NBA Finals Game 2: Is Pau Gasol Out of His Mind?
If you want to beat the Celtics and win the NBA Championship, you don’t go giving them bulletin board material. It doesn’t matter what question a reporter asks. In the NBA and the NFL, you don’t let a reporter goad you into creating bulletin board quotes for your opponents.
This is not MMA. This is not the UFC. Gaining any kind of momentum and having an advantage, no matter how slight, over an opponent in the NBA and the NFL is of the utmost importance.
After gaining the upper hand in Game 1 of their NBA Finals matchup with the Celtics, the Lakers certainly didn’t expect to have the tables turned on them even before Game 2, and by one of their star players no less.
Pau Gasol not only gave the Celtics and Kevin Garnett bulletin board material, he gave them billboard-sized material.
When asked how much Kevin Garnett’s game has changed over the years, here is what Pau Gasol had to say:
"On Kevin's part, he's lost a little of his explosiveness. He's more of a jump shooter now, you could say, comes off the lane. Before, he had a really, really quick first step and was getting to the lane and was more aggressive then. Time passes and we all suffer it one way or another, but he is still a terrific player, a terrific competitor and he's going to bring everything he's got. You can count on that."
Just great, Pau. Who do you think you are, the second coming of Larry Bird?
You must have taken leave of your senses. I might have expected something like that from Ron Artest, who can get a little crazy at times. But even Artest has enough common sense not to insult an opponent who happens to be a future Hall of Famer and one who can turn this series around in just one game.
But Gasol must have been feeling pretty good about himself and being the only player with a double-double in Game 1 to come out and say that Kevin Garnett has lost some of his explosiveness and that quick first step.
And to call the future Hall of Fame power forward, and one of the best in the game, a jump shooter, well, that is adding insult to injury.
You just don’t comment that way about a player of KG’s stature. And then to add that Garnett used to be more aggressive. Well, guess what, Pau? Garnett and the Celtics are going to show you just how aggressive they can be in Game 2.
Gasol should have simply said that he had not seen much of a change if any and then added that Garnett just had a bad game. We all have bad games at one time or another.
Now it’s not only the Lakers, but the Celtics who have something to be upset and angry about. And I expect them to take it out on Gasol and the entire Lakers front court.
It is rather ironic that Kobe Bryant has looked upon Pau Gasol as the Lakers’ savior since coming from the Grizzlies. But if the Lakers lose this series, the blame for the great turnaround in the play of the Celtics will rest squarely on Gasol’s shoulders.
Lakers’ fans may say that I am making too much of Gasol’s comment. But this is nothing compared to what Garnett and the Celtics will make of it.
Sunday’s Game 2 is no longer a game to them, no longer a war, but an all-out invasion in which the Celtics will come out victorious, Gasol will not have another double-double, and Kevin Garnett will play his best game of the year.
