HoopsHype.com Columns

Main point: Lakers own the paint
by Joe Whalen / June 6, 2002

Jason Kidd, the New Jersey Nets’ only bona fide star, could be more than just the best point guard in the NBA. He may be the league’s best player. Many hoops insiders believe he got robbed last month when Tim Duncan captured the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award—a contention backed up by the Nets’ run through the Eastern Conference playoffs and the Spurs’ early exit in Texas. In New Jersey’s hard-fought defeat of Boston in the Conference Finals, Kidd became only the fourth player in league history to average a triple-double (17.5 points, 11.2 rebounds, 10.2 assists) in a best-of-seven series that went the distance.

Los Angeles point guard Derek Fisher will have his hands full with Kidd. But the Lakers, confronted by high-caliber point guards in the past two finals, have been there and done that. Last season they contained league MVP Allen Iverson to defeat Philadelphia in five games and claim their second consecutive title. Two years ago, they handled Jalen Rose and shut down Mark Jackson to return the championship to Los Angeles with a 4-2 series victory over the Indiana Pacers.

What are the differences between the Lakers’ two recent victims in the Finals and this year’s Eastern Conference stooge? What are the Nets’ chances of avoiding the fate suffered by the Pacers and Sixers? How many New Jersey players can successfully guard Los Angeles center Shaquille O’Neal, perhaps the most powerful—and agile—big man to ever step on a basketball court? How many true NBA experts believe in miracles?

The lone answer to the above questions, like the possibilities actualized by the past two losers in the NBA Finals, remains the same: None.

Hauntingly similar to the Pacers and Sixers before them, the Nets enter the Finals with baggage in their frontcourt—as in stiffs, scrubs, and overstuffed luggage on rusty wheels. Indiana brought Rik Smits, Dale Davis and Sam Perkins. Philadelphia featured Dikembe Mutombo, Tyrone Hill, Matt Geiger and George Lynch. The Nets? They may have the most pathetic slagheap of role players to ever appear in a championship series. Alongside Kidd and Kerry Kittles, New Jersey starts forwards Kenyon Martin and Keith Van Horn and center Todd MacCulloch.

You’ve got to be kidding. Martin may have scored 21 points in Game 1, but he tends to disappear in crunch time, as evidenced by his two points in the final period. Van Horn tallied half of his 12 points from beyond the arc before fouling out in the fourth quarter. And MacCulloch? A seven-footer like Smits and Mutombo, he may be as tall as the New Jersey Turnpike is long, but he moves with the agility of Bill Walton driving a U-Haul at 37 miles-per-hour in the passing lane. And his soft touch around the rim is greatly overshadowed by the softness of his belly. Shaq, MVP of the finals the past two years, toyed with Smits, knocked Mutombo around the low post like a rag doll—and will make MacCulloch wish that Vlade Divac lived in Weehawken.

Similar to the Pacers with Rose, Jackson and Reggie Miller and the Sixers with Iverson, the Nets and Jason Kidd will inflict marginal damage on the Lakers from the perimeter. Their combined efforts may even hold Kobe Bryant to a stalemate. Yet regardless of the Nets’ ill-fated rally and Kidd’s triple-double, the difference in Game 1’s final score boiled down to one statistic, points in the paint, and one strategy, the “Shaq-Attack.”

Los Angeles outscored New Jersey, 48-36, in the lane, an edge that more than doubled the Lakers’ margin of victory. And Shaq posted game-high totals in two departments with 36 points and 16 rebounds. He also recorded four blocks—one of which delivered a Jason Kidd shot from the edge of the paint into the peanut gallery at Staples Center. After New Jersey trimmed its deficit to three in the fourth quarter, O’Neal registered eight points in the final four minutes to ensure the outcome.

As for the “Hack-a-Shaq” defensive strategy, it didn’t work for the Pacers, nor will it do the Nets any good. Indiana put the “Diesel” on the charity stripe 39 times in Game 2 of the 2000 finals, an NBA Finals record. O’Neal made only 18 of those free throws, but totaled 40 points as the Lakers emerged with a 111-104 victory. Last night, after Nets’ rookie Jason Collins adopted the hack tactic, Shaq displayed composure at the line by sinking 9 of 16 free throws in the fourth quarter.

As a kid growing up in Los Angeles, Jason Kidd dreamed of playing for the Lakers. Two years ago, the Pacers dreamed of upsetting the Lakers. Last June, the Sixers dreamed of pulling off the miracle.

None of those dreams materialized. Instead, reality dictated that Kidd head east and the NBA title go west.

Joe Whalen is a former sportswriter for the Washington Post and a regular contributor to HoopsHype.com. His work on basketball has also appeared in the Miami Herald, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Tell us what you think about this column. E-mail us at HoopsHype@HoopsHype.com