Follow Up: Game 2 Officiating

John Hollinger provided another logical perspective on why the foul shooting attempts were so different in game 2: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dime-080610 . Not surprisingly, Hollinger's breakdown illuminates what we all saw: Boston attacked the basket and Los Angeles settled for a plethora of difficult outside shots.

Furthermore, Phil Jackson and others seem appalled not by any particular calls (although clearly there were about a dozen bad ones both ways), but by the 38-10 free throw discrepancy. But the Celtics offense attacking the Lakers defense is completely independent of the Lakers offense attacking the Celtics defense. There are plenty of games with (1) large free throw discrepancies, (2) an NBA team shooting 38 free throws, (3) an NBA team shooting 10 free throws.

Lakers fans should be familiar with all three concepts:

Game 1 vs. Utah – Lakers shoot 46 free throws, Utah 30.

Game 2 vs. Utah – Lakers shoot 43 free throws, Utah 16.

Game 5 vs. Utah – Lakers shoot 42 free throws, Utah 28.

Game 2 vs. San Antonio – the Spurs shoot just 10 free throws.

Game 3 vs. San Antonio – Lakers shoot 17 free throws.

Game 4 vs. San Antonio – Lakers shoot 18 free throws.

Game 5 vs. San Antonio – Lakers shoot 18 free throws.

Only a few weeks ago in game 2 vs. Utah, Los Angeles was the beneficiary of a 27 free throw attempt advantage. Yet, there was no talk of unfair officiating...it seems Phil Jackson has quite the short-term memory. In fact, Jackson professed that he had never seen anything like it; one wonders what he was watching during game 2 against Utah.

The Lakers only sent San Antonio to the foul line ten times in game 2, so Jackson has also seen that before. Then the Lakers found it hard to reach the charity stripe for the remainder of the series (see above).

Against Boston, as outlined by Hollinger, Los Angeles' shot selection was limited mostly to the outside. As I tracked in my previous post, many of the Laker scores in the lane were not off drives (which create defensive breakdowns and lead to fouls), but from extra passes on cuts off the ball which led to easy layups or dunks. Furthermore, this Boston defense is superior to the Spurs defense, so when coupled with a night of outside shooting (47 jump shots!) it makes sense that instead of 17 or 18 free throw attempts a game, Los Angeles had just 10.

By the way, Leon Powe, who averaged 20 points and 10 rebounds per 36 minutes (one of the most prolific players per minute in the NBA) was the 6^th most frequent free throw shooter per minute, ahead of players like Paul Pierce and Kobe Bryant. For those who watched Powe attack the basket and reap the benefit of Rondo drives and Garnett passes, it's no surprise that Powe spent so much time on the line in the regular season.