Game 7 NBA finals
It’s all coming down to the game 7 NBA finals 2010.
Here comes a forever night in the NBA, a forever fight to the finish, a Celtics-Lakers death-grip still unsettled. All those years, all that history, and it comes flooding into the surround sound of Staples Center for Game 7.
Boston is now playing without Kendrick Perkins for Game 7. That’s a massive blow because he plays great defense, is the anchor of their whole defense, and is their leading rebounder in the series thus far.
Celtics will start either the undersized Glen Davis, or the undisciplined Rasheed Wallace. This is a huge for the Lakers, since now, there’s not as much pressure for Bynum to be in the game lots of minutes.
Kobe Bryant started off Game 6 going 5-6 from the field. Boston couldn’t do much when LA’s failsafe scorer was hot at the start—especially since he could dish the ball out and initiate everyone else on the offensive end, particularly Ron Artest. The Lakers seem to play their best when Kobe manages to score early, because this opens up everyone else on the offensive end. Ron Artest was scoring well when the Celtics had to collapse on Kobe’s drives and Artest was finally dropping his shots.
In game 6, the Lakers played the best defense seen in a long while, as they held the Celtics to under 70 points and actually tied their worst point total for a Finals game. That’s very good, especially for a team that so many people would write off defensively. Guys like Kobe, Artest, Farmar, Fisher, and even Vujacic were playing excellent man to man defense. The front line was stepping it up, and blocking shots, rotating and bringing help defense when needed. Everything was being executed to perfection on the defense end.
Certainly the Lakers won’t play almost perfect defense again, but if they can hold them to around 80 points, that might be enough. They also received help from the Celtics, since the only players that scored through three quarters were Rondo, Garnett, Pierce, and Allen. Celtics bench scored zero through three.
It will be essential for the Lakers to prevent guys like Pierce and Allen from getting into a grove; because if they do, this series goes to the Celtics. Ray Allen is very experienced and could be the difference between these teams.
Perhaps the Celtics missed their chance. History tells us that six teams have taken a 3-2 lead into an opponent’s building for Games 6 and 7 in an NBA final, and that the only two teams that lost Game 6, the 1994 Knicks and the 1988 Pistons, also lost Game 7. And the home team is 13-3 in Game 7s for the title. But there’s always a statistical counter, and here’s Boston’s: the Lakers and Celtics, in the history of their illustrious rivalry, have played four Game 7s. Boston is unbeaten.
7 is the magic number and to have Boston + 7 in game 7 is the way to go.
Boston +7 @1.96 and Boston to win the NBA finals @3.93
