Overall we could get a pretty fair shake with the calls. BUT, Crawford would love to be the one to give Perk a cheap tech. That guy just doesn't give a bleep.
I feel good about Crawford tonight. I think he won't T Perk up unless Perk really goes nuts. And Perk better be exercising some emotional control the next couple weeks.
When in doubt, start from the end point: What is the most profitable result for the League? The worst outcome is if the Celtics somehow go up 2-0 after Game 2. That happened in the Orlando series, and it took a Rush/Crawford special to extend the ECF to 6 games. You can't go to that well too many times or people start talking about Donaghy and Sacramento and income tax evasion and whatnot.
Best result for the League would be a split, but LA heading East up 2-0 is OK given that the Celtics get three in a row at home to win 2 and extend to 6.
The Perkins situation is your hole card. No sense pulling it out until you really need it. That was why it was so smart to rescind the T after ECF Game 5--you don't want Orlando in the Finals and you don't want to use your flexibility for the Boston-LA matchup.
Best to call this one fairly straight-up. See what happens. If LA blows the Celtics out, then leave things alone and move on to Game 2. If you get late into the 3rd quarter and Boston looks like it has a good shot to win, then T up Perk. The Celtics can get through a quarter with Sheed, Baby et al, so you're not completely destroying the Celtics in Game 1. But it would be really tough for the Celtics to take Game 2, and thus go up 2-0, if they can't use Perkins in that game. The key is to make sure Boston does no better than a split. If you can't bank on LA winning one of the first two, then you step in and make it happen.
Topic: Today's Official Report for Finals Game 1 6/3 (Read 6245 times)