Game 6 Tonight

Tonight the Lakers will try to stave off elimination from the playoffs for the second straight game. After going down 3-1 to the Boston Celtics, L.A. eeked out Game 5 at home but now have to travel to Boston to try and take two games in the TD Bank North Garden, a building the Celtics have lost only one game in this postseason. The Lakers have started games strong in the finals thus far; it’s holding their leads that they’ve struggled with. While Boston’s resiliency has been impressive, the Lakers have blown several double digit leads in this series at home.

For the Lakers to win tonight, they’ll need a hot start from superstar Kobe Bryant similar to that in Game 5, but they’ll need him to maintain a high level of play throughout the entire four quarters. What I think is the most important factor in Game 6 is the physicality of Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. These two guys really stepped it up inside in Game 5 and the Lakers will need a similar effort from them in order to force a Game 7. Gasol did a fantastic job guarding Kevin Garnett on Sunday and needs to duplicate that performance tonight. Odom has a tendency to disappear for stretches of the game, so more consistency from him would do the Lakers a lot of good. It also seems like the Lakers have created matchup problems for Boston when they’ve gone to a smaller lineup, using Vladimir Radmanovic at the four spot in order to spread the floor. I think we could see Phil Jackson using this strategy early and often in an effort to put a lot of points on the board.

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