Back when the Lakers knocked out the Spurs, I wrote about how I had wanted the Spurs to win. I wanted them to win to show the world that a team was more than just a collection of talented players. I wanted to write about how much better it would be for sports if the more cohesive team won instead of a group of extremely talented brats. Instead, I wrote about how often in sports, talent wins, regardless of everything else.
Well, well. I should have waited on that declaration. It wasn’t the Spurs who taught the Lakers and everyone else that lesson. It was the Pistons, and they did an even better job than the Spurs could have. The Spurs have Tim Duncan, a bona fide NBA star. The Pistons have no such star. What they do have is a team. They are a team full of players who hustle, run, scrap, shoot, rebound and defend with purpose. In short, they are everything the Lakers are not.
In fairness, I think the series would have been completely different had Karl Malone been healthy. He played pretty well against both the Spurs and Timberwolves. He was the one Laker who seemed willing to sacrifice for the team, becoming a defensive force after a career of being the number one scoring option. Without Malone and Gary Payton (may he rest in peace) the spotlight shined a little too brightly on Kobe and Shaq.
Every sportswriter in the country has written an article this week about how selfish Kobe has been and how he’s ruined this team. They are all right. Kobe seems to have no idea how to fit his immense talent into a team concept. He doesn’t know how to trust his teammates, how to make them better. Hopefully he’ll learn someday.
One other point I’ve heard countless people make this week is that if the Lakers would just give Shaq the ball more, they’d win. They said that the reason Shaq didn’t have 50 points a game was because Kobe wouldn’t pass him the ball. I say that’s crap. Sure, Kobe and the other Lakers probably could have gotten the ball to big man more often, but I put the blame equally on Shaq. He rarely fought to get the ball. It’s hard to pass the ball into a guy standing still on the other side of the lane. If the only thing keeping him from dominating the series was not having the ball, then why did Ben Wallace outrebound him 68-54 for the series, including 22 to 8 in the final game? I don’t see the Pistons feeding Ben Wallace much on offense. If Shaq really wanted to win, he’d have put forth some effort. If Shaq had played hard, he wouldn’t have been outrebounded by 3 boards a game by a guy 5 inches shorter than him.
So there you go – the Lakers were reduced to two stars, one stubborn and arrogant and the other lazy. They deserved to lose in the humiliating fashion that they did.
And what about the Zen Master, Mr. Psychology himself, Phil Jackson? His whole reputation is built not on X’s and O’s, but on getting into his players’ minds and molding a team out of disparate parts. Well, why then did a team under his control become the poster child for team dysfunction? Maybe Jackson’s not really the Dr. Phil he wants everyone to think he is.
Final thoughts
I can’t remember an NBA champion that was so evenly balanced. You really could make a legitimate argument for Finals MVP for any of their five starters. I would have given it to Ben Wallace, but I have no complaints about Chauncey Billups. Who would have ever thought we’d have an NBA Finals MVP named Chauncey? Chauncey is the name of a country club membership director, not an NBA player.
Congratulations to the Detroit Pistons and the city of Detroit. Shockingly, nothing was burned down last night. That’s a bigger surprise than the Pistons winning in five.