NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

The NBA Title series ain’t what it used to be, by 10% to be exact. Ratings were down 10 percent according to an AP article in ESPN.

At first blush that seems kind of bad for a series featuring Phil Jackson going for his 10th coaching title and Kobe Bryant trying to prove he can be a one man band, but it has to be kept in the context of being compared to last year’s dream matchup of the Celtics and Lakers.

Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol did not have people turning on their TV's

Boston brought in Kevin Garnett and had a title starved large market in Boston. The Boston area has won in all other sports and they were ready for an NBA title. The Orlando market is a smaller area and Dwight Howard is less of a draw than the 3 amigos. That may change as Dwight improves, but it is fact for now.
Photo source Newscom

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Byron Scott has the Hornets ready.

Chris Paul has the Hornets ready.

Chris Paul paid his dues

Most of all Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs have the Hornets ready.

You have to pay your dues and earn your way to the NBA Finals. That is what San Antonio Spurs did last year.

“There was a timeout in the second quarter, and I turned to my assistant coaches and said, ‘We’re (in trouble). We are playing tight for the first time in 100 games, and I can see it in our eyes,’” Scott recalled.

“I could see the tension, guys knowing this was the last game of a seven-game series. And then I looked at San Antonio. Those guys looked like it was Game 1. No different. So I knew why we lost that game. It was lack of experience.”

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Rodney Stuckey going to the hole

The Pistons have enjoyed phenomenal success through the recent years to the point that making the Conference NBA finals and not making the finals is seen as a major disappointment.

Heck, last year Joe Dumars even put the whole starting team up for fire sale, if anyone would trade for them.

But there is one guy that was ruled untouchable. That guy is 6′ 5″ Rodney Stuckey. Here is a point guard that can go to the hole at will. Here is a point guard that is brimming with confidence and can’t wait for the season to start. Here is a point guard… well you get the point guard point.

New coach Michael Curry has all the confidence in the world in Rodney Stuckey and vice versa.

Curry has indicated that he likes the scoring Stuckey and veteran big man Antonio McDyess could bring from the bench.

“When you have both of those guys anchoring your second unit, it allows your other role players to play their roles and not play outside of themselves,” Curry said.

Stuckey and Curry have formed a mutual admiration society — Stuckey thinks the new coach will fully exploit the talents of the team; Curry has indicated he will emphasize more running and more pressure defense, stuff that Stuckey wants to hear.

“He’s going to give us opportunity to showcase our talent, and when the young guys get out on the court, we are going to do what we do and go out there and play hard and play good defense and it’s going to lead us to victories,” Stuckey said.

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Chauncey Billups cannot believe his hometown Nuggets did not want him

Hey, you had your chance and blew it. It is hard to believe that nobody in the NBA wanted Rasheed Wallace or Chauncey Billups.

It is difficult to fathom that no team could have improved themselves by dealing for Tayshaun Prince or Rip Hamilton. But that is exactly what happened.

Only Rodney Stuckey is untouchable. The rookie showed great promise in the playoffs last year.

Now Joe D says the deals are done. He is still not happy with the way the season ended. On the Piston tour this past week, Joe D says the expectations are the same, NBA Finals or bust.

New coach Michael Curry is supposed to light the fire under their behinds.

It remains to be seen.

Billups, Hamilton and Prince are entering their seventh season in Detroit, hoping to at least advance to the conference finals for the seventh year in a row.

But Dumars is confident new coach Michael Curry will motivate the old nucleus to play hard.

“Part of the reason we hired Michael Curry was that he can instill a sense of urgency in how we play and the discipline that we play with,” Dumars said. “Those two things were missing last year, in my estimation.”
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Kevin Garnett - anything is possible

Image details: NBA Finals Game 6: Los Angeles Lakers v Boston Celtics served by picapp.com

It seems like yesterday that my Piston won the world title, the Larry something trophy, in the NBA.

My friends were on a high that lasted a week.

Boston fans feel like that right now. You could sell little kid sippy cups with Boston Celtic logos on them and the fans would scoop them up by the hundreds.

They sound just like we did. Our team is great. We will win next year and maybe the year after that! Forgetting, of course, that they barely got past the Atlanta Hawks. Yeah, the Atlanta Hawks.

