Kobe vs. Lebron. Too bad only their puppets are playing in The Finals.

According to Jeff VanGundy and ABC and ESPN and Fox Sports Net and Co.: Kobe Bryant is the “best closer in the game.”

Well, Tuesday night he wasn’t. Two huge turnovers and missing 12 of your final 16 shots (not to mention 5 of 10 free throws) would suggest otherwise.

But does this make Kobe any less of a “great closer?” Probably not. He is one of the best players of all-time, and certainly one of the most clutch players of our generation.

As J.A. Adande points out, even M.J., “The Greatest Closer, Starter and Everything in Between,” had some tough times in the fourth quarter.

But I have to raise the question, is Kobe Bryant really the best closer in the league?

With LeBron James around, at least there’s an argument there.

In fact, the numbers tend to suggest LeBron James was a better closer this season.

According to 82games.com, sortable stats from the regular season showed James shot for a better percentage (47.2% to 43.6%), had more points (7.7 to 7.3), rebounds (2.0 to 1.3) and assists (1.7 to 0.9) than Kobe in the fourth quarters of games.

And James’ “clutch” stats, meaning stats during the final five minutes of a five-point game, are through the roof – shooting 55.6% from the floor (to Kobe’s 45.7%) and 42.1% from 3-point land (to Kobe’s 40%).

In fact, if you average out their clutch stats over 48 minutes, they’re lines look something like this:

James: 55.9 points, 14.3 rebounds, 12.6 assists, 1.7 blocks, 3.5 steals

Bryant: 56.7 points, 8.4 rebounds, 5.7 assists, 0.0 blocks, 1.0 steals

But it looks like Bryant will have the last laugh, and the ring, when this season is said and done.

So I guess in those terms, Bryant (with the help of his teammates) would be the better finisher in 2008-09. 

Again, too bad only their puppets are playing in The Finals.

Kobe or not to be, that is the question.

Thoughts from Tuesday’s NBA Finals Game 3, which the red-hot Orlando Magic won 108-104 over the Los Angeles Lakers:

• Where’s RK? Ryantific opts to hang out with the wifey rather than the boys and the Lakers lose their first game of the series. Coincidence? I think not. At least nobody threw garlic bread at the TV during this Lakers loss. Someone go get this guy out of his bunker.
• Kobe Bryant is the best closer in the game? All those costly turnovers late and missing 12 of your final 16 shots and 5 of 10 free throws ain’t exactly closing the deal if you know what I mean.
• After the first half, Beau C said “there’s no way they (the Magic) keep shooting this well in the second half.” After shooting 70 percent in the first half, they cooled down to a frigid 62.5 percent for the game. Brrrrr. NBA Finals record by the way.
• Somewhat NBA and L.A. related, how about Tim Floyd’s resignation at USC? I guess he’ll be helping out at the Bob Cantu camp this summer after all.
• Speaking of SoCal ball, there’s been a Jordan Farmar sighting, which made Beau C feel cool in his No. 5 jersey for the first time in the playoffs. Those 11 points he scored Tuesday bring his postseason average to 5.1 ppg!
• Speaking of no-shows, has anyone seen Andrew Bynum. Dude’s gonna have to change his name to Andruw if he keeps this up.
• Look, Skip to my Lou is having a series now that his coach finally showed some faith in him. Nice work Stan. Keep up the good work, and keep Nelson on the bench.
• Still, no time to panic L.A. fans. That Game 2 win was huge and will be the difference in this series.
• Slim predictions: Lakers win Game 4, take hold of the series, and close it out in five or six. But at some point between now and then, it’s certain either RK or Beau C will throw a piece of garlic bread at the screen … or throw an empty Sam Adams bottle at my face. One or the other.

Initial thoughts from Game 2 of the NBA Finals, which the Los Angeles Lakers won 101-96 in overtime to take a 2-0 lead over the Orlando Magic:

• Maybe I was hung over from that wedding last night, or from watching The Hangover this afternoon, or maybe tonight’s game was sick (not in a good way) and a snoooooooozer. I honestly fell asleep in the third quarter and felt nauseous by the fourth. Luckily it went overtime to make it somewhat interesting. But for a long time there, I didn’t think anyone was going to reach 100 points.
• The Hangover was an instant classic. Go see it. (Land of the Lost, however, not so much … but at least I got to watch it on work’s dime … and now I’m starting to think Pau Gasol played one of the Sleestaks … or maybe it was Chaka … I don’t know, the throat beard throws me off.)

• 

  I'd rather be ripping out my teeth.

