NBA Finals Game 3 Preview: Celtics At Lakers

Basketbawful has channeled his inner Miss Cleo to give you the psychic hotline treatment on tonight's NBA Finals game.

History. It doesn't exactly favor the Lakers, who got dumped into an 0-2 hole on Sunday. Only three teams — Boston against Los Angeles in 1969, Portland against Philadelphia in 1977, and Miami against Dallas in 2006 — have come back to win the title.

Officiating. Let's get this out of the way. Some people think the Lakers got screwed by the officials in Game 2. The Celtics enjoyed a 38-10 advantage in free throws, which boggled the absolute living hell out of Phil Jackson's mind. "I'm more struck by the fact that Leon Powe gets more foul shots than our whole team does in (Powe's) 14 minutes of play. That's ridiculous. You can't play from a deficit like that; that we had in that half, 19-2 in the first half. I've never seen a game like that in all these years I've coached in the Finals. Unbelievable. I think my players got fouled, I have no question about the fact my players got fouled and didn't get to the line. Specifically I can enumerate a few things, but I'm not going to get into that. It's the illusion that's created. The referees referee an illusion. Our guys look like maybe the ball was partially stripped when they were getting raked...but it was in the crowd, so the referees let that type of thing go." Ever notice that Jackson is a master at getting into things without ever really getting into them. With Jeannie Buss being the one notable exception.

Anyway, the referees have already been assigned for tonight's game: Joey Crawford (whose reputation precedes him), Marc Wunderlich (who didn't call Derek Fisher jumping on Brent Barry) and the great Bennet Salvatore (who had been accused of favoring home teams and superstars). I guess Sasha Douchychick knew what he was talking about when he said: "It will be a different story in L.A."

Kobe Bryant. In the first two games of this series, Mamba was pretty bleeping average. For him, anyway. One journalist thinks that he needs to be like Mike for the Lakers to win. Which begs the question: Since when does somebody who once scored 81 points in a game need to be like anybody else?

Vinny Del Negro. Sorry for the interruption, but...Vinny is the new Bulls coach? WTF?! I can't wait to meet his assistants, Lenny and Squiggy.

The 2-3-2 format. Ah, it's that time of year again: The time when we talk about the ridiculosity of David Stern's made-for-TV NBA Finals format. ( As I discovered, this format was implemented in 1985 because it increased the chances that the championship series would last at least six games, and CBS, who aired the Finals at that time, needed the series to last at least that long to turn a profit.) Three straight home games is a big advantage for the Lakers, in particular because it takes the all-important Game 5 away from the Celtics. And Doc Rivers is not a fan. "From afar, what I've never liked about the 2-3-2 is you fight all year to have Game 7 at home and Game 5 at home. Game 5 is taken away from you. We're had three huge Game 5s in the first three rounds. All of them have been at home."

Phil Jackson, of course, thinks it's no big thing. "The duration of three games on one court, those have always been tough to maintain. I've had teams that have been on the road and won three games in a row, but I can't ever remember winning three the other way around as a home coach in the finals."

Meanwhile, David Stern went so far as to take Red Auerbach's name in vain to defend his decision to move to the 2-3-2 format during his second year as the league commish. "Although he's not here to deny it, Red said to me be back in '84, that this is too much play, travel, play, travel, play, travel. In subsequent years, he said it was terrible that we went to the 2-3-2, but a young commissioner was motivated by the father of us all." Now, if there was any justice in life, Red would strike him down from his cloud in Hoops Heaven.

Leon Powe. The dude went off for 21 points in only 15 minutes in Game 2. And, as Jackson noted, he had more free throws than all the Lakers combined. And I find it interesting that he was far more aggressive taking it to the hoop than KG was. Huh. I wonder if Jackson will institute some Power Rules for Game 3? Speaking of which...

The Lakers' transition defense. In Game 2, it weren't too good. They might want to, you know, get in front of somebody in Game 3, unless they want Phil to have a coronary.

Paul Pierce. Hm. Truth scored 28 points (9-for-16) and dished out 8 assists in Game 2. Uh, uhm, er…maybe he was faking.

Vladimir Radmanovic. For all the whining about the calls that didn't go their way, I noticed that none of the Lakers mentioned any of the calls — or no-calls — that did ... like this crazy non-traveling violation that drew the Lakers to within four points with about a minute to go.