After Game Three, I'll Never Give Up On Derek Fisher Again

I had a good look at Derek Fisher for two seasons, starting in 2004. At the time, Fisher had been bumped from his starting point guard spot with the Los Angeles Lakers when they signed Gary Payton to run the team. Fisher opted out of his contract and became a free agent, attracting interest from my team, the Golden State Warriors.

He was the starting point guard on a team with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal. He played tough defense and hit big shots, but he was never the focal point on their star laden team. But he was a winner. The Warriors thought that he would blossom and become more than who he was in LA, but it never happened.

Fisher was given a boatload of money to the tune of 37 million over six years. They had to overpay him to get him and saw Fisher as the leader of a young team. He was there to help the nucleus of Jason Richardson, Mike Dunleavy, and Troy Murphy gel, and to bring the veteran leadership that the team lacked.

In short, Fisher's stay in Oakland wasn't a successful one. He shot and scored more in Oakland than at anytime in his career, but the Warriors finished with identical 34-48 records. By the time the Warriors traded him, they had a new point guard in Baron Davis, and gave Fisher away to Utah for three guys who you may have never even heard of (Keith McLeod, Andre Owens, and Devin Brown).

I had given up on Fisher because Baron Davis was everything he wasn't. Davis ran the club, was the premier scorer, the most popular player, and became the guy they needed Fisher to become if they were going to win. But Fisher would come back to haunt them.

In the second round of the 2006-2007 NBA Playoffs, the "We Believe" Warriors ran into the Utah Jazz after knocking off the number one seed Dallas Mavericks. Derek Fisher wasn't any different in his role with Utah than he was with the Warriors. In fact, his numbers were worse. But he gave the Jazz a jolt that stayed with them all series long.

Fisher's young infant daughter had retinoblastoma, which is a rare eye cancer. Fisher's status for the series was up in the air but in game two, he made a reluctant return in the middle of the game and helped the Jazz win the game and eventually the series. It stood out as the moment of the entire playoffs. How can you give up on a guy like that?

Fisher asked out of his contract with the Jazz because he wanted to be in a big city where he could get the best medical care for his daughter. The Jazz allowed his contract to be voided and Fisher ended up back in Los Angeles with the Lakers, giving up many millions of dollars in order to come back. His 2007-2008 season with the Lakers was one of the best of his career and he helped the new Kobe-led Lakers get back to the NBA Finals, even though they lost to the Celtics. Last year, he had one of the worst years of his career since he became a starter, but the Lakers were a juggernaut and won the championship.

And this year, he had the worst regular season of his starting career. And I gave up on him again. After game two of this year's NBA Finals in which Fisher looked slow and lethargic, I thought Phil Jackson should start playing Jordan Farmar more because he was able to get to the basket where Fisher couldn't.

I was wrong. Dead wrong.

Derek Fisher was the hero in game three. He was he difference. Playing the most minutes that he played all season long, he came up big when he usually does; the fourth quarter. Fisher was 6-12 from the field, scoring 16 points and his defining moment of the game was scoring on a swooping lay-up going one-on-three (Garnett, Perkins, and Allen) and seemingly being fouled by all three as well.

But where he did his best work was in defending Ray Allen. In game two, Allen went off, hitting a NBA Finals single-game record eight three-pointers and doing so a lot of the time with Fisher chasing him around the court. In game three, Allen was 0-13 shooting and was the invisible man again with Fisher chasing him around the court. Allen might've just been off, but Fisher attacked him harder as if he took game two personally.

Derek Fisher's numbers may be on the way down. He may eventually lose his starting job on this Lakers team over the next couple of years. But never again, will I give up on the guy. He comes up too big in too many big situations.

Boston's Game Two Win Tells A Different Story

If you were a very casual basketball fan and didn't follow basketball all that closely, you'd have a few thoughts about Saturday's Boston Celtics victory over the LA Lakers in game two of the 2010 NBA Finals, and you'd be clear that it was how this series has, was, and will play out.

Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo are the big two for the Celtics

When the Celtics beat the Lakers in 2008, they had a big three. And there was an order to the big three. Kevin Garnett was the final piece of the puzzle, Paul Pierce was the longtime Celtic, and Ray Allen was the perimeter player who stretched the defense.

