An Epic Game Seven Won In Brutal Fashion

The last game 7 that the NBA offered its fans was about as memorable as Rick Brunson’s entire NBA career. It was the steady Duncan, Spurs versus the no offense having Pistons, and I as an avid Kobe Bryant fan hated both teams so much, I totally avoided watching the series at all. Being the avid Kobe fan that I was, when he made it back to the finals, and this time to face the Celtics, I was excited at the idea of him finally regaining his finals mortality with a Celtic sweep. But that didn’t happen, instead the Celtics destroyed the Lakers in six games, the following year the Lakers came back and reclaimed their title, but be honest was there ever any real drama in that series? Everyone knew that Kobe’s team was going to win, it was only a matter of time before it happened. So with the first game seven since the 2005 sleep fest, and the rematch against the Celtics team that crushed my spirits in 2008 I knew that this would be a totally different game. Boy was I right.

One of the biggest complaints about today’s NBA is that, its way too soft, offense is adored and hardcore defense is disrespected and disregarded. The refs whistle is blown way to much, and there are many games where unfortunately for the team and the fans, it was decided by calls, and not skills. But everything about this game was so different. Tuning into ABC to watch this game I could see the difference within the first three shot attempts, this was not a basketball game at all, this was a title fight.  I’m sure many will argue this cause but tell me when was the last time you’ve seen a deciding championship game played so fiercely, so passionately and with this much emphasis on defense?

The Lakers Celtics game 7 had elbow’s bumps, tangle ups, near fights, hard shoves, trips, smacks to the face, and that was just the post game. Many people will see the final score of 83-79 and take it as a low scoring boredom fest, but they couldn’t of seen the amount of effort it took just to get to the free throw line let alone score a point on regular offense. The refs left their whistles to the side and let these two teams play, and what you got was a marathon battle between two champions. With Kobe having a horrible shooting night, and Ray Allen having used up all of his good games during game 2 of this finals match up, this game offered a back and fourth fist fight that no one could have decided.

Lakers Championship Celebration

For those of you who never had the opportunity to see the Bad Boy Pistons, or the early and mid 90’s Knicks this is the kind of basketball they played. This is how the NBA used to be, and for the biggest game to reflect some of the NBA‘s greatest moments, there was really nothing more that you could ask for (Minus a Buzzer beater). The Lakers Limped away with this title. This battle was no easy task, but after a game as brutally physical as this one was, every team in the NBA should be very afraid.

This game if you were watching carefully should make everyone go back to the drawing board and try to stack up, because this is now a Lakers team that can beat you with Offense, Defense, and outright physical domination, if you dont believe me just look at what they just did to the toughest team in the NBA.

This game was a tribute to the good old days of hard nosed basketball, it was everything that we needed and the perfect ending to such a great series. The street fight with a basketball.