Maybe it was better expressed by Kevin Garnett. He was on such a high that he could hardly speak, screaming “anything is possible, anything is posssssiiiibbblllee!” Man, you have to love Garnett, for it was a long wait. Nobody wants to be the next Charles Barkley and go out with no title.

Paul Pierce had a great playoffs and towards the end there was no stopping him. It was fun to watch. The Celtics Danny Ainge brought back the old stars and solid defense and taught us all what Joe Dumars has been telling us. These old guys know how to win and how to play D. Hats off to Ainge and crew.

Doc Rivers, truly a nice guy, proved us all wrong. He really is a great coach, not just because he won, but because he made a lot of subtle adjustments throughout the playoffs and they all seemed to work.

When the Boston Celtics built a new practice facility, they surrounded the court with their 16 NBA championship banners and left a blank space for No. 17.

The message was a bit too subtle for Doc Rivers.

The Celtics coach turned a spotlight on the empty spot on the wall at the beginning of this season so there would be no doubt about the team’s goal.

“They can turn that thing off now,” guard Ray Allen said early Wednesday morning, his left eye still red from the first-half face-raking and the postgame champagne spraying that accompanied Boston’s title-clinching, 131-92 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.

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With the core group of Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Kendrick Perkins, and Rajon Rondo, anything is possible and you have to think that next year could be another Lakers with Kobe Bryant and Boston Celtics with the Boston three party back at the NBA title game.

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Boston Celtics rule the world or at least the NBA World.

Paul Pierce is MVP and played fantastic.

Kevin Garnett reminds us that anything is possible.

Defense rules and the Lakers better get one.

Redlasso gives us this video from after the final seconds.

source RedLasso

Kevin Garnett was so emotional that he was crying one moment and shouting out the next moment. Boston absolutely dominated the last game of the series.

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Paul Pierce cannot be stopped. Not by Kobe. Not by anyone.

Image details: NBA Finals Game 6: Los Angeles Lakers v Boston Celtics served by picapp.com

Sam Posey or SAM missile. He just keeps burying 3’s.

Paul Pierce, not Kevin Garnett. It is the Paul Pierce series. Hey, Kevin is averaging a double double, but it does not matter. Paul Pierce is dominating.

Pierce had waited for his chance to be one of those generational Boston sports icons, and the Celtics had stopped surrounding him with a fighting chance. It was getting late in his prime, late in his patience. He watched Tom Brady win his Super Bowls and David Ortiz his World Series, and he could take it no more. This town is the best in the world for winners, and just the worst for everyone else.

These forever New England stars are remembered for the most clutch championship performances. Pierce was the forgotten, dismissed talent, a victim of unfair circumstance when the city never had less tolerance for losing causes.

Suddenly now, Pierce returns for Game 6 in these NBA Finals on Tuesday within a victory of a championship, within a whisper of his wildest dreams. Maybe the regular season belonged to Kevin Garnett for the Celtics, but the playoffs belong to Pierce. History is closing fast.

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Phil Jackson has a pink top of his head. What is that?

Pau Gasol racks up the stats, but plays soft most of the time. Lakers need Andrew Bynum.

Kobe Bryant can’t score on 5 Celtics at once. They are playing great defense. Kobe will get his, but it will take a lot of shots.

Boston by 23. Is this a series of big leads by both teams or what?

Ray Allen had his eye poked in the first quarter and has done nothing since.

Halftime.

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Paul Pierce, with a lot of help, put the clamps on Kobe Bryant

Image details: NBA Finals Game 4: Boston Celtics v Los Angeles Lakers served by picapp.com

The Lakers are done. They had a 24 point lead in the second quarter over the Boston Celtics.

Even in the 3rd quarter the Celtics were down 20 points.

Then the Lakers stopped scoring.

What was it? It was Celtic defense and Paul Pierce scoring.

It didn’t help that Kobe was being locked down by Pierce. Kobe just could not get his jumper going at all. Every time Kobe drove to the middle of the floor, he was met with a welcoming committee from Boston and most of the time had to pass off to an outside shooter. That is fine, but then the Celtics would recover fast enough to cover the outside shooter as well.

