Lakers vs. Celtics NBA Finals Game 1 LTB Contest

To celebrate the Lakers making it into the finals I would like announce a contest for game 1. Whoever can predict correctly the top 3 scorers from each team for game 1 will get a $25 dinner certificate via email. Also please put down your prediction of how many points each of these players will score (will be used as a tie-breaker.) Good luck guys and let's see if the Lakers can get a huge road victory!

Sounds cool Dave. I'll have a shot but I think you should give the dinner certificate to someone in the US just to make it easier.

Ok for Celtics I have:

Paul Pierce: 25pts

Kevin Garnett: 23pts

Ray Allen: 15pts

For Lakers:

Kobe: 35pts

Pau: 22pts

Lamar: 18pts

For Lakers:

Kobe: 36pts

LO: 19 pts

Pau : 18pts

For Celtics I have:

Paul Pierce: 27pts

Kevin Garnett: 16 pts

Ray Allen: 18 pts

Good contest Dave!

LOS ANGELES LAKERS

BRYANT - 33 POINTS

GASOL - 21 POINTS

ODOM - 14 POINTS

celtics:

garnett- 18 points

pierce- 22

allen- 17

bryant - 32

gasol - 14

odom - 16

garnett - 16

pierce - 22

allen - 24

Woo Hoo!!! Free Food! That's better than Free Checking!!!

Celtics:

Garnett: 28

Pierce: 19

Perkins: 15

Lakers:

Bryant: 37

Gasol: 22

Fisher: 18

Here's why:

For the Celts, Garnett will get his because, let's face it, he is a little more aggressive than Gasol. Secondly, Pierce will be held to just under 20 points because, for the most part, Bryant will be guarding him- a majority of his points will come when he is being guarded by one of the bench players. As for Perkins (my X factor), if he plays as well as he had in the last series against the Pistons, I think that his game will be elevated and his confidence level increased, giving him a higher score than his average.

As for our Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe is the best player in the world right now; 37 is not far-fetched for this unstoppable force. Gasol, with Bryant being unstoppable, will find the open lanes, and get the dump offs on Kobe's penetration. Fisher (my X factor), Rondo can't handle him. After playing the likes of AI, D Williams and Tony Parker, Rondo will be a cinch for Fish to deal with, both on the defensive and offensive sides of the court. Look for Fish to find his stroke this series.

For Lakers:

Kobe: 36pts

Pau : 22pts

Lamar: 17 pts

For Celtics I have:

Paul Pierce: 28pts

Kevin Garnett: 20 pts

Ray Allen: 18 pts

Lakers:

Kobe - 33 points

Gasol - 18 points

Lamar - 17 points

Celtics:

Pierce - 26 points

Allen - 24 points

Garnett - 18 points

Lakers:

Kobe-38

Gasol-17

Odom-18

Celtics:

Pierce-22

Garnett-28

Allen-18

Lakers:

Bryant - 33

Gasol - 18

Odom - 13

Celtics:

Pierce - 31

Garnett - 27

Allen - 6

I will join it since I pretty much won it last time and if I win this time, I will use it to sponsor another mini-tourney. Lakers: Kobe - 29 Gasol - 18 Fisher - 16 Kobe will be Kobe. But to beat Boston - at home - he will need to share the rock AND score his own. 29 points is about the most I want him to score, even speculating that he would do it with 10/19 shooting, 8/8 from the line, grabbing 7 boards, passing 6 dimes and forcing 2 steals. Pau Gasol will be guarded by Kendrick Perkins. While Perk will be bothering Pau with his size, Mr. Fly can pull him out of his comfort zone and take him off the dribble with some iso's from the left. We shall see hook shots and 15-footers from Pau on this matchup. DFish will be roaming around with Rondo not necessarily the best defender. Rondo is their help of the double guy and that leaves Fish for many corner three attempts than what he is used to. Also, the high scoring output will be coming off Rondo's fouls. So I say Fish goes 4/6 from the field with 3/4 of them coming from threes, and he shoots 5/5 from the free throw line. Note: Lamar Odom will have his hands full defending KG. That fact alone makes me think his energy and focus will be on D. Celtics: Pierce - 25 Allen - 18 Garnett - 18 Paul Pierce loves LA. He will have the least defender on him and he is Boston'e best natural scorer. Luke Walton and Vlade Radman will each struggle against him, making him a more efficient off-the-dribble scorer than what he would like. 25 points thru 8/19 shooting, 2 threes, 7/9 free throws. Ray Allen will be fighting off a million screens and will get....

Finally, someone besides myself that thinks that someone other than our big 3 will contribute....