  Tonight’s game was not a classic, be happy you didn’t pay $4,000 to see it in person – 15-15 after a quarter, 20 turnovers by the Magic, who got homered to death by the officiating crew in Los Angeles, and they still managed to force overtime: that’s how bad the Lakers played — just one game after putting together one of their best games of the postseason.

• The refs might have been worse. Where’s Joey Crawford when you need him? Dwight Howard blocks a shot by sticking his hand through the rim, and it’s a no call? Courtney Lee was fouled not once but twice on crucial plays down the stretch, plays that – if fouls were called – could have tied up the series with three huge games looming in Orlando.
• Oh yeah, and how many times did Kobe Bryant go to the line despite not being touched? Guess he’s getting the same star treatment LeBron James got in the Eastern Conference Finals. Then again, there was that turnover the refs said occurred because the ball went out of bounds off Kobe’s knee — even though it clearly didn’t. Someone should fine the zebras for once.
• EastSidePN radio honk Colin Cowherd spent all week saying the Cavs sucked and the Orlando-L.A. matchup would be a hundred times better. I usually agree with you Colin, but that argument was the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.
• This series sucks without LeBron. Plain and simple. And you can bet Nike, Vitamin Water, and those lame puppets that look nothing like LeBron or Kobe, are crying their eyes out right now. Nice marketing.
• Bringing back Jameer Nelson after the dude sat out for more than two months is a risky move — but so is letting Skip To My Lou run the point.
• Sasha Vujacic and Jordan Farmar need nicknames. How about: “Catch & Shoot.” Those guys are gunners.
• Where’s Luke Walton?
• Hey, there’s Lamar Odom!
• After the game, I wasn’t surprised to hear Kobe say this:

“We’re about to kick it up. You better believe it. We’re close. You see what I’m saying? This is the Finals. We’re going to be ready to go.”

Really. This is the Finals? You’re going to be ready to go? You’re going to kick it up? Dude, shouldn’t that have happened like … I don’t know … maybe before tonight’s game.

But don’t worry West Coast Bias fanatics, the Lakers are going to start kicking it up here pretty quick. Wake me up when it happens.

Seven foot freaking seven! No wonder the Lakers lost.

What the hell?
Ryantific and I just got done watching tonight’s Lakers-Rockets game and are trying to figure out how Los Angeles lost to Houston – a team the Lakers spanked during the regular season. Here are some of the reasons we came up with:

• How many beers did we drink?
• Was it the Swine Flu?
• Was it the economy tanking?
• Was it the state of the newspaper business?
• Was Joey Crawford officiating?

I guess it was just good ol’ fashioned basketball played by the Rockets, a solid basketball team from center on down to the point guard position. They’re not a deeper team. They’re not a better team. But they are a bigger team, at least with their starting five.

There’s no doubt they present some matchup problems for the Lakers, who were all but forced to ditch their fun-n-gun brand of basketball for a slow, half-court game that obviously benefits the Rockets.
Watching just a quarter of Monday’s game it became obvious Yao Ming is too big for Pau Gasol, and if Bynum’s not playing up to speed, the Lakers are in trouble.

Lamar Odom is the X Factor, but he and Gasol played like they played in the NBA Finals last season and appear to be playing hide-and-seek again.
Kobe did his thing, but was only effective from the perimeter (not exactly a stellar 14 of 31) thanks to some hard-nosed defense from Shane Battier and Ron Artest – who also scored 21 points and had 7 ASSISTS and just might have outplayed Kobe in Game 1.
And it’s pretty clear who won the point guard battle tonight – tiny Aaron Brooks, all 6 foot, 160 pounds (that’s what they list him at anyways) of him, had 19 points against the defending Western Conference champs.

So there goes home court, and there goes an easy sweep into the next round for the Lakers. Looks like this will be a series after all. Well, hopefully it’ll be a series. But if Odom, Gasol, Bynum and Co. don’t start playing, maybe it won’t be one.

On a positive note, Phil Jackson ripped Craig Sager‘s hideous Butterfinger-colored suit tonight between quarters. B-R-U-T-A-L.

And Artest’s hair was hideous. I’m about to write another worst haircuts in the league story again.

Sad news Thursday out of the OC about Anaheim Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart, who was killed along with two others by a suspected drunk driver early that morning.

We don’t tend to follow breaking news like this on The Bias, and usually prefer to rant and rave about non-serious stuff that isn’t so life-and-death, but figured I’d use this real-life note to lead in to a piece Fox Sports and Kansas City Star [Isn't that a McClatchy paper? So I guess that means he's living on borrowed time too there Patrick.] hack Jason Whitlock wrote about Allen Iverson.
Now, I’m not going to defend Iverson for all the crap he’s pulled in his career (recently and in the past), the off-the-court stuff and all of that, but I didn’t know the dude DIED. But I guess he did today, according to Whitlock.

