Once again, Phil Jackson is playing with fire. After game 1, I said that Phil's assignment of putting Fisher on Ray Allen at the beginning of the game will bite him in the ass game 2. He stuck with it game 3, and regardless of what the stats show for Ray Allen, it did not work.
Fish Boy has been gambling on every screen and his defense has been atrocious. Phil will make 0 defensive adjustments for this game.
Lakers played all 1 on 1 ball. Their ball movement wasn't very good. In my finals write up I said that Phil is going to fade the triangle offense. He is fading it too much, and hasn't realized yet that vujacic is the perfect fit and needs to play more minutes. Too much dribbling by the Lakers in game 3, not enough plays in half court sets.
I said Walton would play Pierce in this series when Artest gets in foul trouble but Pierce will destroy Walton today if test gets in foul trouble, and Phil is going to stick with Walton because he believes it worked.
Phil's defensive assignments right now are a mockery.
Yes, Bryant will not have that type of game. But he was forced into difficult shots and thats all that matters. Fisher is getting tired. He's chasing Ray off screens and trying to get in the paint but realistically its not working. The stats show it, but Fishers shots in the paint were pure luck in game 3 and those shots will not fall game 4. He needs to be a spot up shooter on the road, and if he doesn't do that this game, Lakers will have trouble getting points from people other than Bryant and Gasol. Bynum is quickly losing the lift in his legs. I said he will play well in games 1 and 2 in my writeup and then be non existent on this road trip.
Phil is going to play Odom lots of minutes in this game so that means more minutes for Big Baby over Perkins. Perkins has actually done a great job on Gasol, and I expect Rivers to be smart enough to use that matchup to his advantage at times and leave Garnett on Odom.
Lastly, Nate Robinson has played great in the few minutes he's been in the game. if the celtics get out to any lead, Robinson will have a HUGE game. He's way to strong for Farmar and too quick for Shannon Brown.
L