Lakers:

Kobe Bryant - 31 pts

Lamar Odom - 18 pts

Pau Gasol - 16 pts

Celtics:

Paul Pierce - 25 pts

Kevin Garnett - 21 pts

Kendrick Perkins - 12 pts

Lakers:

Kobe- 33

Pau- 18

Lamar- 14

Celtics:

Pierce- 24

Garnett- 21

Allen- 16

Kobe: 32

Lamar: 20

Sasha: 17

Pierce: 26

Garnett: 22

Rondo: 12

I'm thinking Ray Allen will go back to his struggling ways, or so I hope, especially with Kobe and Sasha guarding him. I think Vlad, Luke, will guard Pierce. I'm hoping Ariza gets to take a crack at Pierce, especially when Boston leaves starters in against our bench for fear of losing a lead.

I see Gasol being assertive against Perkins, but going back to his non shooting ways against KG, which means KG won't be in foul trouble the whole series. Lamar hopefully will push the ball this series and get layups or dunks because of it. I think Sasha will recive a lot of open looks on the weakside once Boston goes into it's trap defense and follows Kobe when he has the ball, and it should be one to two swing passes to get back to Sasha or possibly Fish on that side.

Well, I'm going for the dark horses here and I'm going to say:

Celtics

K Perkins 15 pts

KG 18 pts

Pierce 26 pts

Lakers

Kobe 29 pts

Pau 18 pts

Sasha 17 pts

I know what you're thinking, but I really think we'll see a lot of smaller contributions from the other players here. The Celtics are going to be swarming all over KB, hopefully leaving a few others for the open shot.

LAKERS

Kobe - 32 pts

Pau - 18 pts

Lamar - 18 pts

Celtics

KG - 24 pts

Pierce - 20 pts

Rondo - 13 pts

Celtics:

Pierce.... 24

KG........ 23

Rondo...... 16

Lakers:

Kobe..... 32

Gasol..... 18

Lamar.... 15

For Lakers:

Kobe: 30pts

Pau : 20pts

Derek Fisher: 15 pts

For Celtics :

Kevin Garnett: 28pts

Paul Pierce: 22 pts

Rajon Rondo: 17 pts

ok, here's mine

Lakeshow

Kobe 34

Lamar 21

Fisher 16

C's

Pierce 28

KG 23

Rondo 15

Lakers:

Kobe: 44pts

Pau: 19pts

Fisher: 17pts

Celtics:

Garnett: 23

Pierce: 17

Rondo: 16

Call this wishfull thinking, but I'm thinking the Lakers are going to have a blowout in game 1. This should set the tempo for the entire serious. They need to win one in boston...game 1 will be it!

That's great that quite of few of you wrote the logic behind your selections- could make for interesting discussions! BTW I forgot to mention that the gift certificate is only good in the USA like L4K said. But if you win and you're not in the USA you can either sponsor another contest of your own or simply give it away to someone else.

Also please feel free to edit your selection all the way until game time when the thread will be locked.

This is actually quite fun. Thanks for the idea. Sorry I missed the last one....

I think it will be that way: Lakers: Kobe 28 Pau 18 Fish 18 Kobe "only" with 28 pts, because i hope he has one of his games in which he finds the open shooters and has like 8 assists, that would help our team that much, he either has that scoring spree and has less assists (i don´t want that to happen, because that´s often a sign for Kobe to be too selfish most of the time because he HAS TO, and i think that would be in the Celt´s favor) or he reads the game like only a dominant guy like him can. Pau will be fighting for his points against KG and hopefully will feed off Kobe´s penetration to the basket. I think he has the ability to score like 18 or more points even with KG defending him. He simply HAS to. For Fish i think he could find his stroke against Rondo who isn´t that good in defending point guards who circle around the three point line (just look at Billups, who had that open three very often in their series for example). Fish can be our x-facotr with his experience out there. He has seen it all before together with his backcourt-mate Kobe Bryant. I hope for Fish to knock down those triples to silence that Celtics crowd just at the right moment. Celtics: Garnett: 22 Pierce: 28 Perkins: 16 I think KG will get his points but lately he seems to giving up the leadership a bit for Pierce. He will have a good game but a kind of normal game for him. Pierce i think will go off in stretches throughout the game just like he did the whole playoffs. I love KG and his heart he puts on the floor every game but in my opinion Pierce has grown into the real A-role with....

Kobe: 34

Gasol: 16

Vujacic: 14

Pierce: 26

Garnett: 22

Perkins: 12

Good analysis Mamba247! Don't forget to add your Celtics players as well!

Celtics

Pierce: 29 points

Garnett 22

Allen 18

Lakers:

Kobe 32

Lamar 24

Pau 16

celtics

pierce: 24pts

garnett: 20pts

allen: 15pts

Lakers

Kobe: 32pts

Pau: 24pts

Lamar: 18pts

Mamba247: Pierce in my opinion has always been the number 1 option. He looks for the shot when the game is on the line and he shows up in big games and that's why I wanted Detroit to win because I feel they've always been overrated since beating our old Laker squad in the finals. Paul has done this since high school, showing up for big games and now he gets to play at home on both coasts, so I'm figuring he's going to have a big series, I really hope I'm wrong though.

