Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle: “Scola said it had nothing to do with energy or effort.‘No, no, no,’ he said. ‘No energy level. We played hard. They just played better. No excuses. They just outplayed us today. You got to be ready to compete against anybody. Sooner or later, good things will happen.’ And you thought that if Chuck Hayes had as many field goals as Kobe Bryant, the Rockets might have a chance. There are always parallel story lines. The Lakers will tell you they won because of an overwhelming size advantage. With both Pau Gasol (21 points, 18 boards) and Andrew Bynum (14 points, 6 boards), the Lakers probably were going to win no matter how the Rockets played. The Rockets made it easy. They had no flow to their offense, took too many quick shots and seemed overwhelmed by the big stage. The Lakers focused on stopping Brooks, and there wasn’t enough ball movement to get others in position to make plays.”
Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: “As nice as it was to have demonstrated the resilience and determination they had shown throughout their often rocky season, those watching closely along the way already knew that about them. It was only those that only started watching in the postseason that picked up on that when the Rockets pushed the Lakers. They did, however, gain something by playing 13 postseason games, something they lacked and desperately needed in those dozen seasons unable to get past the first round. The playoffs are when teams really learn what it takes to be more than their talent allows, when they learn about themselves and how they must play to be their best. It is a process and it’s not easy, as the Rockets’ Game 7 loss to the Lakers showed. In the end, to win big in the NBA requires stars, even superstars, and by the time the series ended, the Rockets did not have them. The Rockets had to ask Aaron Brooks to fill that role, and that was a bit much to expect.”
J.A. Adande of ESPN.com: “The series certainly wasn’t shaping up as Phil Jackson’s finest hour. The starting lineup hadn’t clicked at tipoff in the previous three games, with Games 4 and 6 beginning so badly you wondered if he spent the pregame showing a boring movie like ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.’ His squad couldn’t put away the undersized Rockets. He violated coaching protocol by answering questions about the Denver Nuggets when there were still two games left to play in this series. He even had the audacity to complain about his injuries when Houston has Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady and Dikembe Mutombo in suits. He blew his vaunted cool once in this series, cursing in a news conference, and even said that he’d woken up an hour early on Sunday and was nervous before Game 7. Then he commented on that startling admission. ‘I look it don’t I?’ he said, his face just as uncaring as ever. And just like that, Phil was back to being Phil. The captain of cool. ‘Teams tend to take the personality of their coach,’ Lamar Odom said. ‘And I think we have.’”
Ramona Shelburne of the Los Angeles Daily News: “Until Sunday, Gasol was seen as a complementary player. A polite guy with an ego small enough to play in Bryant’s enormous shadow. The kind of guy teammates say ‘leads by example’ and love playing with. But also the kind of guy who can score 28 points and get ignored in postgame analysis. Sunday, there was no forgetting him. The Lakers won this game by choking off the previously smoking Houston attack. By intimidating their waterbug point guard Brooks from penetrating into the paint at will, and by finally making use of their huge size advantage, outrebounding the Rockets 55-33. Gasol fueled each of those efforts. ‘He was extremely active. Especially on the defensive end,’ Bryant said. ‘He did a great job on Brooks, moving his feet and blocking shots. We all know what he can do offensively, but I just felt like defensively he had a superb night. After (Game 6), even though we lost the game, we understood that there was another level still that we could go to defensively.’ Sunday, Gasol took them there.”
Chris Dempsey of The Denver Post: “Forward Carmelo Anthony spent an entire season trying to crack the code to the Lakers’ defense without much success. Against Los Angeles, he averaged 14.5 points on 32.8 percent shooting from the field and 20 percent from the 3-point line. His turnovers in the four games equaled his jersey number (15). But none of that, he said Sunday, is cause for concern in the Nuggets’ upcoming Western Conference finals series against the Lakers. ‘I’m not worried about that,’ Anthony said. ‘They are going to do what they are going to do. They’re going to send two, three people at me. They are going to shift the whole defense on me. I just continue doing what I’ve been doing throughout this whole playoffs.’ Anthony has been nearly unstoppable in these playoffs, averaging 27.0 points, 6.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists. He’s shooting 48 percent from the field and 44.7 percent from the 3-point arc. He scored 102 points in the last three games of the conference semifinal series against the Mavericks.”
Bob Ryan of The Boston Globe: “The Orlando Magic will be playing the rampaging Cleveland Cavaliers for the right to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals, and they richly deserve that honor after playing as sound and intelligent and skillful a game as a road team can play in a Game 7. They took the lead at 3-2 and made the Celtics play catch-up for the remaining 46 minutes and change, walking off with a 101-82 triumph. Oh, the most deserving team won, all right. ‘I’m really proud of my team,’ Rivers said. ‘Clearly, we did not play well tonight. But we had the right spirit. This is my ninth or 10th year, and this is one of my favorite groups, for the way they fought. But give Orlando credit, they were terrific.’ The spirit was willing, perhaps, but the flesh was not up to the task. The Celtics could not stop a team that came out firing threes and never stopped. The Magic are very much a 21st-century team, and so it is appropriate that on a night they advanced to the conference finals for the first time in 13 years they did so by shooting significantly better from 3-point range (61.9 percent) than from two (47).”
