Beaneball

At least one potentially difficult decision has been obviated by Travis Buck's continued struggles: Ryan Sweeney is back at Buck's expense, the latter having been demoted to make room. This is already Buck's second demotion of the year. At some point, if he doesn't get his swing back, maybe the A's will have to do like the Tigers with Dontrelle and figure out who the best hitting teacher in the organization is and send Buck there.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Oakland A's at 11:44 | |

The Lakers proved they could win ugly tonight, pulling out the 87-81 home win over the Celtics. As indicated by the fact that L.A. only scored 87 points, a lot went wrong: Lamar Odom had a poor offensive game, joined by Pau Gasol; Vladimir Radmanovic had foul trouble that kept his shooting off the floor again; Ray Allen went off for 25 points by raining in five open threes; the Lakers shot just 62% from the foul line, missing 13 free throws; Boston grabbed fourteen offensive boards.

So what went right? Kobe was aggressive all night, getting into the lane and making shots at or near the lane, and getting foul calls he wasn't getting in Boston (he shot 18 of the Laker free throws). Sasha Vujacic had one of those nights, shooting 7-10 to essentially negate Ray Allen's offensive contributions. Paul Pierce was horrendous, shooting 2-14 and picking up five fouls. (This was partly a result of some misses of open shots he'd been making in Boston and partly a result of getting way fewer of those open looks as the Laker defense tightened up on him, led by Sasha and Kobe.) Kevin Garnett only shot 6-21 as his jumper wasn't falling and he only found his way into the lane a few times (though this seemed more by Celtic design than by Laker defensive efforts -- he didn't miss many paint shots or give the ball up from the lane many times because he pretty much hung around the perimeter the entire game).

How about the foul situation? Simmons figured Bennett Salvatore would be in this game, which isn't so prescient when you think about it: he hadn't worked the first two games, and he's in a small group of guys whom you know are going to work the Finals, so you have to figure this game is his. But Simmons also figured that Salvatore would pull one of his screw jobs, which didn't really happen. The Lakers shot more free throws than the Celtics, but only 12 more, not the egregious 28 of Game 2. Twelve is easily explainable by more aggressiveness in this game and the Lakers' offensive style in general: they're a cutting, driving, posting team that should be getting fouls against a team that clutches and grabs as much as the Celtics do. The Celtics, by contrast, are a jump-shooting team, with the exception of Paul Pierce.

Even more than the foul shot situation, there were only two horrible calls all night, but both went against the Lakers. One was Kevin Garnett's obvious travel in the third quarter, when he was doing his KG PIVOT thing where he jukes left and right like six times. In the midst of all this, he basically forgot which foot was his pivot and switched it before going up for a fallaway jumper. The refs completely boned it, failing to blow the whistle, and PJ Brown ended up with an offensive board and two foul shots. (Of course, the whole thing would have been null had the Lakers managed to secure their defensive glass, but that's for another time.) Second was the Kendrick Perkins / Radmanovic foul, where Vlad-Rad was futilely attempting to guard Perkins in the post. Rad had Perkins fronted, and the nice lob pass came over the top. While the ball was in the air, Rad basically just gave the foul, knowing he couldn't handle the bigger offensive player down there, grabbing onto Perkins's arm. Perkins caught the ball anyway and put it in for a layup. For some reason, the refs let the continuation go and gave Perkins a three-point play, despite the obvious fact that Vlad had fouled Perkins before he ever caught the ball.

In short, the Lakers didn't receive any special help from the refs tonight, and, as I've been saying, they didn't need it. Was it a closer, uglier win than I would have liked? Sure. Was it still a well-earned win? Sure.

What needs to happen in Game 4, knowing that Paul Pierce at least will shoot better, and maybe KG as well (he's bound to start draining these shots at some point, right?)? Better play from Lamar Odom. He wasn't out of control offensively tonight, and he came alive in the second half, getting to the bucket a couple of times to set up Pau Gasol offensive-rebound scores, but he made silly defensive fouls in the first half and almost made a terrible play with six seconds left. Instead of recognizing that the Celtics were (stupidly) conceding the game and thus dribbling the clock out, he went in for a dunk, but pushed off, and got called for an offensive foul. He has to, in short, wake up. Gasol needs to have a Game 2-type offensive game again, instead of the 3-9 showing of tonight where he was basically a non-factor. You weren't even aware he was on the floor most of the time. He had twelve rebounds and didn't let KG get an easy offensive boards over him like he did in Game 2, so that's a plus -- he needs to keep that up, but have a few more of his shots fall. Oh, also, don't shoot 3-8 at the line. It'd be nice if Derek Fisher shot better than 1-6, but that's not something anyone needs to hound him about. He took the shots tonight that he always takes and sometimes they don't go in. It's not critical so long as someone else steps up, as Sasha did tonight. Sasha won't shoot 70% again, but hopefully with contributions from Odom and Gasol, he won't have to, and his hounding of Pierce and Eddie House into frustrated pushes and elbows will continue to be valuable even when his shot isn't falling (so long as he's taking those shots in the flow of the offense like he was tonight).

