Bay Area Sports Blogging

The NBA Finals will start Thursday night with the LA Lakers visiting the Boston Celtics for game 1. There has been a lot of comparisons to the historical match-ups between these two teams in the 80s and even earlier. But all that talk is just filler to sell newspapers. These two teams have their own identities, and they will need to build their own legacies.

Legends are born in the playoffs, but they are immortalized in the Finals. So far this year, the Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant has proved to the league just how clutch he is, making shot after shot in the fourth quarter to send the defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs home in five games. It is a great run, for sure, but without the championship, Kobe's great run may well be forgotten.

On the back of a 109-119 drubbing by the Jazz in Utah, the Warriors respond with an amazing performance against the league's best team, the Boston Celtics.

With Jackson had to sit out of this game due to re-injuring his ankle in Utah. The Warriors' record this season without Jackson is 1-6 and 31-15 with him. Without his clutch shooting, the Warriors would have to keep the game close by playing efficiently and controlling the boards which they did for the most part.

While trailing by 7 in the fourth, the Warriors came back to take the lead. But the Celtics with their Big 3 could not be denied and tied up the game with 6.5 seconds to go.

ESPN is all over the proposed Kevin Garnett trade. The deal would send Kevin Garnett to Boston Celtics for Al Jefferson, Theo Ratliff, Gerald Green, Sebastian Telfair, Ryan Gomes, and two future draft picks. ESPN is reporting that it's a done deal, and will be announced soon.

Knowing ESPN, they wouldn't blast this all over their website and SportsCenter unless it had some reassurance that it is real. And the deal sounds plausible. After the trade, the Boston Celtics would end up with about 9 active players on the roster. The Minnesota Timberwolves would end up with 17 active players on the roster.

The latest reports on Kevin Garnett say a deal is almost done between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Boston Celtics. The rumored deal would involve some combination of Al Jefferson, Theo Ratliff, draft picks, and Gerald Green.

If completed, the Celtics would have Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett in their starting line-up. Pierce and Allen were injured for a significant part of the season last year, but they can play. The starting point guard for the Celtics would be Rajon Rondo, whom I am not a fan of. The Celtics should bring in a top quality point guard to control the floor.