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This week Kevin Garnett introduced a new line of shoes strictly for the NBA Finals. They're called the Commander KG and cost $1,017 a pair. The money is going to charity, which presumably is not the Rasheed Wallace Technical Foul Fund.
Garnett is like his new kicks: polished, sturdy and forgiving of sharp cuts and dramatic turns. That's how Garnett's Hall of Fame career has been, up and down, both gorgeous and ring-less.
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| How will Kevin Garnett make his trophy dream a reality? It'll take a lot more than new shoes. (Getty Images) |
The scene is set for one of the NBA's nice guys in Garnett ride off with a championship under one arm and his new kicks under the other. Win a Game 7 in Boston and Garnett and his new shoes are embraced by Boston sports fans the way names like Tom Brady and Bill Russell are -- and always will be.
Garnett's winning a ring would be a nice story, but this won't be a Hollywood ending. Actually, check that. It will be, because the trophy is landing in Los Angeles.
Too much firepower, too deep a bench and too much Bryant spell a win for the Lakers.
Each time you break down this series, the equation fails to favor Boston. The Celtics win in the grit category as they are one of the more mentally tough teams in the NBA, but that's about it. Though Red Auerbach would've preferred eating sushi for a week to having Phil Jackson win his record 10th championship against the Celtics, it's almost a lock for the Lakers to do so.
That's what I said, practically a lock.
The heart wants the Celtics, Team Good Guys, to beat the Ko-Me's. You'd love to see nice dude Doc Rivers -- who braved Celtics fans last year holding up "Fire Doc" signs -- win one and finally shut people up about his coaching acumen. But the intellect sees a six-game series in which Boston fails to find a solution for the lethal juggernaut that is Bryant.
No team has been able to completely stop Bryant. Like Jordan, he is capable of dropping 40 in the blink of an eye. There's no one on the Celtics who can stop Bryant. Really, there's no one in the league who can stop him.
Boston is saying it's going to double Bryant often. Fine. Go ahead.
"I don't see them doing that throughout the whole series, especially down the stretch," Lakers forward Luke Walton said. "It's obviously going to result in less open shots for us throughout the game but the ultimate goal is for our team to win. So if they decide to not double Kobe and he can go for 60, let him go for 60."
If they don't double, he'll get 60. If they do, he'll still get 30.
