I am a Laker fan, and while I'm not surprised the Celtics beat us in the NBA Finals ... it was a bit frustrating to see them get punked in Game 6. Losing by 39 points when your season (and a championship) is on the line is unbelievable.
However, should I have expected any different from the purple and gold?
To show us the point is a good friend LBerg who threw up some great numbers on the Lakers recent past in exiting playoffs. Folks, it ain't pretty:
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During the other night's debacle, it dawned on me that this was pretty much a rerun of how the last several Lakers playoff runs have ended. So I went back and had a look at the scores of the last games of our last several playoff appearances:
2003 - SA 110 @ Lakers 82
2004 - Det 100 Lakers 87 (game was not as close as score - Lakers were down 30+ in second half)
2006 - Phx 121 Lakers 90
2007 - Phx 119 Lakers 110 (another game not as close as final score iirc)
2008 - Bos 131 Lakers 92
With the exception of 2006, all of these were series in which the wheels came off, where we were completely dismantled. But 2006 of course might have been the worst one of all as we became only the 8th team in the history of the NBA to blow a 3-1 series lead. And we were also destroyed in Game 5 of that series by a score of 114-97.
These playoff meltdowns don't paint a pretty picture for a team that has the best player in the game (and also had the Most Dominant Ever in 2003 and 2004) and the best coach. It's one thing to lose in the playoffs, it's another to lose while getting humiliated. Over and over again.
We had a great season and the future appears bright. But Phil's 9th championship and Kobe's 3rd are getting more and more distant in that rear view mirror. Most troubling is that when we've lost at whatever respective point in the playoffs the past several years, it's been in series in which we couldn't find sustainable answers for what the opposition was doing to us and we basically fell apart and then flat out quit in the final game of these series. Not a pretty picture.
2 comments:
You'll be fine next year, with Bynum allowing Gasol to play his natural 4 and Odom his preferable 3. Y'all bustas better hope that Farmar progresses faster than D-Fish regresses, or ol' Kobe's gonna be gettin' Chicago Eyes again.
That parade was nothing compared to 1986, right after they won the game. People were throwing bottles aroound, flipping over cars and stuff.... it ruled.
The Lakers just got knocked out again in a beatdown. Next year guys.
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