Back then, Rondo was still the young point guard who might've held them back. Today, Rondo runs their team like few point guards do. He's their best all around player and save for a lack of a real confident go-to jump shot, the weaknesses in his game are hard to find. He needs to have a hand in nearly every situation in order for Boston's offense to succeed, whether it's making the right pass, going to the hole, or pulling an offensive rebound. The day he has a bad game is the day Boston gets run off the court.

Ray Allen needs to be on the court or else the game slows down and the Lakers' length becomes too much for Boston. He stretches the defense because he's so hard to close out on when he's open. He has a quick release and is really good at recognizing when the defense is closing tight. Will he hit eight treys again in a game? No, but he remains the second most important offensive player for Boston in this series and his success is key to their success.

Pau Gasol is better than Kevin Garnett

While history will more than likely say otherwise, today, Gasol is head and shoulders above Garnett. He's simply the better player. He's always had the great offensive skills and now, he has a little bit of snarl in him. He won't play as overtly loud and angry as Garnett needs to because that's not him. But he's not backing down at all.

In the first two games, Gasol has averaged 24 points and 11 rebounds a game while Garnett averaged just 11 points and 4 rebounds a game. Celtics fans may argue that the referees haven't allowed Garnett to play his physical style and they might be right. But Garnett needs to adapt his style so that he's on the court more than 24 minutes like he was on game two. Gasol is having his way with him, but Garnett's the only defender in the front court who can match Gasol's length and who is savvy enough to make things harder for him.

Doc Rivers is Phil Jackson's coaching equal

This is never going to be true.

But game two was a good game for Doc. The Lakers were dominating the middle, but Doc allowed Kendrick Perkins and Big Baby to guard Andrew Bynum without much help. Bynum had a terrific game. But partly because of it, the Lakers' guard play wasn't as good as Boston's and that was the difference in the game. Kobe didn't have many open kick-outs and Fisher only shot 2 of 8. Kobe also looked frustrated at the way the refs were calling the game.

There might be a time in the series where Jordan Farmar has to play more in crunch time because he's one of the few guys on the Lakers who can get to the basket who is not Kobe Bryant. Fisher had a bad game, yet Jackson went to him in crunch time like he probably should've, but Farmar might need to play more down the stretch in close games, at least offensively.

And if Ron Artest is terrible offensively, Phil has to take him out on offense in crunch time right?

Jackson has used the postseason to call out players and officials, which is his own way of having fun with the earned perception that he's such a cerebral coach. But now that Boston has tied the series and can win it out on their home court, Phil is going to have to find the solution to his team's ills, rather than Steve Nash's and Kevin Durant's.

While game two didn't really tell the whole story of both teams, it did show that one game can tell a different story. Will the series play out like it did in game two? Probably not. But that different story might be closer to the real story than we thought could possibly be true after game one.

Game three should be the best game yet.

The Lakers Make Ugly Beautiful In Game 1

Game 1 of the 2010 NBA Finals wasn't a beautiful game by any means. If watching Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley go at it in the 1993 NBA Finals was Halle Berry, the first game of the 2010 version of Lakers vs. Celtics was Clint Howard.

The referees determined from the start (maybe they had a summit like LeBron and Dwyane?) that they were going to call the game closely, and probably a bit too closely at that. From the first backslide takedown by Ron Artest on Paul Pierce that was whistled for a double technical foul, it felt like the referees wanted to make sure both teams knew that they weren't going to allow much of the rough stuff, or at least allow the teams to get away with it. And that was to Boston's detriment.

Going into this series, I thought the Celtics had to have a few things fall correctly for them if they were going to win. Firstly, Rajon Rondo had to play out of his mind. Rondo vs. Derek Fisher/Jordan Farmar is the only place on the basketball court that the Celtics have a real, surefire advantage. In my opinion, Rondo can't just have solid games. They have to be dominating. Secondly, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett can't be as inconsistent as they have been so far in the playoffs. And the Celtics had to play a physical style to test Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom and try to take Ron Artest out of his game.

None of those things happened.