If this reads like an obituary, that’s because it is.
Iverson’s career as an NBA legend died of self-inflicted wounds this season in Detroit. Much like the death of his role model, rapper Tupac Shakur, Iverson’s supporters will reject the news of his demise and predict a Machiavellian return, a Dr. J-like finish to Iverson’s career.
Picture me rolling on the floor laughing my ass off.

Hmmm. Wrong day to be writing that. In fact, I know I’m over sensitive when it comes to this kind of stuff, not to mention hip-hop, 2-pac, and brutal sports writing, but that’s why I opted never to make stupid obituary references, life-or-death analogies, or lame obituary leads while I was a sportswriter. Because, as I once wrote in a column about Pat Tillman, before he was eventually killed while “fighting for his country” on April 22, 2004:

There is one sports writing rule I’ve never broken and never will: comparing the games people play to war.

Until grenades begin exploding on the 50-yard line or missiles begin whizzing by the mound, warfare should never be used as a metaphor for a sporting event.

Not that I’m not claiming to be some great writer, I’m not even in newspapers anymore because I don’t have that passion (or is it stupidity?) to stick to this journalism game long enough to become a lead columnist for one of the Stars, or the Bees, or whatever disguise they’re using to cover up the “www.Dead-Tree-Medium.com” in the masthead.

But Adenhart’s story reminds us that sports aren’t life or death, or black and white, and just because athletes are a different shade, it doesn’t mean every motive is race related, although Whitlock can’t seem to write or fill in for Jim Rome unless he can make some outlandish remarks about one of the two. And while I commend him for bringing up race in our PC, don’t speak about race-relations culture, there’s ways to do it and ways not to. He just seems to pick the latter way too often.

If only I could just sit at home in my boxers and type up some stupid crap just to piss people off. Stuff like how Whitlock claims “The Answer was an underachiever on and off the court.”

Ummm. OK. Dude might have been ghetto off the court. Dude might have been ghetto on the court, too.

But he’s also been in the league for more than a dozen years. He’s also old and beat-up because he was what you would call a “soldier” when he played, and didn’t just settle for being some pansy perimeter player.

Dude’s 6-foot, 175 pounds. My size. I consider myself a decent baller, and I couldn’t even play JC ball.

AI’s playing in the freaking league, used to throw down on people in transition, was an MVP, and has averaged 27 ppg in his career when and only two players in NBA history ever averaged better than 30, Jordan and Wilt, so I think it’s safe to say he “overachieved” on the court at 6 foot, even if he is a headcase.

Not to get off topic, but speaking of “washed-up” writers, I mean players, not getting it done this year. Dare I mention Tim Duncan‘s name — my wife’s favorite player? Same thing. Been in the league forever. He’s a gamer, plays every night but is beat up, and tired, and struggling to get it done this season.

Sure, Iverson is a pain in the ass about the whole coming off the bench thing, but you don’t see Duncan being the fall guy for an aging Spurs team that’s struggling to make the playoffs. Even after Pop benched him last night because of his injury.

Those two teams are going through the same issues, but it’s AI who gets the rap because of the tattoos and the attitude, and the “we’re talking about practice” thing.

But maybe our brethren in the sports journalism field are the ones who need some “practice.”

Practice, man. We’re talkin’ about practice.

We’re not talking about war here, Jason. But if there’s ever been an “overachiever” who went to battle on the basketball floor every night, AI’s that guy.

But we’re not talking about war, or peace, or life, or death. We’re talking about practice. We’re talking about a game people play. A game a 6-foot-kid from Hampton, Virginia, played with reckless abandon, and I could never fault him for that.

Then again, had Shaq and Kobe stayed together we wouldn’t have had this or this.

The saga continues tonight in Phoenix at 7:30.

Yo RK, tell me how my ass taste!

One more question: How about those Thunder, i.e. the franchise formerly known as the SuperSonics? 1-11!?

Maybe Seattle is glad it lost its team.

As Billy Hoyle once said, “You’d rather look good and lose than look bad and win.”

Oh wait, Oklahoma City’s unis, logo and team look like crap.

Speaking of La-La Land and comings and goings, how about Kobe admitting he’d bail for Italy for $50 million. Where has all the commitment gone? Atta boy Brian Giles. Just say no to those Sox.