posted June 18, 2008 at 16:15 in NBA Betting Trends

It’s amazing to me how the Boston Celtics, who were fantastic for sports betting faithful during the regular season, stumbled early in the Eastern Conference playoffs by not winning an away game until their third playoff series then improved enough in the Eastern Conference Finals to not only put away the Pistons but to dominate a team like the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals.

That rarely happens. By the time the Celtics faced the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Championship, they had, like a great race horse, returned to the form that had garnered them sixty-six wins during the regular season. The Lakers, in hindsight, had very little chance in this series.

The issue wasn’t with the Lakers’ overall talent, it was there, and it was with the Boston Celtics brand of team defense. This Celtics’ team might be the best defensive team to ever win the championship. No matter where the Lakers went during this series, in particular that final game six, a man in green was there ready to make a seemingly easy shot very difficult.

That’s the philosophy of both the Celtic’s general manager, Danny Ainge, and the Celtics’ coach, Doc Rivers. It’s also the philosophy of future hall-of-famer Kevin Garnett who was instrumental in the championship run even though he wasn’t Boston’s top scorer.

Could the Men in Green repeat? I don’t see why not if everybody stays healthy. They are an aging team, but Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen all have at least two or three more years in them. Not only that, but the Eastern Conference will be in flux next season as Joe Dumars, the head man at Detroit, has publicly stated that he is going to break up the nucleus that has led Detroit to an NBA Championship and two NBA Finals appearances.

Boston should remain the class of the Eastern Conference until the Cleveland Cavaliers get LeBron James some help. That might not be for a while.

As far as the Lakers are concerned the future does look bright, but we’d best hold ourselves from wearing purple and gold everyday until the end of next season until we find out how coach Phil Jackson is going to solve their defensive woes. In game six of the NBA Finals, the Lakers had only two offensive rebounds. That’s the lowest total in the history of any NBA Finals game. The Lakeshow only pulled in twenty-nine rebounds overall as opposed to the forty-eight that the Celtics grabbed.

Kobe Bryant is the best player in the NBA right now, but the difference between Kobe and Michael Jordan is that there wasn’t a player in Jordan’s era that could even come close to him. Kobe’s great, but the talent level in the NBA is amazing. There were no Chris Pauls in the league when Jordan played. No Tim Duncans. No Kevin Garnetts.

Kobe’s not going to dominate the competition the way Jordan did because the competition in this NBA is stiffer and he doesn’t have Scottie Pippen. That’s life. The Lakers will have to deal with it.

How? By signing a shut-down defensive player and getting rid of some that dead weight on their roster. Vujacic is okay, but he’s really not the type of player that the Lakers should have on their team. Phil Jackson’s best teams in Chicago emphasized defense. Vujacic does not have the ability to play defense. Neither does Pau Gasol unfortunately. Suck it up and get a guy like Ron Artiest is what I say.

So that’s where the NBA Season ends - - with a tremendous letdown. The two most storied teams in NBA history put on one of the most boring NBA Finals in recent memory.

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