Rondo looked good early on, but he wasn't dominant in any way. He didn't shoot well, but more importantly, he didn't look like he wanted to take the game over like they needed him to. He made some quality passes, especially in transition, but Boston needed him to finish rather than hand off to a Kevin Garnett who had a hard time finishing or kick out to shooters who couldn't get their shot off freely because of the Lakers' defensive length.

While Pierce's numbers look decent (24 points and 9 rebounds), he wasn't effective. He missed all four of his three-point-shots and half of his points came at the free throw line, which is mostly because the referees called the game so closely. Ron Artest played him physically, frustrated him, and made him work hard on the other end as well. Pierce looked like a completely different player than the 2008 version who was the soul to Kevin Garnett's heart.

Garnett is an absolute shadow of himself. He showed energy early, but it wasn't enough. Pau Gasol blocked his patented turnaround jumper twice, and it seemed to deflate him. On one play in the fourth quarter that summed up his night, Rondo fed him what should've been an easy dunk, yet he didn't jump high enough and decided to lay it in and didn't even get it above the rim. And on the other side of the ball, Gasol had his way with him.

The Lakers were the more physical team in the end. Ray Allen was in foul trouble all night, and his replacement Tony Allen couldn't blink without getting whistled himself. But the Celtics can't solely blame the tempo of the game on the referees because it was called like that both ways. Boston was called for twenty eight fouls, while the Lakers had twenty six.

Within all that ugly, I thought the two Lakers' stars, Kobe and Paul, played beautifully. I found myself just watching Kobe, even when he didn't have the ball in his hands. Other than a couple games against Oklahoma City where he just seemed frustrated, this has been a terrific playoffs for him. He was able to get to the rim at will, slicing through the Celtics' defense. And no one even tried knocking him down.

After game one, I think anything having to do with Pau Gasol and the word soft should be disassociated. This was an opportunity for him to prove that the Gasol who was shoved around in 2008 is a different player and he did just that. Because of early foul trouble to both Andrew Bynam and Lamar Odom, Gasol ended up playing 47 out of the 48 minutes, scoring 23 points, gathering 14 rebounds, blocking 3 shots, and helped hold Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins to a combined 7 rebounds. He was the best big man on the court by far.

The Celtics are going to need to turn up the defensive intensity in game two and ask Rondo to come up huge. Or else, they're going to be in a big hole going back to Boston.

Is This LeBron's Last Stand In Cleveland?

After losing on Boston's court to end yet another season without winning a title, LeBron James' off-season is going to be the worst one of his career. Sure, he's going to be courted like he's the prettiest girl in class before prom as teams like the New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat, and his current team, the Cleveland Cavaliers promise him the moon. But after another early exit from the playoffs, the hammer is going to come down on him.

After watching game four, the main thing that stuck with me is how little LeBron trusted his teammates to perform. Boston's defensive game plan was brilliant, but it's not like it was a creative strategy. When he had the ball, they attacked him before he could get a running start, and if he got by the first guy, they threw one of their 7 foot tall trees at him. And if he gave up that basketball, the defensive strategy worked. Anthony Parker, Mo Williams, and Antawn Jamison didn't seem like they wanted the ball. It was like they were comfortable watching LeBron do his thing.

In game six, LeBron probably should've forced his will a bit more, but it seemed like he fought it. He's more Magic than Michael or Larry. It's in his DNA to give up the basketball rather than take a bad shot. It's the single thing that separates him from Kobe Bryant. Kobe will take tough shots time and time again because his teammates depend on his scoring. And he has good offensive rebounders around him that will bat that ball around and give him another chance if it doesn't go in.

But for whatever reason, LeBron decided to trust teammates who weren't that trustworthy. While LeBron didn't shoot well at all (8-21), his teammates shot just as badly. The rest of the Cavs went a 20-52 shooting. Take away LeBron's 19 rebounds and 10 assists, and the rest of his teammates only pulled down 29 total rebounds and dished out 7 assists. You'd be hard pressed to give LeBron even a B- for his play and this is in a game in which he had a triple double (nearly a quadruple-double with 9 turnovers), but other than Mo Williams, no one else probably earns even a C.

