NBA Playoff 2008 洛杉磯湖人 VS 丹佛金塊 (Game4) ( 第3,4節)

Aftermath:
On a night when the No. 8 seeded Hawks, owners of just 37 regular season wins, tied up their series with the No. 1 Celtics in the East, the No. 8 seeded Nuggets, owners of 50 regular season W's, bowed out of the Playoffs after being swept by the No. 1 Lakers in the West.

There are plenty of fingers you can't point at Denver; for not playing defense, for not playing with composure, for talking trash instead of respecting its opponent, for "quitting," etc.

But the losers are never the lead story when the Playoffs band plays on, and right now the tune that's playing sounds a lot like Randy Newman's "I Love L.A."

As much as the Nuggets lost the series, the Lakers really just won it. Pau had flashes of brilliance, Luke Walton was an X-factor, Odom used his length to the best of his ability, and Kobe did whatever he could to get out of the First Round for the first time since he had Shaq as a teammate.

In Game 1 he battled through a bad shooting night but still made an impact displaying a mental toughness by not backing down to Kenyon Martin's barking, and his team followed suit. In Game 2, he had one of the most dominant games of his career. In Game 3, he was a part of a team effort again and finally, in Game 4, he waited until the game was in the balance before he stamped his mark on the series by taking over down the stretch to secure the sweep.

Awaiting the Lakers is either the Jazz or the Rockets (Utah leads the series 3-1), with either scenario guaranteeing that L.A. will face a tougher defense than it did in the First Round.

Awaiting the Nuggets? A summer full of question marks.

Game 4 Final: Lakers 107, Nuggets 101 – L.A. sweeps Denver, 4-0

Just when it looked like Denver had the momentum when Kobe fouled J.R. Smith on a 3-pointer for the second time and Smith hit all three free throws, Kobe hit an impossible fadeaway to beat the shot clock with Martin draped all over him, then hit a 3-pointer, then used a spin move to get past Smith and get to the bucket for a layup.

Smith, who as I mentioned earlier is really coming into his own, followed up Kobe’s run with a 28-footer to cut L.A.’s lead to two and then a steal followed by an and-1 layup to give Denver the lead.

Walton, who didn’t see as much time in Game 4 as he saw in Games 1-3 because Jackson was allowing Radmanovic the chance to dig himself out of the 1-for-9 shooting whole he started the game on, hit a corner three to put the Lakers up four with about three minutes remaining. He was huge all series.

Anthony (21 points, 11 rebounds) and Martin (eight point, six rebounds) both fouled out in a matter of seconds. They played well, but had to watch their team try to erase a five-point deficit in the finals minute and a half.

It was a crazy game down the stretch, with Bryant making a very difficult fadeaway off the glass when he was really looking to pass the ball and Marcus Camby hitting a three from the corner when he was 0-for-3 from the field at the time he unleashed the three.

The Nuggets become the first 50-win team in NBA history to be swept from the playoffs.

For all of the bad blood in the series, I was impressed with the cordial way that the two teams exchanged hugs and handshakes when the final horn sounded on the series.

End of Third Quarter: Lakers 79, Nuggets 77

Why is Anthony Carter shooting?

Normally, Kobe is pretty gracious when he deals with Pau Gasol (he is sort of like the basketball version of a hot new girlfriend afterall), but Pau got a little bit of the Mamba wrath when the 7-footer didn’t roll after setting Bryant a pick. Kobe ended up getting called for a traveling violation and pointed at Pau to where he should have been in a knee-jerk reaction to the whistle.

Two things you don’t want to see from the Nuggets – Iverson picking up yet another Technical foul (his fourth of the series) and Anthony missing an easy dunk off the back of the rim and causing the ball to bounce all the way to the stands – if you are a Lakers fan with tickets to Game 5.

That song in the Dockers commercial you’ve been hearing all Playoffs long? “California Soul” by Marlena Shaw. Thank you, Google.

I didn’t think it was possible, the Nuggets’ defense looks, well … great. The Lakers start off the quarter with four turnovers to just one field goal during a 9-2 Denver run thanks to traps, strips, blocks, deflections and rebounds by the guys in white.

Kobe and Kenyon revamped their one-on-one battle during a sidelines out of bounds play where the Lakers ran a stack and Martin penetrated it to go chest to chest with Bryant. The officials had to stop the action before the play even began to tell the two of them to cool it. When play resumed, the refs’ warning didn’t deter Martin from grappling on to Kobe as he made his cut towards the inbounder.

J.R. Smith is really impressing in this series. He got fouled by Kobe on a three-point attempt and stuck all three free throws to tie the game at 71.

It’s turning out to be a good one. All it took was a little Denver D. The Nuggets held the Lakers to only 15 points in the quarter.

Halftime: Lakers 64, Nuggets 54

You have to love super athletic, yet supremely uncoordinated guys like DJ MBenga will do something crazy like smash home a one-handed put-back dunk off a missed free throw once in a blue moon, but usually just worry you whenever they touch the ball on offense. They just make it fun to watch for both the awe and the anxious factors.

Allen Iverson led the league in minutes per game this season, his 12th , and you could see how much it disgusts him to miss any chance at PT when he made a dreary procession to the bench after being subbed out in the second quarter.

Kobe plays basketball at such a higher level of expertise than the rest of the players on the floor. Seeing him turn two pumpfakes and a pivot move in the paint into a feed to his teammate for a wide open dunk shows such a depth of understanding of the all the aspects of his craft that its second nature to mix and match the abilities.

This is an elimination game – do-or-die for the Nuggets – and the home team doesn’t seem to be playing with a sense of urgency. They are playing well on offense, shooting 22-for-43 from the field, but they’re still giving up more points than a pinball machine on D.

Halftime boxscore analysis for the Nuggets … Iverson has 14 points on 6-for-10 shooting = impressive … Camby has 11 rebounds, including four offensive = more impressive … J.R. Smith has 11 points and three assists off the bench = most impressive.

Halftime boxscore analysis for the Lakers … MBenga is 2-for-2 from the field, both of them dunks = impressive … Gasol has 18 points, six rebounds, two assists, two blocks = more impressive … Kobe has 16 points, six boards, four assists, two steals and a block = most impressive.

End of First Quarter: Lakers 32, Nuggets 23

Sure, we might have missed the Lakers messing around with the Nuggets’ mascot again during player introductions because the first five minutes of the game happened while the Hawks-Celtics game came to a close, but who cares? That game was awesome! Second best game of the playoffs after Suns-Spurs Game 1, and Joe Johnson’s performance was the third best individual showing after Duncan’s 40 and 15 and Kobe’s 49 and 10.

Pau Gasol is back to his Game 1 form. The Spaniard put in 12 points on 4-for-7 shooting in the first.

Nene is playing with a lot of energy and doing some things well (hit an open midrange J, pulled down an O-board off of a Melo missed free throw) and some things not so well (doinked a dunk).

Quitters never win, but they do score eight points in the first period, apparently. Melo is 2-for-4 from the field and 4-for-6 from the line.

Kobe’s passing mentality seems to be shared by the whole Lakers’ squad as the L.A. has eight assists on its 11 field goals.

Iverson (eight points) and Bryant (seven points) both have a decent rhythm going. Wouldn’t it be great to see them go bucket for bucket all game?