J.A. Adande of ESPN.com: “Here it was, literally in Kobe Bryant’s hands, the chance to turn this basketball into a gold trophy, an opportunity to tie the score or take the lead against the Orlando Magic with half a minute left, a shot at the historically insurmountable 3-0 advantage in the NBA Finals in his grasp. He bobbled it. He lost it. Orlando’s Mickael Pietrus grabbed it. Bryant had no choice but to foul him for two free throws that extended the Magic’s lead to their eventual winning margin of four points. Bryant was so mad at himself he ignored his prone teammate Pau Gasol. Gasol had hit the deck to retrieve the ball after Dwight Howard poked it away as Bryant tried to split a double-team. Gasol instinctively passed to Kobe, the man three-quarters of the league would choose to have the ball in the final minute of a game. Just not on Tuesday night. This time, given a reprieve on the same play, given another chance on a night of several crunch-time mistakes, Bryant couldn’t even maintain possession. After the foul he stomped around, nearly stepping on Gasol, whom he never did offer a hand. He didn’t pick his teammates up, he let his teammates down; whatever direction you want to use it was appropriate.”
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports: “He reached back in Game 3, and a most unsettling truth washed over him: Even with 31 points and eight assists, the burst wasn’t there for Bryant. Truth be told, Bryant was beat. Willing heart, wobbly legs. ‘Yeah,’ Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. ‘He’ll say no.’ He pushed too hard Tuesday night. He shot his teammates disdainful glares when they failed to get him the ball, and he berated Andrew Bynum(notes) in timeouts and did his damndest to hold down the Magic. This was one of those nights when it was hell to be a teammate, when 17,461 screaming fans found an ally in No. 24 on the Lakers. Kobe was on the edge, the brink. These Magic scare him, but so does the understanding that these championship seasons can be so fleeting. It makes him a nightmare of a teammate this time of year. He was beyond unpleasant with his teammates Tuesday night; he was downright nasty. ‘If they can’t stand up to that, they can’t play on this team,’ Jackson said. ‘You have to be able to stand up to that and play through it.’”
Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times: “The Lakers coaches feel he expended too much energy too early, throwing up more shots in the first quarter — 10 — than any two players combined. ‘He never really got in rhythm again the same way he was at that time,’ Jackson said. The Magic players felt it was their defense who shut him down and, indeed, amid a joyous vacation atmosphere, they sent players at him from teacups to flying toads. ‘They threw the whole kitchen sink, and they did a great job staying on my body,’ Bryant said. There is a third possibility for Bryant’s fatigue, but it is too premature to ponder, and, for Laker fans, too painful to even consider. Two months shy of his 31st birthday, three games into the most strenuous basketball series of his life, could Bryant be hitting a wall that will not disappear? In three games, he has played 126 of 149 minutes while averaging 27 shots per game.”
Kelly Dwyer of Yahoo! Sports: “Dwight Howard took six shots. It’s nice if he’s scoring in the post (Tony Battie set him up with a pair of nice high-low passes from the top of the key) and putting up huge numbers, but it’s not a prerequisite to winning. If the matchups aren’t set in a way that allows him to score at ease offensively, than his work has to be done elsewhere. And “elsewhere,” in this case, was on the glass and defensively. The Lakers snuck in for a few offensive rebounds too many, but the Magic still enjoyed a two-rebound advantage overall. Defensively, he helped contain Kobe Bryant in the second half. His attention on Bryant may have allowed Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol to toss in a few post-up looks in that second half, and Courtney Lee is to be credited (really, really credited) for his fantastic defense, but Howard was a presence that both Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant mentioned after the game without much prodding. I know what you’re thinking. 51 percent shooting for the Lakers, about 121 points per 100 possessions, 104 points overall in a very slow (86 possessions) game. Well, I’m telling you, the Magic’s defense was just fine.”
John Schuhmann of NBA.com: “It wasn’t just a matter of the ball going through the hoop on Tuesday. It wasn’t like the Magic took the same shots that they did in Games 1 and 2, and more of them went in. The shots the Magic took at Amway Arena were better than the ones they took in Los Angeles. And the shots were better because the Magic moved the ball better and made wiser decisions with it. They were sharper with their passing and quicker with their cuts to the basket. ‘Tonight, we played with more speed and more energy on the offensive end,’ Alston said. ‘We were able to get down the floor, push it, [and run] a lot of pick-and-roll, which is our game.’ The Magic’s high pick-and-roll worked all night. Dwight Howard was quicker in getting to the basket after setting the screen, and when he’s active like that, he’s able to use his speed to get great position under the hoop before his man can recover. If another defender helps out, somebody will be open on the perimeter. And if the ball movement is crisp, the Magic are going to get a great look at the basket. The Cleveland Cavaliers had no answer for the play in the Eastern Conference finals and on Tuesday, the Lakers looked similarly defenseless.”
Chris Sheridan of ESPN.com: “That was quite the story Stan Van Gundy told afterward about how he motivated Rafer Alston. A short story, and a tall tale, too. ‘I thought for two days about what to say to him, and I said ‘Play your game.’ You can write that down. That’s a quote. It took me two days to come up with that.’ If you want to believe that was the only motivational thing Van Gundy said to his point guard, go ahead. But you’d be fooling yourself just as much as Van Gundy was trying to fool everyone who was watching and listening to his postgame news conference. In reality, Van Gundy was all over Alston on the team bus after Game 2, and all over him again at practice Tuesday morning, repeatedly imploring Alston to be aggressive all over the court — a litany of motivational talks that ESPN colleague Rachel Nichols first reported during her pregame SportsCenter report. The microphone Van Gundy was wearing during Game 3 even picked him up telling Alston during the third quarter: ‘Solid and simple. Settle down, play your game.’”