Ron Borges of the Boston Herald: “Certainly it was a terrible night to have a terrible night, but that was the way it went. If ever the Celtics needed Pierce to be Pierce it was in this Game 7, because the young lions were at the gate. The Magic were hungry and hostile, salivating at the chance to dethrone the defending NBA champions on their home court. The Celtics, in contrast, had been looking older, slower and more fatigued with each game, the real nadir not coming in last night’s 101-82 loss at the New Garden that in retrospect almost seemed inevitable. No, the real nadir came in Game 6 in Orlando, Fla., when the Celtics hit the wall midway through the fourth quarter and failed to close out the Magic. Despite that, the Celtics have a long history of responding in such Game 7 situations, but history does not win games. Neither does homecourt advantage, because it is no advantage to be at home if you look like you should be home in bed.”
Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel: “Did the Orlando Magic really just bury the storied Boston Celtics 101-82? Did they actually destroy the defending champions by 19 … in Game 7 … on Boston’s home court? Mark this down as one of the greatest days in Orlando sports history. This is the night, the Magic, the resoundingly resilient Magic, ignored all of the Celtics legend and lore and started building their own legacy of triumph and tradition. ‘This is about as big a win as you can have — for our organization and our team,’ Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said. Hey, Shaq, do you still think Van Gundy is the ‘Master of Panic’? Or does he now qualify as the Patriarch of Pressure? Hey, Sports Illustrated, do you still think Dwight Howard smiles too much to lead the Magic to playoff success against the NBA’s elite? Or has he finally proven you can grin — and win?”
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports: “Privately, the Celtics were still hoping that they could steal Game 7 and buy more time for that knee. Sources said that Garnett had been riding the exercise bike feverishly the past week, and even starting to shoot the ball. He hadn’t been able to step onto the practice floor, though. Still, the Celtics were waiting on his surgery for a reason. ‘We were hoping,’ Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. ‘But I didn’t think it would happen.’ Maybe it won’t matter. With a Cavaliers-Magic conference final, the Celtics have to wonder whether the advancing age of their stars could make it too hard to get past the precocious superstars in Cleveland and Orlando. LeBron James(notes) will have a hell of time getting to the rim with the NBA’s defensive player of the year waiting for him there. There’s a reason Orlando beat the Cavaliers two of three times in the regular season: Howard awaits James’ drives to the basket. These aren’t the Pistons and Hawks. The Cavaliers will win this series because of James, but Rashard Lewis had a reminder for everyone: ‘We have a superstar, too. We’ve got Dwight Howard.’”
Brian Windhorst of The Plain Dealer: “The Magic gave the Cavs their worst loss of the season, by 29 points, on April 3 to win the season series, 2-1. There were extenuating circumstances, as the Cavs played terribly on short rest after a late flight from Washington. The Magic were rested and played great, shooting better than 50 percent. That loss served a purpose for the Cavs. Coming off a 13-game winning streak, it demonstrated they could not let their guard down just because they had been playing well. They are in about the same position now, with an eight-game playoff winning streak, a franchise record season for wins and three weeks of feeling unbeatable. After that last experience against the Magic, when the Cavs fell behind by as many as 41 points in one of the worst losses of LeBron James’ career, the team won’t have to be concerned with overconfidence. ‘That loss hurt us,’ coach Mike Brown said. ‘Hopefully it bothered us so we won’t let it happen again.’ The issue in that game, as has been the case with many of the Magic’s wins over the last few seasons, was controlling Orlando’s inside-out attack.”
Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press: “Director of player personnel George David and strength-and-conditioning coach Arnie Kander will put players through workouts in an environment that the Pistons control. ‘If you have questions about player’s ballhandling ability, you can put them up against a good defender,’ David said. ‘It helps answer questions for you.’ Kander, who has worked for the Pistons since 1992, will conduct the workouts that emphasize a prospect’s strength, speed and jumping ability — with a twist. Instead of just having a player jump, Kander will have him run around obstacles and then jump — kind of simulating an actual game situation when going for a rebound. ‘A lot of guys in the NBA can jump out the gym, but can’t get a rebound,’ Kander said.”
Ronald Tillery of the Memphis Commercial Appeal: “Only twice have teams with the worst record won the lottery since the current format began in 1994. Since then, the No. 6 team won the lottery as many times as the team with the most Ping-Pong ball combinations has, with the Milwaukee Bucks in 2005 and Portland Trail Blazers in 2007 winning from the sixth spot. So if the Griz, who have never won the lottery, come up big this time, no one can blame the NBA. It’s the system that’ll continue to come under fire. The lottery originally was developed to help the NBA’s worst teams rebuild by having the highest pick in the draft. But often the results haven’t had exactly that effect.”
Gary Peterson of the Contra Costa Times: “The Bucks, already out of the playoff chase by the end of March, essentially took April off. They lost 10 of their final 14 games to secure the worst record in the NBA’s Eastern Division. Then they won a coin flip with Phoenix, the worst team in the West, for the right to pick first in the draft. A more fortuitous toss o’ the coin you never saw. Milwaukee won, selected Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), and won the NBA championship two years later. Phoenix, picking second, took Neal Walk. And the rest of the NBA said: ‘Whoa, Momma!’ So there would be the answer to the great unspoken question come Tuesday night, when the NBA holds its annual lottery to determine the draft order of the league’s 14 non-playoff teams. Why the pingpong balls? Because you can’t trust a lousy NBA team to continue aspiring to mediocrity when complete failure is a better gamble.”
