Let's hold off on the Kobe-Jordan comparisons until this series is over. Can't see Kobe supplanting the greatest player of all time, but this series will have a profound effect on his legacy.
* Doc Rivers said he expects Kendrick Perkins to draw that seventh playoff technical, one that would draw him a one-game suspension. More likely, Rivers is just trying to get the issue out in public, so everyone's well aware of it. Perkins is going to control his temper, and the refs won't call a T unless he just loses his mind, Rasheed-style.
* Refs call technicals now at the mere hint of trouble, and far too often. The worst I've seen this postseason: Celtics-Magic, things getting testy, and Joey Crawford makes big show of warning both teams. Rajan Rondo mutters something as he walks away, and Crawford T's him up. So really, that one was all about Joey's red-ass. Unless a player ventures into Materazzi territory (he's the guy who got so personal in the World Cup, Zinedine Zidane just had to head-butt him), a technical has to represent a violation that was clear to the fans: kicking the ball 18 rows deep, getting right in a ref's face, something really out of the ordinary. And the double-technical shouldn't happen at all unless a fight breaks out.
* Big, big difference from the 2008 matchup: Ron Artest, guarding Paul Pierce, gives the Lakers two lock-down defenders. If Kobe sets his mind to it, he'll have an effect on Rondo's penetration.
* Sasha Vujacic, banished to the end of the bench for weeks, got a reprieve in the Phoenix series and let a personal feud (with Goran Dragic) get into his head. "Very dumb on my part," he admits, while also calling Dragic "a low human being." We'll see if Phil Jackson trusts this guy at any time in the Finals.
(Note from a very sharp reader: "My L.A. sources tell me that Vujacic's girlfriend, Maria Sharapova, is the reason the Lakers keep him around. They like seeing her at practice.")
* So much of the Lakers' chances rely on Pau Gasol, who was seriously pushed around by the Celtics in '08. "Last time we played them, it was a great learning experience for us," said Kobe , diplomatically. "With the defensive intensity, the tenacity they played with, it taught us what it takes to be a champion."
* Where was Andrew Bynum in '98? Watching from the sideline as he rehabbed his left knee.
* It would be nice to see Kevin Garnett play an entire series without some ridiculous act of petulance. It always seems so out of character, but it just keeps happening.
* Odd how this is just now coming out: After the Lakers were blown out by 39 points to end the '08 Finals in Boston , their team bus was stalled by a wild celebration outside the Garden. With no police escort at hand, revelers mocked the Lakers and threw rocks at the bus as it sat there, unable to proceed. "It was painful," says Gasol. "It's a feeling I want to keep in my mind for every single minute I'm out there."
* Excellent point made by the Washington Post's Mike Wise: Jackson has pulled off a career miracle, managing to incorporate Artest, Dennis Rodman, Isaiah Rider ('01 Lakers) and the late Bison Dele ('97 Bulls) onto championship teams. I'd forgotten about Dele, the former Brian Williams, whose death at sea in 2002 was never adequately explained. Among other things, he spit at a heckler and once tried to open the emergency-exit door on a team flight.
* Steve Nash on Kobe 's run of greatness in Game 6: "Those aren't shooters' shots, they're scorers' shots. Best-player-in-the-game shots."
* Very touching to see Nash in tears, briefly, as he talked with coach Alvin Gentry in the Suns' postgame locker room. He wasn't going to let the public witness his heartbreak, but it was there. "I know everyone makes a big deal out of how I've never made it to the Finals," he said, "and you know, maybe I won't. But if I played with teams like we had this year, with the guys I played with, I'll be satisfied with that. It's phenomenally rewarding to be part of a group like this."
*Larry Brown, summing up Nash: "If you define to your own kid playing any team sport on how a teammate is supposed to act, that's Steve Nash."
* Finals prediction: I got back and forth by the hour. Not sure the Celts can hold up physically, and while that also applies to Bynum, Kobe is in another world right now. Lakers in six.
