The NBA Finals ended last night and the Lakers are your champions. Here are five things we now know about the series that we didn't before they started.
1.) The Magic's offensive system really doesn't work in the long run---Listen, the 'jack up as many shots as possible and see what sticks' offense won't win you a championship, even when you have great shooters. The way the Finals played out shows that Orlando's shooters benefited more from the Cleveland Cavaliers' lack of perimeter size and Mike Brown's awful, unchanging defensive philosophy than they did their own talent. Look at the way Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu disappeared for long stretches of almost all five games. That's not a coincidence. Orlando's offense requires a size advanatage, along with a real positive streak, as all of the Magic shooters are streaky as hell. Give credit where it's due to the Lakers, who had the size to match up with Orlando's big guns and played very good defense on them throughout. Guys like Courtney Lee and Mickael Pietrus were not really factors all series, either. They got hot shooting against the Cavs, but it fell apart in the Finals. Defense still wins championships.
2.) Stan Van Gundy's still not a coaching genious---Everybody in the national media was ready to annoint Stan Van Gundy as the next big thing in coaching, a Phil Jackson without the smug attitude or fashion sense. The Finals proved he's got a long way to go. He's a smart coach when his team is better than its competition. When he's matched up against an equal or better team, he doesn't cut it. He openly questioned his own decisions after two of his team's four losses, never a good recipe for success. He also started to employ Brown's idiotic method of playing random guys out of the blue to see if they could spark the team, which almost never works, especially when you're trying to do it with guys like J.J. Redick.
3.) Playing Jameer Nelson was a massive mistake---Want to kill team chemistry? It's simple: play a guy who hasn't laced 'em up in over four months. Now, Jameer Nelson was an All-Star selection this year and was putting up great numbers (16 points, 7 assists a game) before injuring his shoulder, but he was out for four months after that and was largely ineffective when he played. The biggest problem wasn't even that he played, it was the amount of minutes he got. He often played more minutes than starter Rafer Alston, and backup Anthony Johnson barely touched the floor. The Magic built up a great rhythm in the playoffs without Nelson, and Van Gundy's insistence that he get big time minutes killed the team's momentum. Factor in that Alston is a mental midget, and they were doomed. Bad idea.
4.) Phil's the man---The guy's got 10 titles now. That's more than anybody, Red Auerbach included. It doesn't matter that he coached Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shaq and Kobe. His ability to reign in those colossal talents and egos and get them to play a more team-oriented game has been his defining quality as a coach, and it's why he's at this point. There are way more coaches who can't do that than can. I'd say Phil and Pat Riley are the only two that definitely can. Gregg Poppovich maybe.
5.) Kobe's still the man---I disagree that he's the best closer in the game, but you can't deny that he impacts the game without touching the ball. LeBron gets the same treatment, but with Kobe, teams are downright afraid to let him shoot. It's because he can score from literally anywhere at any time. In that regard, he's still ahead of LeBron. Orlando threw double team after double team at him and he beat them all. Then, he made Pietrus look like a fool for five straight games. Yes, LeBron did the same thing, but there was just something more cold-blooded and filthy about the way Kobe did it. He didn't take a single play off all series and Orlando had to tap out. He broke their will. That's the measure of Kobe's talent. Whether you like him or not, he's always effective in what he does.
That's what we learned about the Finals. The Lakers are champs for a reason, and Orlando couldn't match up with them because they had equal size and more skill. Don't be surprised if Orlando's not back in the Finals next year.