If the Cavs as a team were shooting even half decently, then choosing to give up the ball so freely would've been the right move. But after watching his perimeter players brick shots badly time and time again, he needed to go to plan B. There didn't seem to be a plan B.

It's a similar style of defense that Orlando deployed last year when they knocked the Cavs out. Who was going to hit the big shots this year that they couldn't hit last year? And Danny Ferry's solution to that problem was to clog the middle more by signing Shaquille O'Neal and trading for Antawn Jamison. O'Neal is near the end of his rope and it sure showed in game 6. He had problem holding onto the basketball on offense and defensively, a bad kneed Kevin Garnett destroyed him early on.

As for Jamison, he's the kind of player who can fill up stat sheets but doesn't really mean a whole lot when it's all said and done. He's played on more teams who have won less than 20 games than he's played on teams who have played .500 basketball.

How much of that goes towards head coach Mike Brown? I'm sure some of it does, even though he wasn't the one bricking shots. As a fan wanting to see Cleveland make somewhat of a comeback, I was frustrated with Brown's substitutions, especially when they needed to get out and run. It's hard to run with either Shaq or Zydrunas Ilgauskus in the game. You end up playing four on five.

If you historically look at teams who win titles, they have one dominant star, and two secondary stars whose games compliment the star player. Until Pau Gasol came to the Lakers, the Lakers lacked the inside presence to balance out Kobe's game. Tim Duncan had Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli, with Ginobli being a big game player. Even these same Celtics who beat the Cavs had Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce and now have Rajon Rondo.

Jamison, a broken down O'Neal, Mo Williams, and Anthony Parker obviously aren't the answer. If Danny Ferry has swung and missed while the Celtics and Lakers have been able to make trades that have delivered the right pieces to fit with their stars, does LeBron continue to trust the brass?

Many people think LeBron goes back to Cleveland simply because it's his home town. But with the way free agency can break out, why wouldn't he just wait and see where some of the pieces fall? If he wants to play with a big man, wouldn't it be a good idea to see where Amar'e goes? If he wants a Robin to his Batman, wouldn't it be smart to see where Joe Johnson goes?

I don't think he's necessarily packing his bags and leaving Cleveland. I think he's waiting to see what they can go out and get for him. And that's the smart move.

Stephen Curry's Rookie Year Was All That And Then Some

Warriors' rookie point guard Stephen Curry's career started amidst trade rumors.

If you remember back to draft day 2009, his name was being floated in trade talks with the Phoenix Suns in a deal for Amar'e Stoudemire. In fact, many draft prognosticators figured the Warriors drafted Curry for the Suns because they already had a diminutive guard in Monta Ellis.

But the Curry trade never happened. In the end, it was probably for the better. Amar'e's a soon to be a free agent and while he would've made the Warriors' better record-wise this year, they wouldn't have been able to sign him and we would've been back at square one. You may say that the Warriors always seem to be at square one. But I'd argue that point guards like Curry aren't a dime a dozen. He has a chance to be special. Win one for the Warriors?

If you look at Curry's year-long stats, they look good, but not superb. Over 17 points a game and nearly 6 assists is nothing to sniff at, but those numbers don't knock your socks off. If you dig deeper, you'll find that he had a gem of a season. To really see Curry's growth not only as a scorer, but also a distributor, you have to look at his monthly splits.

In his first full month in the league, he was averaging roughly 10 points a game and 5 and a half assists a game. Stephen Jackson was also on this team. Wow, that seems like eons ago.

In December, you notice an upward tick in his play, but in January he really seemed to blossom. In the month of January, he averaged just over 19 points a game and 5 assists, but his shooting was spectacular. He shot 48% from the field, 89% from the free throw stripe, and 49% from the three point line.

His next two months were very consistent, and then in April, he exploded again. Some of the explosion could be attributed to Monta Ellis being off the court just as much as he was on it, but I see it as a sign of maturity that was forced upon a young player. When Ellis was out, Curry was able to change his role of second banana into being the alpha dog on the court. In eight games in April, he averaged 26 points a game and over 8 assists along with 6 rebounds. Those numbers are near LeBron-like.

