FuShengTHEGreat wrote:jkvonny wrote:Kings win. Better team play and mentally tougher. Then proceed to beat the Nets in the NBA Finals.
Those (late '90s/early '00s)) TBlazer teams were mental midgets come playoff time. Had they won over the Lakers, The Indiana Pacers would have beaten them in the NBA Finals I believe.
Good Portland team, should have beaten LA, I agree.
Refs screwed both Sac and Port in the WCF.
Those late '90s-mid '00s Kings weren't mental midgets. Pre- Bibby years, the Kings were too young at the time. '02-06 they were primed. Injuries derailed them especially come playoff time. Webber knee injury in '03 playoffs hurt them. '04 Webber was rusty and forced back into starting role in the playoffs.
And we all know what happened in '02 . They should have won the WCF.
Mental midgets is rather harsh but lets not act like Webber and Peja didn't curl up and disappear vs LA either in game 7.
Rasheed was absolutely killing the Lakers until Portland went ice cold. Webber on the other hand didn't even look to score despite LA being weak at PF and spent much of that game 7 deferring to Bibby and not being a real go to guy..
Who could forget Peja having a open uncontested 3 that likely wins them the series and instead hoisted up a airball?
Haven't watched it any time recently so don't know the offense was functioning but I read that Rasheed was taking quite a few of the shots and long-midrange jumpers in the Trail Blazers cold spell. Looking at it Woten has him 0-6 and taking two of the three long mid-range misses in the 0 points spell.
Now to me it doesn't matter, box-wise - at a glance - he was good overall in the playoffs (and in the series, and in the game - in an ideal world he'd have boosted his efficiency at the line but superb turnover economy). He just wasn't separate from Portland going cold ... in terms of attempts (which is obviously not the full picture) he's the clear biggest part of it.
LA assistant Cleamons is reported as saying they they "didn't take any time off the clock run an offense", "they took early shots" and "they settled for jump shots. As before haven't checked it to see if I'd agree.
I know they had a lot of secondary playmakers (Pippen had been a point forward, Smith somewhat of a point guard in Miami and various others in other ways ... Sabonis had some nice vision and spectacular passes, Schrempf was nice passer) but they spent a lot of time that game without an actual point (and were quite low on assists). Now, I don't think Damon was that good and Anthony wasn't necessarily always a steady, heady offensive point guard ... maybe Anthony could have sparked more easy points through his D? He hadn't had a great box-series but then it's one where the samples small enough that you flip a couple of jumpers and it changes a lot.
Their "big 3" (if you call anyone that) had a good playoffs but their minute load seems a touch high (especially for Smith and Pippen, who were older and had more mileage) in the playoffs ... I don't know whether that was avoidable and whether exhaustion played a role?