Pharzeone wrote:

KnicksSince88 wrote:Pau is averaging 10 boards a game in this series. No Celtic is averaging over 6. Kobe is the next closest rebounder in the series at 6.8. This "soft" guy keeps dominating the glass. I guess balls just keep bouncing to him. Lucky Pau. How could such a soft guy who won't mix it up at all be doing this. Beats me.

And if anyone sees him shying away from contact in this series, I don't know what to tell you. He is mixing it up a ton with a lot of after the whistle stuff too. Pau is no *****. The guy doesn't get enough shots sometimes, and whenever he doesn't have a big game people run to call him soft. People don't like the guy for whatever reason. Maybe its because he looks like a dork (he certainly looks soft), the euro stuff doesn't help with the soft label either, but nothing about his play in this series has been soft whatsoever. I don't know what some of you are watching.

He is also averaging about 42 minutes in the series. I could argue that the rebound numbers are too low for the minutes he is playing. KG for example is averaging 10 less minutes in the series while grabbing 6 rebounds and Davis is averaging a mere 20 minutes a game while grabbing 5 rebounds.

No, you really can't argue that, and your math isn't great here. Pau's rebound rate (10.5 in 42 minutes) is much better than Garnetts (6 in 31). Garnett at that rate if given 42 minutes would project to 8.1 boards in the same minutes Pau is playing, so Pau has a significant edge there on a per minute basis. Glen Davis (5 in 20.5 min) is roughly equal (percentage points worse than Pau), but hes playing less than half the game and playing against backups most of the time. Pau has cleaned up the glass against all the Celtic bigs, and hes played very well defensively, even more than just the shot blocking hes brought in the series, his man d has been very good. Even when KG went off in game 3, Pau forced him to take some very tough shots late in the game and sometimes you have to give the offense credit

Pau been to finals three years in a row. Dude is not soft.

Very well rounded game with a variety of skills.

At this level some games you get outplayed.

Solace wrote:

Pharzeone wrote:Good grief... I can't listen to any more complaining about the 2-3-2 format. Every sports show host seems to now be an expert on playoff game formats. It's amazing. There is no scenario where Boston will have home court advantage going into a series. They took advantage of it as best as one would hope to drag the series out. For goodness sake no one had an issue with it when the Rockets swept the Magic. Or when the Knicks had to go back to Houston up 3-2.

Well, the 3-2-3 thing is stupid. As the road team, I'd much rather have game 6 at home than game 5... the current format gives you a particularly poor chance to win on your home court... you have to sweep (with two of those wins being on the road) or win 4-1 (where IIRC, no home team has won all three of games 3, 4 and 5). I assume they do it just to reduce the travel a little bit, I always liked the 2-2-1-1-1 better. Winning a game 5 on the road to force a game 6 which could win the series is much more plausible than the opposite.

But it's all good. Game 7, Celtics vs Lakers. Wow. Will be great.

yea i think they instituted it after all the great boston-LA finals of the 80's. sportswriters and league officials got tired of all the back-and-forth coastal flights. it did bring a different level of drama to the games tho - i liked it.

i agree with you on the other thing - i am crazy psyched for tonight. a f'g nba finals game 7. yeah! can’t wait to see kg and pierce crying.

loweyecue wrote:You can't but help get excited for it, even if its between the two teams you hate the most.

yes, but between the lakers having 2 queens boys and the celtics being composed of some of the most hateable personalities in the league, it's easy to pick the team i hate less.

Always been an East Coast guy. No love for all those L.A. folks with their glitz and plastic surgery. Its a team that got its star player the wrong way, and stole Gasol.

I'm going for the upset by the Green guys from the East.

Then I'll go back to rooting against the Celtics as usual.