LOS ANGELES -- I can describe Boston's Game 1 performance in three words: out of character. While we must give the Lakers their due -- Kobe Bryant was brilliant in the third quarter especially, Pau Gasol continued a dominating playoff run of his own and L.A.'s defense took away a lot of the Celtics' easy looks -- the fact remains that Boston did three things that were completely outside its norm, and those were major factors in the 102-89 loss. All those factors add up to one big-picture factor: For whatever reason, the Celtics didn't approach this game with anywhere near the intensity they showed in the first three games of the Orlando series. Perhaps the most symbolic play came from consecutive players late in the first quarter, when L.A. guards Jordan Farmar and Shannon Brown went hurtling to the basket with no Boston big man in sight to challenge them. In 2008, one of the Celtics' big men would have either blocked the shot, taken a charge or, at worst, knocked the offending Laker to the ground and made him earn his points at the line. On this night, none of those things happened. Rasheed Wallace and Glen Davis meekly watched as Farmar and Brown laid the ball in for four of the 48 points in the paint the Lakers had on the night -- hardly what we expect from a Boston squad that had played exquisite defense throughout the postseason. About the only thing in character we saw from the Celtics tonight was Sheed's technical foul, which leaves him just two more away from an automatic one-game suspension. "It was horrible," said Celtics coach Doc Rivers of his team's defense, and he knows of what he speaks. Boston's offensive effort probably wasn't good enough to win the game anyway, but that's secondary to the multiple leaks it showed on defense. As I mentioned, there were three particular areas that seemed notably out of whack for Boston: the offensive rebounds, free throws and fast-break points the C's permitted L.A. Thanks to their performance in those three categories, the Lakers scored a ton of easy points. Normally, Boston's opponents have to scratch and claw for every point, but in the first three quarters L.A. had 22 points on free throws, 16 on second-chance points and 10 on fast breaks. That adds up to 44 relatively easy points (four of the second-chance points came on free throws) out of its total of 84. Take away those plays and it was a more typically Bostonian struggle for the Lakers to score: L.A. had 40 points on its other 41 shots from the field in the first three quarters, plus 13 turnovers. But with more than half its points coming on the easy stuff, it didn't matter. Let's take a closer look: Offensive rebounds. The Lakers won the game by 13 -- and the second-chance points battle by 16. You do the math. I should point out that we'd expect offensive rebounds to be a slight edge for L.A. The Lakers were a good offensive rebounding team in the regular season, collecting 27.7 percent of their misses to rank seventh in the NBA. The Celtics, meanwhile, were only a league-average defensive rebounding team at 73.8 percent of opponent misses, and they have posted the same exact figure during the playoffs. But the Lakers didn't get only 27.7 percent of misses Thursday -- they got 34.3 percent. And that actually understates how well they rebounded when the game was still being decided. L.A. had all 16 of its second-chance points in the first three quarters, when it was racing out to a 20-point lead. By the end of the third quarter L.A. had 10 offensive boards to 13 defensive boards for Boston (43.5 percent), plus it had drawn two fouls on misses that produced "team rebounds" (the league's catch-all, sweep-it-under-the-rug category). All told, the Lakers grabbed 12 of their 25 missed shots -- from Boston's point of view, that's a completely unacceptable 48.0 percent offensive rebound rate for L.A. L.A. got six possessions more than expected from its offensive rebound rate; one would expect the Lakers to net about seven points on those trips. Thus, the majority of the 13-point margin can be explained by Boston's odd inability to grab missed shots in the first three quarters. As for why, Rivers blamed defensive breakdowns that led to frontcourt players being out of position. "It wasn't the bigs' fault," Rivers said, "it was the guard dribbling down the middle of the lane. Our bigs have to help; they miss a shot and their bigs get an offensive rebound." That's part of the explanation, but I'm not sure it's all of it. Kevin Garnett in particular seemed dead-legged for Boston (just one defensive board in the first three quarters), and none of Boston's frontcourt players showed much activity. Against the length and dexterity of Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom, they'll need to do much better. Fast-break points. Perhaps a greater surprise than the offensive boards were L.A.'s transition points. Transition defense has always been a huge strength of Boston's -- it's how the Celtics are able to post great defensive numbers even though they're one of the league's most turnover-prone teams. Normally, high-turnover teams give up a lot of easy run-outs, but the Celtics have been an exception. They weren't Thursday. On a couple of notable plays, Boston simply stopped running back. After a bad pass led to a Kobe Bryant steal, Paul Pierce sat at the line lamenting his decision while Garnett chased Bryant in vain on a fast-break dunk. On another, Ron Artest grabbed a rebound and pitched ahead to Derek Fisher, but only one Celtic got back. When Bryant flew in from the weak side for an alley-oop dunk, there wasn't a second Boston player in sight. The fast-break points were symbolic of a larger trend -- for whatever reason, the Lakers' side had vastly more energy than Boston. "We can deal with losing because it's part of the game," Pierce said. "But you can't deal with it when you lose the way we did. We're down 20, they beat us to the hustle plays. That don't sit well with me at all." Finally, there are all the fouls. While one should point out that the Celtics ended up attempting more free throws than the Lakers, the timing of the whistles and the victims of the calls both were major stories. Again, this was unexpected. Boston fouled more than the average team in the regular season, but the "who" on those fouls is important -- none of their five starters fouled at high rate (even Kendrick Perkins averaged a modest one foul per ten minutes), but the reserves fouled a lot. The Lakers, on the other hand, were below-average at drawing fouls in the regular season. So the whistle-happy first three quarters that saw L.A. draw 27 free throw attempts on 57 shot attempts -- with 16 of the 25 fouls called on Boston's starters -- were unexpected, to say the least. So was the type of fouls. The plays that should have been fouls were the ones on which Boston didn't offer resistance -- notably the late-first-quarter drives by Farmar and Brown, or a similar play when Farmar drove to the cup past an onlooking Garnett early in the fourth. Those should have ended up with a Laker on the ground shooting free throws. Instead, the fouls came on other plays -- over-aggressive perimeter challenges, leaping on shot fakes and one dodgy whistle that sent Allen back to the pine with his fifth foul. "We didn't attack," Perkins said. "We fouled every time." Moreover, there was the fact that the fouls served to neutralize Boston's greatest offensive advantage -- having three perimeter players who all must be defended -- by sending Ray Allen to the bench for the bulk of the first three quarters. He played only 15 of the first 36 minutes, and when Tony Allen or Michael Finley were in the game in his place, the Celtics became exponentially easier to guard. Sum it all up and it was a rather atypical performance for Boston at the defensive end. "They attacked us the entire night," Rivers said. "I don't think we handled it very well. " They'll have to remedy those shortcomings quickly, because Boston's margin for error is small. The Celtics have to play elite-caliber defense to have a chance in this series because they lack the offensive weapons to beat the Lakers. In Game 1, at least, they were miles short. Source: ESPN
