The Err in My Ways

On Saturday night I decided to watch the film adaptation of Stephen King's The Mist. Scary as shit, and not because of the monsters but because of the combination of the monsters and the religious crazies trying to kill non-believers (EXPATIATION! EXPATIATION!). Anyways, like the many who decided that the religious psycho was right, I am deciding that I am wrong. Just don't sacrifice me by throwing me out to be fed to the giant crab-spider thing. Throughout these playoffs, we were led to believe that the West was so much stronger by all those analysts at ESPN and NBATV because they truly dominated the regular season. And I followed them. It was true in the regular season, as the West took the season series 258-192, but we failed to recognize the true nature of the postseason. On average, playoff series in the East were longer by an average of a little more than half a game(6-5.43). Yes, fatigue  is huge, but maybe rest is not as important as many make it out to be. The Celtics managed to build up one of the more disturbing rhythms in playoff history by waiting until the conference finals to win a road game, while the Lakers only seemed to be challenged by Utah. Think about it: to begin with, teams barely practice during the regular season, and players do put a much larger effort into playoff games, except for one team: the Spurs. I know they were getting rocked, but they were the defending champs, but after game 1, they lost a little bit of drive, and game 2 reportedly made them mad. But when they lost home court in Game 4, they played with no effort in the deciding game 5. Even Bruce Bowen wasn't trying to injure anybody because he knew that they had no chance. Game 3 will decide this series for 2 reasons:

1.) No Way Back

No one has won a series in the NBA when down 3-0.

2.) A Possible Return to Old Habits?

Maybe this is a return to the "lose all of our road games, win at home" mentality that they used for their first two series. In that case, they may run into trouble in games 6 and possibly 7 because LA could work up some great momentum at home. And LA definitely was making inroads on the battle for momentum with a late surge. They should never be allowed to get within 2 with under a minute left after they trailed by 24.

Other observations on game 2:

-DiCaprio showed up to this one with Bar Rafaeli. He must be capitalizing on The Departed success to get the box. Absent: Tom Brady and Gisele. I guess that one home loss was good enough to keep him away.

-I still can't believe Bill Plaschke gets a press pass to these games. I deserve it way more.

-So Jeff Lurie chose McNabb, Westbrook, and Dawkins to attend the game with him. A wise choice, considering he could have brought in Asante Samuel, who as an ex-Pat would have caused the first NBA Finals riot if he showed up for that. Better that he stay in (insert wealthy Philly suburb) and watch on TV.