Well the Lakers lost Game 4, and really could have been swept out of the Finals already, considering they had an absolute prayer answered in Game 2 to give them their one win. Once again the story of the game was Laker fouls and Piston free throws. LA had 34 fouls while Detroit only had 20, and the Pistons had 41 free throws while the Lakers only had 20. For the series this brings the totals to 76 fouls on Detroit vs. 114 fouls on the Lakers; and 132 free throws for the Pistons vs. only 78 free throws for LA. In all 5 games the Lakers have had more fouls than Detroit, and in all 5 games the Pistons have had more free throws than LA; however, in Game 2 (the one the Lakers won) the Lakers only had 2 more fouls and Detroit only had 6 more free throws, so it shows you how important it is for the calls to be more even. In the two games in Detroit, it's really been ridiculous, with the Lakers having 26 more fouls called on them than were called on Detroit and with 36 more free throws than LA has (LA's only attempted 35 total free throws in Detroit, so the Pistons have had more than twice as many free throw attempts in the last two games).
For whatever reason in this series, the refs have been letting the Pistons get away with murder on defense, and have been calling the Lakers for every minute amount of contact on the other end. Today was probably the most blatant example of this, even worse than Game 3. LA came out with a lot of intensity and with a good game plan; but in spite of the fact that LA was hitting around 55% of their shots and Detroit was hitting about 28% of their shots, Detroit still had a 2 point lead at halftime because they had been to the line about 15 more times than LA had. The officiating negated LA's good start, and by the time the refs decided to call things a little more even-handedly, it didn't really matter, because Detroit's shooting slump ended and they started to make their shots from the field. In spite of all of that, LA still had a great chance to win, except that for the second game in a row Kobe was a virtual non-factor, going 8-25, with most of those shots being really absurd ones from too far outside.
Oh well, the circus rolls on and the Pistons can win the NBA championship on Tuesday with a win in Game 5, thus becoming the first team in NBA history to win Games 3,4 and 5 of the Finals at home. The Lakers only chance in this series is to have a great game in Game 5, and force this series to come back to LA for the last two games with LA down 3-2. Even then, however, I don't think that any team has come back from being down 3 games to 1 in the NBA Finals since maybe the Celtics in the late 60s. LA's backs are to the walls now, and Game 5 could very well be the last time for a number of things: it could be Kobe's last game as a Laker, it could be Gary Payton's last game as a Laker, it could be Phil Jackson's last game as head coach of the Lakers, it could be Derek Fisher's last game as a Laker, it could be Rick Fox's last game of his career, and it could be Karl Malone's last game of his 19-year career. Hopefully they'll all leave it all out there on the court on Tuesday, or else it's gonna be summertime for the NBA.