Rocks don't know how to finish games. They make fundamental mistakes at critical times. Missed freethrows down the stretch Dribble shotclock down Missed rebounds turnovers or just plain poor defense Every team does these things, it's just you don't do it in the last 5 minutes. Rocks fall victim one item on this list in each and every close game. Last night it was a missed rebound on a Laker freethrow (booooo) and missing too many freethrows themselves. It's all about experience and concentration. That's one thing about Hakeem's teams. They just didn't make many dumb mistakes when it counted. Most of the time, you can count on the other team to make a mistake and then just take advantage. During this stretch, if the Rocks are close it is despite themselves cause somebody hits a big shot or 2 or 3. If they'd just take care of the fundamentals, things will start falling into place. That is why we need Steve back. His head seems to be into the moment when it counts. Since he's the PG, he has some control of the others too and things flow better.
WOW! And here I was thinking the problem was that Phil Jackson finally put Shaq into the game at the 4 minute mark, after sitting the whole 4th.