It's obvious that statistics don't tell the whole story and Curry does play in an uptempo system. But Steve Nash does too, and has been knocked similarly, but who wouldn't want Steve Nash on their team? Curry will probably never be a great defender unless he adds some size and just works doggedly at it. But he can shoot, distribute, and has a knack for making the right play at the right time. He didn't take care of the basketball as well as he should've, but you can also blame some of that on the uptempo system.

The Warriors have such an unpredictable air about them because of the current ownership situation and decisions about the team and coaching staff probably won't be made until the sale occurs. It's hard to gauge what they'll do with their team. But after this season, one thing is certain; Stephen Curry can play and this franchise has a better outlook because of him.

Magic and Bird: A Courtship of Rivals Is Riveting

I grew up smack dab in the middle of the NBA's renaissance in the mid-80s. It was lead by two superstars who couldn't have been more culturally different, yet seemed to be created out of the same fiber.

When I started to watch basketball there were three big stars. Dr. J was in the latter stages of his career, but his posters were still everywhere. And then there were Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.

I'll admit that I didn't like Larry Bird all that much growing up. He didn't smile. He was slow. He didn't dunk creatively. And his dang teams always won. My friends and I called him "Big Nose" Bird.

Magic on the other hand looked like he was having a great time on the court. He was cool, slick, and win or lose, you knew the basketball court was the number one place in his life.

They'd eventually cross paths time and time again throughout their careers and even after they stopped playing. When looking back at the history of the NBA, you'll see Johnson, Earvin and Bird, Larry side-by-side. They're like peanut butter and jelly.

I think that most of us born during that time frame will admit that the NBA is where it is today thanks in-part to Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, and the Lakers vs. Celtics rivalry. Though Michael Jordan came soon thereafter and transcended the sport even further, the league is not taken out of the tape delay doldrums of the early 80s without the two icons.

Ezra Edelman's HBO documentary Magic and Bird: A Courtship of Rivals gets every feeling right. Going back to when I said that I didn't like Bird, those feelings were front and center at the start of the documentary. I was watching it with my kids and early on, and my youngest admitted to not liking Bird either without any prompting.

Edelman had the perfect story to tell. One player is affable and kind when the cameras are on. The other's hair is unkempt and he looks like a cold-blooded killer. Yet, when the camera is off, the roles change.

Magic Johnson admits that when he was able to be Earvin, he was the greatest guy in the world. But once he was Magic, he was intense, competitive, and he had an affinity for too many things, including sex. Larry admitted that being an unfriendly player on the court was calculated. He wanted every edge possible. He didn't like Magic, but he liked Magic being there. Magic was someone he could compare himself to night in and night out. He would wake up in the morning to read what Magic and Lakers did in the newspaper. He could use Magic to pump himself up and push himself to go higher.

(Check out the video clip I added in which they talk about their dislike for each other: http://www.fanbase.com/video/3884.)

When I was younger, I figured the Lakers and Celtics played each other in every NBA Finals of the 1980s. It was really only three, and for whatever reason, I remember them well. I remember Magic being one of the main reasons that the Celtics won the championship in the 1984-1985 championship. He made a few crucial errors that Larry and company capitalized on and swung the series to the Celts. He had to pay for it in the off-season. It was an off-season in which he says was the first time in his life he'd ever been depressed.

The Lakers would win the next two times they battled in the Finals, and Magic would gain the respect back by hitting a baby hook as the clock ran out to win one of those games. After being "Tragic" Johnson, he was officially Magic again.

Those three finals gave me some of the best back and forth basketball I'd ever seen. Jordan would one-up them both in the 90s and become the greatest ever. But he never had a foe. He never had a Larry or Magic to stand toe-to-toe with him. He didn't have a Frazier to his Ali. Larry and Magic had that.

Even though I love the basketball scenes and reflecting on how great the league was when I was a child, I think my favorite part of the documentary is when their careers were coming to an end. Larry's back injury caused an early end to his career. Watching him suffer made my back stiff as I was watching. I knew it was bad, but still, it was painful to watch.

And who doesn't remember where they were when Magic announced that he had acquired HIV? I was in study hall with the rest of the players on the varsity and JV basketball team and the varsity head coach came in and said what happened and that it's now more important than ever to practice safe sex. I think most of us were astonished, but you had to be cool in study hall and not too long there after, people were cracking jokes.

