Big win for Boston

Boston got a big win in game 1 and made sure they don't lose home-court at the very start of the series. Now the Lakers have to win 4 out of 6 to win the series. Definitely doable for this Lakers team, but it's just a little harder, given they have 3 straight home games in the middle. Thats more pressure on the home team. Not sure what the Celtics did to Kobe, but Kobe was a non-factor in game 1. A 24-3-6 game with 4 turnovers and a -13 +/- differential for Kobe. Those numbers are ugly considering this guy was unstoppable coming in to this game. If the Celts can manage to bottle him up like this 3 more times, it's over. But I fully expect Kobe to bounce back. So the Celtics should work on containing the other Lakers players just like they did in game 1.

Lakers got nothing from their bench or from Lamar and Pau. Basically the Lakers were shut out up on all fronts. Pretty impressive from the Boston side of things. Game 2 will be very different in terms of feel and flow as Kobe and the Zen-master will come in with some adjustments. Phillip is already speaking of playing his bench longer minutes. All this just makes for good TV. The ratings for the NBA was better, but nowhere near what I would have expected. It was just as good as the Lakers-Pistons in 2004 despite featuring the Celtics. I guess the NBA has fallen so far down, it's an uphill climb right now. Speaking of Boston, I hate the East coast teams usually, but against the Lakers, I am all about Boston. Go green!

The Suns hired Terry Porter today. Not a bad hire, but nothing too exciting either. The Suns didn't have many good choices either. Porter definitely deserved another shot since I thought he was fired too soon in Milwaukee. But not sure if this is the right place and time for him. I sure hope Kerr knows what he is doing. Or may be he is just hoping to run everything through a coach that'll listen to him everyday. They were teammates at one time. It'll be interesting to see what he does with the offense. It'll also depend on how many assistant coaches stay and how many goto D'Antoni in New York. Good Luck Terry. We will be looking for big results soon.