Sam Posey made a couple of clutch 3 pointers late in the game and had 18 points. It seems that there is a new Boston bench star in every game.

Kevin Garnett had a very quiet 16 points and 11 boards. Paul Pierce was very dynamic especially late in the game with 20 points in spite of missing all 3 of his 3 pointers.

Kendrick Perkins left the game with a strained shoulder. We will have to wait and see how bad that is. Paul Pierce tweaked his ankle late in the game, but continued to play.

The Lakers wasted a brilliant game by Lamar Odom, who had 19 points on 8 for 11 shooting and 10 boards.

At one point in the third quarter, they flashed a graphic saying the Lakers had missed 9 shots in a row.

Where do the Lakers go from here? Game 5 is in LA and then the last two games are in Boston. No team has ever come back from a 3 -1 deficit. It is hard to imagine the Lakers winning the next 3 games with 2 of them in Boston.

It will be interesting to see the two team’s mindset for game 5.

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Tim Donaghy is facing charges on gambling on NBA games. He just happens to be an NBA ref.

The league wanted a million bucks from him for costing the league money.

Tim fired back with allegations of the NBA fixing some playoff games, including the famous seven game series between the Lakers and Sacramento. The NBA and David Stern have denied the allegations.

If Tim Donaghy’s latest allegations are true, Kobe Bryant won his last championship with the help of an NBA conspiracy.

And Scot Pollard is still ringless because some guys in suits determined it would be that way.

Even with Bryant chasing another title in a marquee NBA finals matchup between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics, the league still can’t escape the Donaghy mess, now nearly a year after learning the former referee bet on games he officiated.

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Scott Pollard a current Boston Celtic and Derek Fisher a current Los Angeles Laker take a look back.

In a letter filed Tuesday in New York, Donaghy’s attorney made a series of allegations about officiating corruption and misconduct within the NBA. The most damning accusation centered on the 2002 Western Conference finals, when the Lakers rallied from a 3-2 deficit to beat the Sacramento Kings.

Donaghy said two referees known as “company men” worked the controversial Game 6, when the Lakers shot 27 free throws in the final quarter and scored 16 of their last 18 points at the line in a 106-102 victory.

The injured Pollard, who now plays for Boston, was on Sacramento’s team, while Bryant and Derek Fisher played for the Lakers squad that went on to sweep New Jersey for its third straight championship.

It’s funny really, because my good friend RonB and your intrepid author have often argued (in jest to be sure) that the NBA is fixed. Didn’t David Stern want a Boston vs. LA Laker series this year? That is funny, we got one.

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Kobe Bryant walked off with a victory in game 3 of the NBA Finals

Image details: NBA Finals Game 3: Boston Celtics v Los Angeles Lakers served by picapp.com

Kobe was cool and calm and had an excellent game.

Los Angeles Lakers 87, Boston Celtics 81

Bryant scored 36 points with an MVP-worthy performance; Sasha Vujacic added 20 points and the Lakers, teetering on the brink of falling into an impossible hole in the NBA finals, beat the Boston Celtics 87-81 in Game 3 on Tuesday night.

L.A.’s brightest sports star, Bryant was California cool.

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This took the pressure off his teammates and they also played excellent ball.

Vujacic, the self-proclaimed “Machine,” made three 3-pointers, including a crucial one from the left corner with 1:53 left that gave the Lakers an 81-76 lead. Pau Gasol finally flexed his muscles with two inside baskets in the fourth quarter and Derek Fisher, who took an $8 million pay cut to come back and play for the Lakers, made two free throws with 1:33 remaining as the Lakers held on.

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Meanwhile the Boston 3 party was going solo with only Ray Allen showing up.

But it took everything they had to keep that streak alive as the Celtics, two wins from their 17th NBA title but only 2-8 on the road in this postseason, made the Lakers play a more physical, Eastern Conference-style game and nearly walked away with a win.

Ray Allen scored 25 points—15 on 3-pointers—for the Celtics, but only one-third of Boston’s Big Three showed up.

Kevin Garnett scored 13 points on just 6-of-21 shooting and Paul Pierce, playing a short drive from his childhood home, had only six points, missed 12 shots and was in foul trouble all night.

Game 4 is Thursday night.

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