Defense on Pierce gets Lakers Crucial Win

Even though the NBA Finals this year hold a lot of revisiting the history and the rivalry revival stories etc, the actual story is quite boring.

If everybody does their job, the Celtics win easy. They have too much firepower. Garnett gets his 15 odd and above 10 rebounds and tough defense inside. Allen gets the scoring and Pierce plays leader, scorer and defense on Kobe, the Lakers don't stand a chance. All they could come back with
is Kobe scoring 35 odd and that's the end of it.

So it was actually the Lakers who had to do something different to stop the Celtics all of the above and win a game and they did exactly that in Game 3. The shut down Pierce to 2 of 14 from the field and also Garnett to some extent who shot 6 of 21. So, even though KG got his rebounds and Ray Allen got his 25 points, just the little part of the puzzle that didn't work, got Lakers through. Sounds simple but how to get it done for 3 more times is something that is going to be difficult.

The Lakers won Game 3, 87-81 with some great defense on Paul Pierce and also some inspirational shooting from behind the arc by Sasha Vujacic who shot 3 of 5 from 3-point range and a crucial one at the death to take a 5 point lead. He ended with 20 points.

It was a sloppy game with many air-balls and 2 missed dunks from Kevin Garnett. There were also a lot of fouls and obviously free throws. The players looked tired and its all part of the gruelling playoff travel and of course the games themselves. Rajan Rondo is chancy for Game 4 and the Lakers wouldn't want to lose any at home as even a single win could pretty much seal it for Celtics.

As I mentioned in my last post on the Finals as well...if Celtics want to win, they have to do it by Game 6. Game 7 is all Kobe.