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 02:20 | |

That's called The Stern Button. 38-10 on the free throw margin. Really? That's impossible. When Kobe Bryant is on one team, and two of the three offensive stars for the other team are exclusively jump shooters, 38-10 should never ever happen. That's outrageous. That's a travesty.

I shouldn't make reference to The Stern Button, though. Even if he was in the stands. I don't actually think the league or the referees are corrupt. I just think they're incompetent. Everyone loves Bob Delaney because of his FBI background, but is he a good referee? Not in this game he wasn't. Who made the preposterous call on Ronny Turiaf's block on the Celtic fast break? Who completely missed Kobe getting slapped across the arm on at least three occasions driving to the basket? Who refused to blow the whistle while Pau was getting mercilessly hacked under the basket as time ran out in the first half? I don't know if it was Delaney, Crawford, or the third guy, but whoever it was ought to hang their heads in shame. As usual, calls were missed on the other side as well, notably Radmanovic traveling on his way to a dunk after the late-game steal, and Jordan Farmar swiping Leon Powe across the arm as he threw down a dunk to end the third quarter. But when the referees are incompetent, which is a given, and the result is a 38-10 free throw margin, which is a factual truth, the conclusion is that the guys in gray screwed the road team. And how many times have we heard that in the NBA?

They weren't the only reason the Lakers lost, of course. Leon Powe might as well retire now, because he'll never have a game this good again. The Lakers couldn't do anything to disturb Rajon Rondo, and they have to fix that going back to L.A. Boston was absurdly hot from three-point range, hitting something like 75% of those shots. Derek Fisher's shot was off. Vlad-Rad made some boneheaded plays. And my god say it ain't so, but Doc Rivers actually coached a good game: he stopped a couple of Laker runs with well-placed timeouts and he played the guys who should have been playing: Rondo basically went the distance instead of Sam Cassell getting siginficant time, Powe played many more minutes than usual, and James Posey, who played well, doing the kinds of things he does (threes and defense), got a fair amount of time as well.

But look, two of the reasons I've mentioned are not going to be repeated (the threes and Powe), and one of them probably won't happen in L.A. (the free throws). Given that the Lakers ended up losing by single digits, any one of those things going differently results in a completely different game. Now, that's not the way to think about it necessarily, because unless the Lakers are down by 26 in the fourth quarter, they don't make that crazy run that they end up making. Instead maybe they're down 12 the entire way or something. That said, the game was close until the closing minutes of the third, when the Celtics went on a run that put them up a ton, making the game look like a rout. Before that, the Lakers were down something like six or ten. If you subtract two threes from the Celtics and close the free throw gap by about 10 (in which case the Celtics would still have been getting the overwhelming number of calls), you've got a Laker lead.

The problem with all of this complaining is that it doesn't change the reality, which is that the Lakers are down 0-2. This means they absolutely must win all three games at home. Given the weakness this Celtics team has shown in the playoffs, that's utterly possible. But it still must be done. Assuming the referees are as incompetent in Games 3-5 as they were in One and Two, I think it's a fair prediction to say that the Lakers will, in fact, win all three of these games at home. That's even if Leon Powe actually sells his soul again, and even if Pau Gasol still doesn't figure out how to box Kevin Garnett out.

And I'm not sure the refs even need to be awful in L.A. Again, look at this game. A twenty-eight free-throw advantage for the Celtics, a 20+ point lead with half of the fourth quarter gone, and they still have to win in the final minute? This is your potential NBA champion? Come on.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 23:51 | |

(My move to the west coast being completed, I'm back. But look for another outage in a few months, when I move again, this time to southern Texas.)

