Boston Celtics @ Cleveland Cavaliers, Fri, Jan 9 2009

a scouting report on both teams:

Cleveland Cavaliers

• LeBron played like a MVP. He’s completely smooth. He didn’t force any moves or shots, but just following the flow. Seems like he’s come to a stage that he would let the game come to him. He’s unstoppable when penetrating, splitting double team easily. He hitall the shots. layups, floaters, 3s and fadaways, even when there’s a hand on his face. He played hard, even diving for loose balls; and most important of all, he played excellent defense, esp. against Paul Pierce, both pick-n-roll and iso situations. Oh, and he hustled for blocks too! In the past, people (including yours truly) always complained about his defense, but apparently he has put considerable works on that, studied enough films and apparently he played like a terrific defender. Or maybe it’s just this game, as he said beforehand that he had circled this date right when the schedule come out. Simply put, he wanted to win this game badly and he for sure gave his best.


• Mo Williams is an amazing scoring threat. He hit some tough shots.


• Varejao was surprisingly aggressive in offense, but his moves and shots were just too ugly to watch. As usual, he hustled a lot, grabbed rebounds and made some good defense by flopping.


• Delonte West did a passable job as a role player. He facilitated the offense, hit open shots and palyed defense.


• Once again, Big Ben is completely washed out.


• The bench (Boobie Gibson, J.J. Hickson, Wally Szczerbiak) was their weakest link. The Cs were able to outscore the Cavs whenever their starters (in particular LBJ) sat. They missed “Big Z” Ilgauskas badly, since they had to rely on J.J. Hickson as backup big man.


• The Cavs played with energy and were 100% focused. They played with confidence and were determined. While the Cavs didn’t need to worry about offense when LBJ was basically scoring at will anywhere on the court, it is their stellar defense that won the game. As said, LBJ played first class defense on PP, in addition, the Cavs was very aggressive guarding the perimeter, challenging shots and shut out passing lanes. They had terrific defense rotation and stole many balls while the Cs were definitely over-passing. As always, defense won games.

Boston Celtics

• PP was fully covered by LBJ, ended up forcing shots and drives. He was also careless with the ball, letting the ball being stolen several times (esp. by LBJ). He was also helpless defending LBJ. Don’t blame him, LBJ was simply superman tonight.


• KG played hard and did a good job in rebounding. However, except for a few nice lob passes from Rondo resulting in dunks and easy layups early on, for most of the game, KG always settled for outside jumpers. Give credits to the Cavs’ tight defense which made him hard to stay in the paint.


• As usual, Ray Allen hit his outside shots. Arguably, he’s the best among the Big Three.


• Rondo was terrific in running offense and finding open teammates. His court vision is superb. He played ok defense too and rebounded well as a guard. However, he simply couldn’t shoot, be it a layup, an open J or even FT.


• Kendrick Perkins benefitted from the nice passing job of Rondo and scored some easy layups in the paint. However, he is slow in defense rotation, letting the Cavs’ big penetrating at will, and even grabbing offensive rebounds.


• The Celtics’ bench was actually ok and arguably won the battle against the second team of the Cavs. I like Leon Powe. But they would love to have James Posey to guard LBJ!


• Overall, the Celtics were severely bothered by the defense of the Cavs. Their reaction to such top notch defense is over-passing. And when they lost their confidence, they started to look tentative. On defense, they have no clue to slow down LBJ and were slow in defense rotation. They didn’t play with their usual intensity in defense. They clearly were outplayed, out-hustled and outscored by the Cavs. They were so desperate that they resolved to do the Hack-a-Ben (Wallce) strategy late in Q4! What a shame!

Conclusion

• From the bottom of my heart, I don’t believe the Celtics are as lousy as this game shows, nor the Cavs are so superb as this game shows. Afterall, it’s just one out of 82 regular season games. However, the domination by the Cavs in this game will for sure have some not-so-small psychological factor when the two teams inevitably meet in the playoffs.

Boston Celtics @ LA Lakers, Thu, Dec 25, 2008

A brief scouting report:

Boston Celtics:

• Boston mainly relied on high screen pick-n-roll of Rondo and Perkins, and they were successful in generating open lanes for Rondo or back door passes to Perkins.


• Ray Allen still has the smoothest and quickest 3-pt shot in the league.