I'd heard an interview with Edelman and he said that he shot a lot of long interviews with people close to Larry Bird because he was afraid that he wouldn't get an interview with Larry himself. And even if he did get one, he didn't think it'd be good. But for whatever reason, Bird brought it. He looked uncomfortable, but he spoke from the heart and he didn't mince words. He didn't like Magic. Didn't want to hang out with him after games even if Magic thought they'd grown closer. Even today, their relationship is built on competition and respect. They don't see each other often because they don't have to.

The most touching part of the entire documentary was when Magic announced he had acquired HIV. His own buddy Isiah Thomas questioned his sexuality which frustrated him. Larry called him to let him know he'd be there for him and that it would be ok. Magic couldn't play anymore and that hurt Magic. But it also hurt Larry because he didn't have anyone's box score to read to push him any more.

Go out of your way to see the film. These men were the best basketball players on the face of the earth in the 80s and we as fans were so lucky they were connected like they were.

After the movie was over, my youngest son told me, "I didn't like Larry Bird at the beginning, but at the end, he was a good guy."

LeBron James - More Than A Game Movie Review

Last name ever
First name greatest
Like a sprained ankle boy
I ain't nothing to play with

Those are Drake's first lines in his single Forever from the More Than A Game soundtrack, but if LeBron James continues to dominate the NBA (and win a few championships), he may simply be known as "greatest ever".

More Than A Game is a documentary by filmmaker Kris Belman, whose IMDB page is very light on the resume. The film follows LeBron James and his friends, all from Akron, Ohio, as they rise from middle school hoop dynamos all the way until their high school graduation. James is one of the two main focuses, but his teammates and best friends Dru, Romeo, Sian, and Willie are there in full force as well.

The other main focus of the film is the father of Dru Joyce III, Dru Joyce II who was their AAU coach as youngsters and stepped into being their high school coach at St. Vincent-St. Mary after their original coach stepped down. His calming and teacher-like influence on the kids allows them to reach the apex of their potential.

From 2000 through 2003, St. Vincent-St. Mary won the state basketball championship three times, losing only in James' junior year. Even as a fourteen year old freshman, James was spectacular and simply looked and played like a skinnier version of his current self. It is amazing to see him grow up through the four years and improve his game, change his demeanor and really embrace his superstar status.

Hoops Dreams this is not. The idea wasn't to see the struggles of these five young men. It was to show their successes. It is a story that is almost written too perfectly if it weren't a true one.

There are two conflicts that send the team into confusion. One is with James and that's the one everyone remembers. How could James and his mother afford a Hummer? How could James afford all those shoes? But the other surrounds Sian who has to decide between possibly ruining their historic senior year run, or playing in a high school football All-Star game which would help him in the sport he loves best.

The best part of the documentary isn't necessarily the story. It's the footage that is used to back up the story. There is tons of footage of these five kids from middle school and up, and great footage of their senior year championship run, mostly because many of these games were shown on ESPN. By then, LeBron was already deemed as "The Chosen One" by Sports Illustrated and the most anticipated basketball player entering the NBA in years and years.

The early footage is of the hand held variety, but that helps the progression of the story. Early on, these kids aren't stars. Only their parents have footage of them. But by the end, ESPN is putting them on their network. It's quite the rise.

I did learn something about James from the film. When he came into the NBA straight out of high school, there was worry that by having a "posse", it could hurt him like it's hurt many players before. You keep friends around by paying for their living to simply hang out with you. If it could make MC Hammer broke, it could make LeBron James broke. But after watching this film, his "posse" is truly his family. He has a very close relationship with his mother, who raised him by herself, but his friends give him support and keep him secure. It's mentioned a few times in the film that because he didn't really have much family, he always wanted people around him. Those are his boys.

It's not a glorified "LeBron James is great piece" much like Spike Lee's Kobe Doin' Work was for Kobe Bryant. But you're not going to see deep into LeBron's psyche either. The story of five kids who grew up playing ball together and eventually became one of the greatest high school basketball teams of all-time is compelling enough.