Kleeman's Last Word

Celtics-Lakers: 2-0 ain't what it used to be; an odyssey continues

The Boston Celtics built a 2-0 series lead heading to the sunny beaches of Los Angeles. The Lakers can all but wash that momentum away and sting it like a jellyfish with a game four win.

The Lakers offense continued its ugly sputter Tuesday night and the guys in gold still won 87-81. With a sweep out of the picture, does anybody give the Celtics a chance tonight?

The refs certainly won't: that is, if you believe Tim Donaghy. Conventional wisdom says the Lakers must win tonight but recent history says the pressure is on the Celtics.

If the green men lose and face a pivotal game five, how can they expect to win that game?

It's the blues song no one has written: "2-0 ain't what it used to be."

It will take years of teams blowing "commanding" 2-0 leads for the statistics to suggest such a series margin is anything but.

A look at recent playoff meltdowns suggests that 2-0 might become more irrelevant than disco and hot pants.

2004 Lakers-Spurs series: San Antonio mounts a 2-0 lead, Tony Parker disappears and the Lakers win the next (.)four.

2006 NBA Finals - Mavericks blow a 2-0 lead to the "old as dirt" Heat. The Mavs were blown out in an embarrassing game four performance.

2007 Eastern Conference Finals - Cavaliers overcome 0-2 hole to best the Pistons in six. Cavs should have won the first two games and swept the supposed class of the east.

2008 Spurs-Hornets series - San Antonio recovers from two blowout losses (19 and 18 points, respectively) to force a game seven and win it on the road.

The Celtics should already know the fragility of a 2-0 lead. Not winning in Atlanta or Cleveland forced them to hold serve at home in two winner take all contests.

Do they want such a decisive game against Kobe Bryant? Or do they need to win game four to claim the series margin that recent history says is still commanding (no quotation marks necessary)?

The self-proclaimed 'machine' helps the 'black mamba' beat Celtics in game three.

One man cannot beat a team in the playoffs but two with self-prescribed nicknames did Tuesday night.

Doc Rivers faces a tough task in revamping his Celtics' offensive game three offense. What does he tell his team after it lost an unattractive affair to Kobe Bryant, Sasha Vujacic and a bunch of other guys Phil Jackson cannot fix.

In his postgame remarks, Jackson offered his 'machine' a new nickname: 'rockhead.'

"He believes very sincerely in himself that the next shot is going in," he said of Vujacic.

Not quite a ringing endorsement.

Vujacic dodged questions about his perceived egotism and talked about "the team." His one admission? "I'm stubborn."

Nicknames are a two way street for the Lakers in these NBA Finals. Vujacic nailed three treys, including a giant one to give the Lakers a five point lead, and Bryant recuperated from two sub-par games in Boston to look like a killer bug.

The Boston Celtics struggled to get the pesky Bryant off their windshield.

The other players known by names other than those given to them at birth? Jackson should worry about them.

Pau Gasol, the Spanish power forward who Jackson said took some "weenie" shots in the Western Conference Finals, barely touched the ball. When he did, he looked like a weenie.

Thursday might be a different day than Tuesday, with uncertain gas price hikes and high temperatures adding nasty unpredictability to a rocky summer, but Jackson can count on one consistency tonight.

Lamar Odom did not wake up this morning and suddenly become Scottie Pippen. Jackson should expect his NSP's deer in the headlights, confused play to continue.

Maybe Jackson should phone the real Pippen and ask him to reconsider a comeback. A 41-year-old retired vet who probably can't play versus a dazed forward who doesn't know how. Could an old and slow Pippen prove any worse to the Lakers' cause than the foul prone and clueless Odom?

Jackson's 'favorite martian' is playing on another planet. Maybe Lakers' team doctors can find a way to get Vlade Radmanovic's head where his body is - on the court, in the game instead of bottomless craters on Mars.

He might be the first starting power forward on a championship caliber team who plays like he suffers from space dimentia. The space cadet did show up for the finals: The NASA Finals.

The 'machine' and the 'black mamba' may well have to carry the load tonight and maybe it will be enough. When Jordan Farmar joined them for stretches in game three it was.

The odyssey of NSP, Weenie and Space Cadet continues and Jackson's championship hopes teeter on a trio that gives 'spaced out' in a basketball game new meaning.

posted by Robert Kleeman @ 4:20 PM