FAMOUS LAST WORDS

"lakers open at 1-5 to win the championship, and (-8) for game 1.
would you guys ever place a bet on odds below even-money? in this case it seems like even if you're playing for a payoff that's less than what you're betting, the lakers are such a sure thing that you're basically assured of a win, so why not slam your life savings on it. somebody.... do it. have some balls. $1000 on the lakers, at least."
--Daniel Kim, via e-mail, a day before Game 1 of the NBA Finals

Sometimes, when you're not only wrong, but REALLY wrong, you have to find it inside you to man up and admit to the world that you're an idiot, that you have the intelligence of a fruit fly, and that you're not only a loser, but you're no better than the sweat on Lil' John's balls.

Skeet, skeet, skeet.

I am here today, folks, to do just that. I come before you now, on bended knee and with a humble heart, to take my beating like a man.....

I was wrong -- REALLY wrong. I'm an idiot. I'm ugly. I smell. I need to lose 10 pounds. Nobody loves me. I suck.

Man did I underestimate the Pistons.

I've been trying to figure out what it was that I thought the Lakers had, and what I didn't know the Pistons had, that made it seem to me that this was such a sure thing, and I've kinda/sorta whittled it down to three things.

1) I didn't know Karl Malone and Gary Payton were actually women.

You can't underestimate what a huge hit this was to the Lakers. In the championship series, they suddenly lost two of their best players -- Malone to injury, Payton to castration.

Obviously, this meant the 25-30 possessions typically used by Payton and Malone were going to result in far fewer points for the Lakers, not only because Payton and Malone were ineffective, but because the Lakers were forced to look for production elsewhere. Their possessions were now being distributed amongst inefficient players like Kareem Rush, Derek Fisher, Slava Medvedenko, etc. Basically, it meant more P.T. for the Lakers bench, which was bad news, since the Lakers bench is, to put it lightly, god awful. It meant that the depth the Lakers had acquired in the offseason was now nonexistent. In other words, the Lakers were once again Shaq, Kobe, and "who the hell cares?".

What this boiled down to was that it didn't matter if Shaq was a killer in the Finals, because the rest of the Laker possessions were so unproductive. The dominance of Shaq's 25% (he took about 25% of his team's shots) was canceled out by the suckiness of the other Lakers' 75%.

NBA FINALS
Shaq
Field Goals: 53-84 (63.1%)
Free Throws: 27-55 (49.1%)
Points per Shot Attempt: 1.23
Turnovers: 14

Other Lakers
Field Goal: 103-296 (34.8%)
Free Throws: 44-56 (78.6%)
Points per Shot Attempt: 0.86
Turnovers: 52

I know these numbers are taken from just five games, and that it's obvious a team's best player is gonna outperform his teammates, but still, I think this shows how one-dimensional the Laker offense really was in the Finals.

The lack of depth also allowed the Pistons defenders (i.e. the ones who weren't guarding Shaq) to comfortably ease off their men and close in on Kobe whenever he decided to attack the basket, forcing either a bad shot or a turnover. An injured Malone and sack-less GP were essentially worthless in this series, not even good enough to be decoys, and I think the trickle-down effect of that was a series field goal percentage of 38.1 for Kobe.

In case you were wondering, a few of Kobe's Finals numbers:
FG: 43-113 (38.1%)
FT: 23-25 (92.0%)
PSA: 0.91
TO: 18

You have to give the Pistons credit for what they did to Kobe, especially in Game 4. Because the Pistons were denying the drive, he started playing off the ball and turned into a Rip Hamilton-type catch-and-shoot mid-range shooter and went cold. I'm sure this was frustrating for Laker fans, not just because these shots were low-percentage shots, but because Shaq was in his Unstoppable-Beast mode that day, and Kobe failed to recognize that -- or at least it seemed that way since he kept hiking up poor shot after poor shot.

Unacceptable.

Shaq finished the game 16 for 21, and by all rights, he should've been something like 25 for 33. Shame on you, Kobe.

2) I had no idea what a ginormous rebounding advantage the Pistons had on paper.

Think about this. Once Karl Malone became a gimp, the Lakers relied on these guys to rebound missed shots: Shaq, Slava Medvedenko, Devean George, Kobe Bryant, and Gary Payton. Umm, advantage Detroit. Only one of those guys has ever in his life gone after a rebound like he wanted it, Kobe, and he's a backcourt player.

Rebounding was the key to the Pistons' series. It got them high-percentage shots in transition, it got them loads of 2nd chance points, and most importantly, it prevented the Lakers from getting 2nd chance points.

It reached a point where, I felt, it might've been wise for the Lakers to stop sending guys up for offensive rebounds and, instead, stay back and get ready to play defense so they wouldn't get beat in transition. Just concede that part of the game to Detroit, basically, and take away the Pistons' easy points. That alone might have saved the Lakers five or six points a game, at least.

3) It was a short series, the Pistons were great at the right time, the Lakers were bad at the wrong time.

Or.... well, that's what I'd like to believe, but really it sort of felt like the Pistons could've taken the Lakers out if they played several more games, like, say, a 15-game series. Detroit's just a better team than LA if Shaq isn't getting his shots, Kobe's taking stupid shots, and Malone and Payton are invisible.

I wish I'd known that before I'd slammed my paycheck on LA.

Just kidding.