7

As I promised, being the huge NBA fan that I am, I have to discuss the NBA Finals between the L.A. Lakers and the Boston Celtics.

This has been a weird NBA Finals for me. Mostly due to my work schedule and my lack of digital cable, I have been unable to see an entire Finals game. The few times that I’ve been able to catch some of the game is only because of my knowledge of how to watch the games on my laptop.

But it’s just not the same.

This year’s Finals is a rematch of the 2008 NBA Finals, where the Celtics beat the Lakers 4-2. Last year, the Lakers beat the Orlando Magic in the ’09 NBA Finals 4-1, to become the now-defending champions.

I didn’t predict that the Celtics and Lakers would meet each other again in this year’s Finals, mainly because now it’s almost unheard of to see two teams play each other twice in the Finals, whereas in the 80s it was commonplace. The last time it happened was with the Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz, in the ’97 and ’98 NBA Finals.

With that out of the way, let’s discuss the series which is now tied 3-3, with the deciding seventh game being played on Thursday, June 17.

Coming into this series I felt that the Celtics would have the advantage over the Lakers, just because no one expected them to win the Eastern Conference. It’s been documented before by ESPN columnist and Celtics enthusiast Bill Simmons, that the Celtics went 26-24 in their last 50 games of the regular season. And I don’t know if this is worldwide knowledge, but the NBA regular season is only 82 games. On the flipside, the Lakers had pretty much a guaranteed route to this year’s final, especially with the only two teams that I thought could beat them in a seven-game series, the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks, being ousted in the first round of the playoffs.

This brings us back to the penultimate seventh game.

From the glimpses I’ve been able to catch and what I’ve read about this series, it has been one that could be described best as unpredictable. The first three games, two in L.A. and one in Boston, were muddled by bad refereeing. The result was a 2-1 series with the Lakers leading.

Sidebar: Another stat that has to be brought up is the streak where Lakers coach Phil Jackson has won every series in which his team has won the first game. Right now that streak is at 47 and depending on the outcome of Thursday’s game; it could very well be 48. But there is also another interesting stat pertaining to Phil Jackson. He’s never coached in NBA Finals Game 7.

In the next two games, both in Boston, the Celtics were able to impose their will on the Lakers and even withstood a magnificent performance from Laker Kobe Bryant, to make the 3-2 in the Celtics favor.

Last night’s game featured the Lakers just flat-out dominating the Celtics, while the Celtics lost their starting center Kendrick Perkins in the first quarter. This tied the series 3-3.

To be honest, I would love for the Celtics to somehow win Game 7. I happen to hate Kobe Bryant and the Lakers to almost irrational levels, and to see them win back-to-back championships would hurt me to my core.

On my Facebook status, I half-jokingly said, “I would rather flunk out of college than see the Lakers win (the title) back-to-back. Lakers suck.”

But, sometimes you have to be realistic and with the Perkins being injured I don’t think the Celtics will be able to pull off the upset victory. They have history on their side – in the ’69 Finals a veteran-laden Celtics team beat the Jerry West-helmed Lakers in the deciding Game 7 (another nugget from Simmons’ column).

So, all I can do is sit and wait. And, maybe flunking out of college wouldn’t be that bad.