The First Four Minutes: How Boston Turned the Finals Into a Series

About two-and-a-half minutes into the game when Bryant made a layup to give the Lakers a commanding 3-2 lead I looked at my wife and said, "This game is pretty much over."

She looked at me quizzically and said, "One point doesn't seem like a very big lead."

The one point was not the issue. It was the preceding two-and-a-half minutes. The Lakers came out tentative.

Bryant's first shot was the same shot he was taking the first game and three quarters: a medium range jumper. He took what the defense had given him instead of imposing his will on the defenders, and it was a weak looking shot indeed.

Matching up to that were three blocked shots and a turnover. The Lakers were tentative and weak at the offensive end, their shots looking shaky, and their confidence inexplicably low.

If Boston had just hit a couple shots it is possible the Lakers would have closed up shop and gotten rolled over. However, Boston struggled just as badly at the offensive end. They were missing shots, struggling to get into the offense, and as a result they left the door open.

When Bryant finally made a layup it signaled a sea change. The Lakers were finally going to begin asserting themselves on offense. Instead of pulling up as soon as they encountered resistance, now they would attack the rim. Now there would actually be fouls to call, unlike the first two games.

Ironically, for the first time in the series I saw some uncalled muggings. It was not much of a surprise Paul Pierce did not benefit from the call based on the whining from the previous games.

The one thing I had not seen was someone explaining that perhaps the disparity in foul calls was because of a disparity in fouls committed. At least, I hadn't until Jeff Van Gundy, whom I often malign for his commentating, brought it up.

Well done, Jeff. I agree. Yes, Leon Powe shot a lot of free throws, but he took a lot of big shots to get them, too.

Powe is hardly a superstar who is going to benefit from questionable foul calls. Yet no one saw fit to address that until Van Gundy finally brought it up.

Be that as it may, in this game, once Boston let that golden opportunity to end the series pass, Bryant went to work. There would be no settling for jump shots with a hand in his face, he was going to get to the basket regardless of what the defense tried to do.

When a player with the transcendent talent of Bryant chooses to break down his defender, there will be fouls. He rightly spent a lot of time at the line as a result.

Boston is too good a team to not make a run and they even took the lead in the third quarter. But the damage had been done in the first three minutes. The Lakers had experience in how to deal with the stifling Boston defense. Though I was hopeful Boston would hang on to win, it was not to be.

I still think Boston will pull out at least one of the three games in L.A. and win the series, but they could have won via blowout. Sometimes it is just little things that decide a series. In this case it was their inability to score in the first few possessions.

Once the Lakers hung in early it was pretty much foreordained this would become a more competitive series. Sadly for Boston fans...and Laker haters...there is also a pretty fair chance that. Now that they have dominated a quarter in Boston and won a game, the Lakers could come back to pull off the upset and win this series.

If they do, they can thank Bryant for the layup that showed them how to get it done.