• Rondo got into early foul trouble. Eddie House or Tony Allen is not exactly the type of PG that pushes the ball and attack the basket. No wonder the Cs struggled early in Q2. That’s why even Rondo hit the 3rd foul with 6 mins left in Q2, Doc Rivers did not lift him off the court. Although not exactly The Fantastic Four, Rondo has been a very important player in the team.


• Rondo kept on finding open teammates to score in the low post, KG in particular. He was 6-for-6 and scored 12 pts in 1H.


• During a possession in 2H, there was a good hustle by Rondo, grabbing his own miss between two 7-footers, Gasol and Bynum, which turned out to be a 3 by PP to tie the game at 62.


• PP was quiet in 1H but took up the lead to score in 2H. Again, when PP's shots were off, he would lower his head and drive the lane, 80% of which would end up him going to the FT line.


• The bench is weak. Eddie House, Tony Allen, Glen Davis and Leon Powe was ineffective. I think they miss James Posey.


• Somehow, the Celtics failed to execute their famous suffocating defense. The Lakers kept on getting open looks in the perimeter. They even allowed a back-to-back 3-pter by Odom in Q4. OK, the Lakers made some perfect screen to get him open, but where’s the D?


• The worst is at the last 2 mins. The Cs focused too much on stopping Kobe, and played Gasol soft, who managed to score numerous clutch shots when the game was on the wire.

LA Lakers:

• The Lakers had a change of lineup for the Lakers, starting Luke Walton at SF, instead of Vladimir Radmanovic.


• The Lakers had some good basketball movement early on, as they managed to get open look after several passes.


• But there were some terrific defense loopholes. First, Bynum was confused in baseline rotation. The Lakers also had serious flaws in defending pick-n-roll, as the Speedy Rondo kept on getting to the rim and scored on layups.


• Poor in transition defense too.


• Lakers offense relied mainly on Kobe Bryant’s brilliance. Kobe was phenomenal tonight. This was helped by the fact that he was guarded by Ray Allen, who obviously couldn’t catch up with Kobe. Why didn’t the Cs double-team Kobe?


• Trevor Ariza is one of my favorite players. In one sequence in Q2, he hustled for a loose ball, threw the ball to the fast breaking Vujacic just when he was falling out of bound. Vjuacic his the shot. And 1! Another hustle play by Ariza in Q3, he stole the ball from the fast break Celtics, and managed to pass the ball to a teammate before falling out of bound. Ladies and Gentlemen, please meet Trevor "Mr. Hustle" Ariza!


• Fisher has been hitting some nice 3-pt this season. This game included.


• Lakers defense is getting better in 2H, aggressively double teaming PP and other Celtics. And instead of taking their advantage in the paint, the Celtics suddenly settled for outside shoot, which is not exactly their forte.


• Unlike in the past, Bynum remained on the court with 5 mins left. (usually it’s Odom finishing the games instead of him). You know my theory? I think Phil Jackson is trying to keep Bynum as a secret weapon. He wouldn’t use it on a daily basis, but to surprise people in critical games like this one, or in the playoffs.


• Bench difference is huge. Vujacic, Odom and Ariza easily outplay the Cs’ bench.

Here’s how the Lakers won the game:

• Gasol first hit a 20-ft J on the right wing. Next, Kobe dribbled for like 20 sec and then make a perfect lob pass to the rolling Gasol in the paint who made the running J. 85-81 Lakers. 2min left.


• After KG hit an open J. it’s Gasol again! Kobe dished to another rolling Gasol, this time he hit the leaning layups, got fouled, and hit the FTs. 88-83. 1.28 min. all 3 baskets were assisted by Kobe.


• Oh, Gasol again! This time, he blocked a 3-pt attempt by Ray Allen, which led to a breakaway dunk by Ariza. 90-83. 1 mins. Game over.

Verdict:

• Overall, the Lakers relied on outside shootings, while the Celtics managed to score in the paint with more success. But the Celtics failed to stop the Lakers, especially Gasol, who was aggressively attacking the basket. It is obvious that the Lakers are way more versatile in offense that the Celtics can no way match, that’s why the Celtics need to play top notch defense to beat the Lakers. They failed to do so terribly.


• As for the Lakers, seems like they managed to switch to their "A" game and come to the game focused with a killer instinct. They were able to play tough defense down the stretch and then execute on the other end to finish the Celtics. The stepping up of Gasol is somehwat surprising, but I think it's a very good development for the Lakers since they no longer rely on Kobe only at clutch time. At least for this game, they were the better team.