough one.”

Baxter Holmes of the Los Angeles Times reports:

On Sunday night in Game 2 of the NBA Finals, a 103-94 Celtics win, Nate Robinson caught fire again, giving his team seven points in just six minutes during a tight fourth quarter.

He started the fourth with the score tied, 72-72, and replaced point guard Rajon Rondo, who had played all 36 minutes to that point and was “exhausted,” according to Celtics Coach Doc Rivers.

“Yeah, I needed it,” Rondo said of a breather.

At the 8-minute, 59-second mark, Robinson pulled up for a three-pointer at the top of the key that gave the Celtics the lead, 81-80. A steal by fellow Celtics guard Tony Allen on the other end led to a fast-break Robinson layup on the break 24 seconds later.

A few minutes later, he was fouled by Lakers center Andrew Bynum and converted two free throws.

Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times reports:

Lamar Odom is not only one of the most genuinely good guys in all of Los Angeles sports, but also one of the most maddening. The Lakers need him, but, even after six years here, they don’t really know him. Even this spring, while he’s finally wearing one of their rings, they haven’t figured him out.

Is he the guy who finished so well against Oklahoma City, or who had trouble getting started against Utah? Is he the guy who went for 19 points and 19 rebounds against Phoenix or was he, as the Suns’ Amare Stoudemire said, just lucky?

So far in the Finals, he’s been neither. So far, he’s been less involved than Dustin Hoffman. With the series tied at one game apiece, he’s averaging four points and five rebounds in an average of 18 foul-ridden minutes per game.

From the moment one of Kobe Bryant’s passes bounced oddly off his chest in Game 1, Odom hasn’t been able to match the moment. Is his cluttered head there? Is his bruised body there? We know the Kardashian family is there, and that’s enough to make anyone lose his marbles.

Dan Duggan of the Boston Herald reports:

Ron Artest has been inconsistent, and Lamar Odom has been invisible. So, the Los Angeles Lakers have needed another player to step up in support of Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol.

Few expected it would be Andrew Bynum, but the Lakers center has been a major presence in the first two games of the Finals.

Bynum’s playing time had dipped significantly after he suffered a slight tear in his right meniscus in the first round against Oklahoma City, but he’s made a resurgence against the Celtics. The 7-footer is averaging 15.5 points, 6.0 rebounds and 3.5 blocks while shooting 62.5 percent from the field.

Bynum was a monster in the Lakers’ 103-94 Game 2 loss Sunday at the Staples Center, tying a career playoff-high with 21 points to go with seven blocks. He also logged a playoffs-high 39 minutes.

“I’m just out playing hard,” Bynum said. “I take my treatment and play hard. It is what it is with my knee. I’ve been telling myself that the whole playoffs.”

The AP reports:

Too old is a popular basketball criticism, the one used this season to discount the Celtics as a true title contender. Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen looked all of their 34 years in Boston’s 102-89 loss in Game 1, and Paul Pierce isn’t much younger.

”We’re not a young team. I can’t say that Ray is 29 and lie; he’s not. But it doesn’t affect how we play,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. ”I’m just stating a fact we are an older team, but we’re not too old. You know what I mean?

”We are an older team, we have experience. We have great experience, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m fine with that, and I have no problem with that. But I don’t run from that fact. But we’re not too old.”

In these finals between longtime rivals, the closest thing to trash talk so far was Pau Gasol’s misinterpreted comments which made it appear he was calling Garnett old. In fact, he was discussing how they were different players since Gasol entered the league nine years ago — and Gasol said it’s that age that’s made him a better player even as it’s diminished his physical skills.