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NBA FINALS: LA Lakers and Celtics Tied 1-1

Ray Allen’s dazzling three-point shooting in the first half and Rajon Rondo’s all around mastery in the second half were the obvious reasons why Boston took Game 2. From a purely statistical stand-point they won because they went from being -11 on the boards in Game 1 to +5 despite KG only getting 4 rebounds again. The Celtics also played great defense holding the Lakers to just 40.8% shooting and 5-22 from three point range.

While momentum and home court advantage has switched to Boston the Lakers are still winning the Finals in 63.6% of simulations. The Lakers shot under 41% from the field, but Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol shot a combined 13-23 (56.5%). Kobe Bryant played a solid game but foul trouble cost him valuable minutes that ended up going to poor defensive players like Sasha Vujacic and Jordan Farmar.

The Lakers can definitely pull out at least one win in Boston because three of the four big reasons why they lost Game 2 were due to aberrant occurrences that you do not expect to happen again. You do not expect Ray Allen to shoot 8-11 from three-point range, you do not expect Kobe to be in foul trouble you do not expect Pau Gasol to only have 10 FGAs. If Allen were ‘only’ 6-11, Kobe had 4 fouls and not 5 after the third quarter and Gasol had 15 FGAs the Lakers probably would have won Game 2.