Mike Sweeney is having surgery on his knee, and he's expected to be out for four to six weeks. That Sweeney got hurt and needs surgery should be no surprise: he managed just 134 games over the last two years. With Frank Thomas still out, there isn't really a logjam to be cleared at the DH spot, but it'll help the roster a little bit that both of those guys won't be coming back at the same time. When Thomas comes back, I'd expect him to again be the full-time DH, a Cust-Gonzalez-Buck outfield, Eric Chavez at third, and Jack Hannahan moving to the bench. I think the fact that Em(a)il Brown hasn't played in the last two Angels games isn't a coincidence, but is rather a sign that he's now an extra bat off the bench, and maybe a candidate to be cut when Thomas comes back, since he's not really a better hitter than anyone in the starting lineup (maybe Kurt Suzuki or Bobby Crosby), and he's not a guy who's going to come in defensively, even though Cust and Buck aren't strong outfielders.

Hannahan's lack of bat and lack of future with this team might make him a candidate to be cut as well, but the fact that he can play second and third, and the fact that he's Eric Chavez's backup (and Chavez needs a backup still, I'm sure) will likely keep him around over Brown.

The A's are carrying 12 pitchers again, so maybe Brad Ziegler will go away back to Sacramento when it's Thomas time. I guess the other option is Gregorio Petit, but I'm not sure the A's want to do that: I don't think they see Hannahan as a middle infielder, despite the aforementioned experience at second base, so they likely think of Petit as their utility guy while Hannahan is more their backup corner guy (especially seeing as how the A's are miraculously down to just one first baseman on the roster, with Mike Sweeney and Dan Johnson both gone, although Sweeney is obviously not gone forever).

On the pitching front, though, it's nice to have Andrew Brown back: he was activated today after his appendectomy has kept him out since May 20. Dallas Braden, who never gets to pitch when he gets called up, got sent down.

So with all that free association done, here's my sort of combined advice / prognostication: when Frank Thomas comes back (call it a week from now), the A's get back to 11 pitchers by sending down Ziegler and going with this lineup: Ellis, Cust, Thomas, Chavez, Buck, Crosby, Barton, Gonzalez, Suzuki. Sandy Casilla should be back in about a week as well. Casilla's been untouchable, and I think he's out of options as well, so he'll stay in the majors. This might be cut-bait time on Keith Foulke or Kiko Calero, although it's not really fair to call it "cut-bait" because both have pitched well. But neither of them is likely to be a major force for this team next year or the year after, so maybe one of them is gone. Or maybe Chad Gaudin gets traded.

At some point down the road, Donnie Murphy will be back, but that's easy to take care of, as you just swap in one utility infielder for another and send Gregorio Petit down to AAA.

Joey Devine will also be back at some point, though it's unclear when. He pitched well, so it'd be a shame to send him to AAA again, but I figure that's what'll happen given that the A's would likely to have to lose Calero, Foulke, or Gaudin, whoever survives Casilla's return, to get Devine back on the roster. It's not a terrible move since Devine will still be available at the next pitching injury, and the point of this year is not to assemble the very best roster right this very minute.

Ryan Sweeney's return is when I figure Em(a)il Brown is done with the team. Sweeney is a better bench outfielder than Brown given the current outfield configuration because of his speed and defense. With Carlos Gonzalez up, it looks like he'll basically play the Chris Denorfia role, tag-teaming with Rajai Davis.

Finally, Mike Sweeney's return is the hardest of all on the roster. Fortunately, it's so far off that the A's are bound to suffer another injury and thus be forced to DL someone, allowing Sweeney back on the team. Finally, there's always the possibility of sending Carlos Gonzalez back to AAA, but that seems unlikely: with a player like him, the A's don't seem interested in just bringing him up as an injury replacement, but rather bringing him up when he's ready to play every day and just handing him the job, as it appears they've done. (Though it's hard to tell because his callup coincided with Sweeney's injury, so maybe he really is just here for a few weeks until Sweeney (Ryan) heals up.)

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Oakland A's at 18:28 | |

Pau getting beat by Kevin Garnett for offensive rebounds twice on the same possession is just embarassing. He was just standing around watching the play on the second one, which is horrible. Combine poor endgame play with Kobe's poor shooting and continued inability to score in the paint and you've got a Laker loss, albeit one where you can say "Game 2 is still within reach." Assuming the referees don't continue to be intimidated by the home crowd, that is. They weren't terrible in this game, but the two or three truly horrendous bad calls (e.g. Pau's clean block on Garnett in the first half) went against the Lakers, as you expect to happen in Boston.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 23:53 | |