Concerns Going Into Game 2

Posted by Mike Giardi June 8, 2008 at 4:01 pm

I am mere minutes away from departing Team NECN headquarters to make my way to the Garden for tonight’s Game 2 of the NBA’s Finals between your Boston Celtics and the L.A. Lakers. As I’ve mentioned in each of the past couple days, the first concern here is Paul Pierce’s right knee strain. I guess we should all feel better about his health considering PP and Sam Cassell had what was described as a spirited game of 1-on-1 at the C’s shootaround this morning/afternoon. I’ll be real interested to see his lateral movement/quickness on cuts and defensively. I also will be watching very carefully to see how Pierce explodes to the basket.

My 2nd area of concern..the health of one Kendrick Perkins. He wasn’t allowed to do jack squat this morning, and high ankle sprains are never good. Perk didn’t put up any kind of numbers Thursday night, but he did a good job defensively before getting hurt. Pau Gasol didn’t get an offensive board until midway through the 4th quarter. Is it any coincidence that Perk was out of the game at that point? I think not. If he can’t go, or can’t play for very long, that puts an extra burden on P.J. Brown and company. I’m not sure they can handle those kind of minutes.

Lastly, and simply, I wonder about Kobe. The C’s defense may not have gotten enough credit for how they played in Game 1, but Kobe is an assasin. I don’t think there’s any way he doesn’t bounce back in this game, big time. Now does he do it at the expense of his teammates, or can he still manage to go off and get everyone else involved?

Enjoy the game.