Ken Berger of CBSSports.com: “My eyes were drawn to Jackson on the sideline at several points during the Magic’s 108-104 victory over the Lakers in Game 3, and his eyes appeared to be focused with blazing intensity on Dwight Howard. It has been a constant battle in the postseason for Howard to find the balance between exerting his physical prowess and stepping over the line. My eyes told me that Jackson thought Howard was stepping over the line Tuesday night. And when I asked Jackson what he’d been so concerned about out there, his answer proved that I was right. ‘Well,’ Jackson said when I asked my question, and I knew he was off and running. ‘He was just using his strength out there. We’re obviously concerned about his physical contact out there and the amount of picks he’s laying on our defenders — Trevor [Ariza] and Fish [Derek Fisher]. They did give an offensive foul to him at one point, but we thought there were three or four occasions where there were offensive fouls.’ Consider the idea planted. Consider the trap set. Jackson is up to his old tricks again, and he’s right on time. It always starts when the Lakers get hit on the chin.”
Sam Amick of the Sacramento Bee: “Without a commitment on the Rambis front and with the fact that – as Petrie told me tonight – third candidate and Boston associate head coach Tom Thibodeau had pulled out of the race earlier in the day, the desire to get a deal done with someone whose desire to be in Sacramento was no mystery rather than head further down the rocky Rambis road won out. There had been rumblings all along that Rambis had serious doubts about the job on a number of fronts and may not have taken it unless the expected salary ($1.5 million per in two guaranteed seasons) increased significantly, and it became clear at the end that Petrie preferred the security of a guy he was also high on whose interest was indisputable and whose terms had been agreed to (at least the basic structure of the terms) weeks before.”
Sekou Smith of the Atlanta Journal Constitution: “What if the Hawks can’t keep their team together because of finances, dumb luck and the aggressive pursuit of their free agents by other teams? Like most of you, I’ve (foolishly) been operating under several assumptions the past few weeks. But after speaking with several NBA players, coaches and other sources around the league over the last week, it seems we’ve all been a bit too optimistic about the chances of all these guys reuniting next season. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, getting all these guys in uniform for next season will cost a whole lot more than the Hawks are used to spending,’ one Eastern Conference front office man told me Monday afternoon. ‘Check their roster and see how many guys they spent serious money on. It’s a short list. They inherited Bibby’s big deal and now that’s gone. They signed Joe [Johnson] and Josh [Smith] to their deals. Beyond that, there wasn’t a single guy on their roster they spent mid-level money on, not one, and that says something.’”
Joe Freeman of The Oregonian: “With a season-ending defeat against Houston fresh in his mind and his thoughts slowly drifting toward the future, All-Star guard Brandon Roy revealed one crucial area he thinks the Trail Blazers will need to tweak if they are to grow into a championship contender. ‘We are going to need some toughness,’ Roy said. ‘We are going to have to get tougher, a little grittier. Who knows if that’s one player or two players, but it’s something that we are going to need to add.’ Roy made the statement after his exit interviews with coaches and team management the day after the Blazers were eliminated in their first-round playoff series with the Rockets. But a little more than a month later, as the Blazers evaluate draft prospects, Roy’s words resonate. No matter what the Blazers do this offseason — make a splashy trade for a veteran, sign a difference-making free agent or add draft picks — the team needs to become tougher to advance beyond the first round of the playoffs and become a championship threat.”
Marc Berman of the New York Post: “At Chicago’s draft combine in late May, Stephen Curry went on a shooting tear. Today at the Knicks’ Westchester compound, Curry can cement the Knicks’ interest with another shooting exhibition as he battles against another point guard on the Knicks’ radar, Jrue Holiday of UCLA. ‘I’m not downplaying or up-playing what (Curry) did in Chicago, he makes every shot, but we’re not locked in yet,’ coach Mike D’Antoni told The Post after the combine. D’Antoni made the point the Knicks were leaning against drafting Danilo Gallinari until mid-June, when he blew them away in his workout. Yesterday, the Knicks held their first pre-draft workouts with point guards Jonny Flynn of Syracuse and Ty Lawson of North Carolina. Though Lawson won the NCAA championship and the Bob Cousy Award for best point guard, he is not rated ahead of Flynn, Curry or Holiday on the Knicks’ point-guard wish list, according to a source.”
John Schuhmann of NBA.com: “Fourteen months after their initial announcement that they were joining forces to clean up youth basketball, the NBA and NCAA formally introduced the iHoops program before Game 3 of the 2009 NBA Finals at Amway Arena on Tuesday. NBA Commissioner David Stern, iHoops CEO Kevin Weiberg, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski, and representatives from Nike and adidas were on hand to make the announcement and discuss the program’s goal to create a better environment for developing American basketball players and coaches. NCAA president Myles Brand was not on hand for the announcement, but Stern noted that Brand was a large part of iHoops’ development, and that the NBA and NCAA have ‘a common agenda.’ ‘[Basketball] is the No. 1 participation team sport amongst both boys and girls in the U.S., and we aim to make it better,’ Stern said. iHoops is not meant to be an alternative to AAU, but Weiberg believes that it can help enhance and add structure to the existing system of non-scholastic basketball.”
(Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler NBAE/Getty Images)
