Finals Analysis Part II

Part I, III, IV, V

Part I gave me some amount of pause when deciding how the Point Guard match up would turn out. But There is no danger of that happening in Part II. Without further delay,

Shooting Guard

Celtics: Ray Allen

As long as Doc Rivers doesn't suddenly decide that Up is Down and Right is Wrong, Ray Allen will still be the Starting Shooting Guard when the Two teams Face off in the Finals, despite his struggles recently. Jesus Shuttlesworth (If you haven't seen He Got Game, it's your own fault for not getting the reference, not mine), by any account is a very good player. He's not the greatest defensive player, but he isn't a liability to the point where he needs to be taken out of games in big moments. When he entered the league out of Uconn, he was mostly a jump shooter, like a smaller Glen Rice or a slower Reggie Miller. But over the years, he's added a deceptively quick first step, an underrated crossover and he has really always been a good passer. In fact, there is nothing that you can really say he does poorly. Years of having a meticulously OCD-driven work-out regimen helps. True, he has been shooting poorly in the playoffs this year, but ask Phil Jackson if that means he wants to leave Ray Allen open on the wing for even a millisecond. Shuttlesworth has one of the quickest, most accurate releases on his jump shot the league has ever seen and he's one of the two or three guys in the league who wouldn't even flinch in a Clutch-Free-Throw-Shooting contest with Kobe Bryant. at around 90% for his CAREER, Allen is also one of the best Free throw shooters the League has ever seen.


Lakers: Kobe Bryant

That being Said, Ray Allen is going to get DESTROYED in this series. Kobe Bryant has been the best all around player in the game since at least 2000 (His first year on the All-Defensive Team). This year he is the League's MVP because he was one of the best defenders all year long, he's always been able to score literally on ANYBODY and saying that he is perennially on the NBA's All Defensive team is truly understating his ability and his commitment on the Defensive end. Kobe's offense is faster and stronger than Allen's Defense and Kobe's Defense is Faster and Stronger than Allen's offense. However, we all know that No NBA Team is going to try to cover Kobe 1 on 1 with Ray Allen, who - no offense intended either way - couldn't stay with Joe Johnson defensively. There will be a LOT of cross matches in this series where Pierce will be guarding Bryant. That will help quite a bit because Pierce is a significant upgrade over Allen (who, again, is not THAT bad). Of course, this means that Allen will be guarding a much bigger player (Luke Walton, Trevor Ariza, Vladimir Radmonovic or even Lamar Odom if Phil gets Creative) and if those small forwards decide to take Allen into the post, then Garnett is going to need to Earn that DPOY Trophy the hard way, but playing a mid-zone for Allen's backup and recovering to his man in the post or on cuts. This is the Single Biggest match up problem that the Celtics will face and it poses almost NO problems for the Lakers because of Kobe's abilities on both ends of the court.

Advantage: Lakers... And it isn't even close (shakes head in pity for Ray Allen).

editor's note: One interesting thing to watch for in this series will be the ongoing "Rivalry" - if you can call it that - between Kobe and Allen. They say that it's nothing, but you'll notice that They go at each other harder than most people. If the fire in this feud really has been doused as they claim, expect it to be rekindled in this series.

Part I, III, IV, V