i'm not one to complain about the refs, but tonight it definitely appeared that the lakers were getting the calls.
The jazz opened the game with terrible ball movement and defensive hustle, were beaten at every corner. The lakers had a ton of open shots, many in transition, in building a lead, and they moved the ball very well. In the jazz defense, Okur hadnt eaten in two days due to stomach virus, and Boozer has had a back injury and hasnt been practicing. When you arent practicing for Sloane, you are hurt. I am not suprised that PJ attacked them right out of the gate using this knowledge, and it worked like a charm as odom hit 4 of his first 5 shots, pretty much undefended. The lakers would have won anyway, and I didnt think the few calls they got mattered.
Now if you watched the mavs/celtics, there was a key point when the celtics passed the mavs as pierce came back in the 4th quarter(8 min mark?) and created two fouls that shouldnt have been called at all. He grabbed dampiers arm and went down when dampier had him sealed on the low block waiting for the entry pass, and then he did the same to stack on the next play, hooked his arm around a defenders extended arm and pulled them down. Both were obvious to me on the replay, not so much during play. The first of those fouls put the mavs into the penalty and were key. On the foul shots, made by pierce, the celtics took the lead. A few plays later Jkidd makes a clean block on pierce on the break and gets called for the foul as the refs were trailing the play and couldnt see it. Pierce kneed jkidd just after he blocked the shot(and was falling down), making it look like contact, but it wasnt until after the block that the contact was made. Those three plays created an 8 point swing that made all the difference in the game. Heck, as a suns fan I wanted the mavs to lose, but as a bball fan I wanted it to be fair. Then avery neutered the passing game of the mavs and had them do easily defensible(and predictable) isolations, and that was that, Dirk taking shots while up to 3 guys were defending him. Avery Johnson is one of the the most overrated coaches in the game, terrible.
The mavs are a conondrum unto themselves, they look like they cant decide on whether to use the passing game or do isos. When they do stick to the passing game, they looked very good, but they look like they arent so good at the isos anymore. The celtics had a much easier time defending the isos, averys way, such irony. The mavs may get better yet, but they have a schitzoid personality as a team right now. If guys like terry, stack nowitski and howard learn how to use the passing game to make defenses work, lookout.