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Bench Warmer
Lakers-Celtics is that rare single NBA regular-season game that can change the way we think about a team. That team, specifically, is the Lakers.
The Celtics can't alter any perceptions. They can only sustain the superiority that produced victories six of the past eight times the teams have played. For the Lakers, it's a chance to discover whether they have made any progress at all since the humbling end to their 2007-08 season. A loss would confirm our worst suspicions. But if they win, we can start salivating about a more competitive Finals rematch -- or perhaps LeBron versus Kobe in June.
"Rematch" can be the most fraudulent word in team sports. The rosters are too fluid, and the combination of chemistry and momentum are too difficult to recreate to produce a true rematch. Boxers have rematches. Basketball teams play again.
When the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics met in the Finals last season, it wasn't even a rematch of their earlier games that season. They hadn't played since Dec. 30, and in the interim, the Lakers lost Andrew Bynum and gained Pau Gasol (and shipped Kwame Brown and Javaris Crittenton off to Memphis in the trade), while the Celtics picked up P.J. Brown and Sam Cassell from the NBA wastelands.
But now, with the two teams together on the court for the first time since the Celtics ran the Lakers off the parquet floor to claim their 17th NBA championship, we're faced with the possibility that things haven't changed. That's an incredible testament to Boston and a fear-inducing prospect for Los Angeles. Everything about the Celtics screams that their 66-16 record last season and their subsequent championship was no fluke. This is "The Godfather Part II" of title defenses.
For the 2008-09 Celtics, it's not about the roster moves. Forget, for a moment, Brown's return to retirement or the much-bemoaned departure of James Posey to New Orleans via free agency. Tony Allen's return from a knee injury hasn't transformed this team. The noticeable difference is the attitudes of Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins, the confidence surging through Rondo's veins and the sneer on Perkins' face. Boston has all the swagger and none of the complacency that can accompany a championship.
The Lakers are taller now that Bynum has returned from a knee injury that kept him out for the second half of last season and the playoffs. They're deeper with Trevor Ariza taking a more active role. But do we really know whether they're better? Can toughness be willed into existence? Can it be forged by humiliation and bitterness? Or do the Lakers need to get an enforcer, someone to play Marty McSorley to Kobe Bryant's Wayne Gretzky?
So far, the only thing the Lakers have determined is that Bill Parcells was wrong, that you are not always what your record says you are. Although the standings show the Lakers are the best in the Western Conference at 23-5, the headlines reflect a team in regression with some questioning of authority. Bynum sees a dissonance between a front office that was willing to give him a maximum-salary extension and a coaching staff that won't let him play maximum minutes. Before Jordan Farmar suffered a knee injury that could keep him out a month, the backup point guard met with Phil Jackson to ascertain what, exactly, the coach wants him to do. Lamar Odom initially chafed at being relegated to the second unit, then grew more comfortable -- so comfortable, in fact, that he stopped scoring. He had a run during which he produced double digits in the points column only twice in 13 games, even though he should be dominating against opponents' reserves.
But the greatest issue with this team is the defensive softness that took over after a training camp filled with talk of getting tougher on D and a couple of weeks of proving it. If the Lakers' recent back-to-back losses weren't bad enough, four of their five losses on the season have come against Eastern Conference teams. That would be the same Eastern Conference the Celtics have rampaged through at a 19-1 clip.
For a while, the excuse for the Lakers was that they weren't motivated by some of the lesser competition they faced, that they were waiting for the Celtics to muster their best effort. Then their B-game stopped being good enough. Now, Boston's visit to the Staples Center could be a bad omen, not an opportunity.
In a sense, it's better for them that this game comes now; there have been seasons when the Lakers didn't get their first look at the Celtics until the end of January or even later. It could be the difference between realizing you forgot your cell phone as you're backing out of the driveway on your way to the airport or after you've gone through the airport security screening line.
For once, a single NBA game will be able to tell us whether we should bother waiting for the next time around.
The Celtics can't alter any perceptions. They can only sustain the superiority that produced victories six of the past eight times the teams have played. For the Lakers, it's a chance to discover whether they have made any progress at all since the humbling end to their 2007-08 season. A loss would confirm our worst suspicions. But if they win, we can start salivating about a more competitive Finals rematch -- or perhaps LeBron versus Kobe in June.
"Rematch" can be the most fraudulent word in team sports. The rosters are too fluid, and the combination of chemistry and momentum are too difficult to recreate to produce a true rematch. Boxers have rematches. Basketball teams play again.
When the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics met in the Finals last season, it wasn't even a rematch of their earlier games that season. They hadn't played since Dec. 30, and in the interim, the Lakers lost Andrew Bynum and gained Pau Gasol (and shipped Kwame Brown and Javaris Crittenton off to Memphis in the trade), while the Celtics picked up P.J. Brown and Sam Cassell from the NBA wastelands.
But now, with the two teams together on the court for the first time since the Celtics ran the Lakers off the parquet floor to claim their 17th NBA championship, we're faced with the possibility that things haven't changed. That's an incredible testament to Boston and a fear-inducing prospect for Los Angeles. Everything about the Celtics screams that their 66-16 record last season and their subsequent championship was no fluke. This is "The Godfather Part II" of title defenses.
For the 2008-09 Celtics, it's not about the roster moves. Forget, for a moment, Brown's return to retirement or the much-bemoaned departure of James Posey to New Orleans via free agency. Tony Allen's return from a knee injury hasn't transformed this team. The noticeable difference is the attitudes of Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins, the confidence surging through Rondo's veins and the sneer on Perkins' face. Boston has all the swagger and none of the complacency that can accompany a championship.
The Lakers are taller now that Bynum has returned from a knee injury that kept him out for the second half of last season and the playoffs. They're deeper with Trevor Ariza taking a more active role. But do we really know whether they're better? Can toughness be willed into existence? Can it be forged by humiliation and bitterness? Or do the Lakers need to get an enforcer, someone to play Marty McSorley to Kobe Bryant's Wayne Gretzky?
So far, the only thing the Lakers have determined is that Bill Parcells was wrong, that you are not always what your record says you are. Although the standings show the Lakers are the best in the Western Conference at 23-5, the headlines reflect a team in regression with some questioning of authority. Bynum sees a dissonance between a front office that was willing to give him a maximum-salary extension and a coaching staff that won't let him play maximum minutes. Before Jordan Farmar suffered a knee injury that could keep him out a month, the backup point guard met with Phil Jackson to ascertain what, exactly, the coach wants him to do. Lamar Odom initially chafed at being relegated to the second unit, then grew more comfortable -- so comfortable, in fact, that he stopped scoring. He had a run during which he produced double digits in the points column only twice in 13 games, even though he should be dominating against opponents' reserves.
But the greatest issue with this team is the defensive softness that took over after a training camp filled with talk of getting tougher on D and a couple of weeks of proving it. If the Lakers' recent back-to-back losses weren't bad enough, four of their five losses on the season have come against Eastern Conference teams. That would be the same Eastern Conference the Celtics have rampaged through at a 19-1 clip.
For a while, the excuse for the Lakers was that they weren't motivated by some of the lesser competition they faced, that they were waiting for the Celtics to muster their best effort. Then their B-game stopped being good enough. Now, Boston's visit to the Staples Center could be a bad omen, not an opportunity.
In a sense, it's better for them that this game comes now; there have been seasons when the Lakers didn't get their first look at the Celtics until the end of January or even later. It could be the difference between realizing you forgot your cell phone as you're backing out of the driveway on your way to the airport or after you've gone through the airport security screening line.
For once, a single NBA game will be able to tell us whether we should bother waiting for the next time around.