Lakers:

Kobe: 28

Fish: 18

LO: 16

Cetltics:

Pierce: 24

KG: 18

Perkins: 12

ummmm ok

Lakers

Kobe-45

Gasol- 20

Odom-18

Celts

Paul P-40

KG- 22

RONDO-17

Lakers take game one by 18!!!!!!

KOBE-32

GASOL-16

ODOM 15

GARNETT-24

PIERCE-22

ALLEN-12

Lakers:

Kobe: 34 pts.

Gasol: 22 pts.

Fish: 18

Celtics:

Garnett: 28 pts.

Pierce: 24 pts.

Ray Allen: 14 pts.

For Lakers:

Kobe 37

Fisher 13

Gasol 12

For Celtics:

Pierce: 23

Garnett: 23

Allen: 14

Lakers:

Kobe 28pts.

Odom 18pts.

Gasol 14pts.

Celtics

Garnett 24pts.

Pierce 22pts.

Allen 20pts.

Lakers i have

Kobe: 26 pts

Gasol: 16 pts

Odom: 19 pts

for the Celtics:

Garnett 22pts

Pierce 20 pts

Allen 17 pts

Lakers:

Kobe-32

Pau-14

lamar-15

Celts:

Pierce-34

Garnett-17

Allen-25

Great contest - here are my picks:

Lakers:

Kobe - 26 points

Pau - 17 points

Fisher - 18 points

Celtics:

Pierce - 24 points

Garnett - 21 points

Allen - 15 points

kobe - 26

pau - 21

odom - 17

pierce - 22

kg - 21

allen - 16

I will join it since I pretty much won it last time Smile and if I win this time, I will use it to sponsor another mini-tourney. Lakers: Kobe - 29 Gasol - 18 Fisher - 16 Kobe will be Kobe. But to beat Boston - at home - he will need to share the rock AND score his own. 29 points is about the most I want him to score, even speculating that he would do it with 10/19 shooting, 8/8 from the line, grabbing 7 boards, passing 6 dimes and forcing 2 steals. Pau Gasol will be guarded by Kendrick Perkins. While Perk will be bothering Pau with his size, Mr. Fly can pull him out of his comfort zone and take him off the dribble with some iso's from the left. We shall see hook shots and 15-footers from Pau on this matchup. DFish will be roaming around with Rondo not necessarily the best defender. Rondo is their help of the double guy and that leaves Fish for many corner three attempts than what he is used to. Also, the high scoring output will be coming off Rondo's fouls. So I say Fish goes 4/6 from the field with 3/4 of them coming from threes, and he shoots 5/5 from the free throw line. Note: Lamar Odom will have his hands full defending KG. That fact alone makes me think his energy and focus will be on D. Celtics: Pierce - 25 Allen - 18 Garnett - 18 Paul Pierce loves LA. He will have the least defender on him and he is Boston'e best natural scorer. Luke Walton and Vlade Radman will each struggle against him, making him a more efficient off-the-dribble scorer than what he would like. 25 points thru 8/19 shooting, 2 threes, 7/9 free throws. Ray Allen will be fighting off a million screens and will get....

Lakers :

Kobe: 27 pts

Gasol: 23

Odom: 17

Boston:

Garnett 26

Rondo 16

Pierce 18

L.A

Kobe 30

Gasol 30

Sasha 15

Boston

garnett17

pierce 22

r.allen19

kobe 45

lamar 13

gasol 17

garrnett 19

pierce 25

r allen 11

Lakers:

Kobe - 24 points

Pau - 18 points

Odom - 15 points

Celtics:

Pierce - 27 points

Garnett - 19 points

Allen - 14 points

Lakers:

Kobe - 28 points

Pau - 22 points

Vlad - 14 points

Celtics:

Pierce - 24 points

Garnett - 24 points

Rondo - 14 points

LAKERS:

Kobe - 30 points.

VladRad - 19 points.

Fisher - 18 Points.

CELTICS:

Pierce - 26 Points.

Garnett - 20 points.

Perkins - 16 points.

Lakers:

Kobe - 30

Odom - 23

Gasol - 20

Boston:

Pierce - 23

Ray Allen - 19

Garnett - 19

Lakers

Kobe - 35

Gasol - 19

Odom - 18

Celtics

Garnet - 25

Pierce - 23

Allen - 21

Okay guys last call- the thread will be locked in an hour!

Lakers.

Kobe - 33

Paul - 19

Lamar 16

Celtics

Garnett - 25

Pierce 16

Allen 9