Will the Lakers rise from the ashes tonight?

I’m betting they get some nice home cooking after the Leon-Powell-just-took-more-free-throws-than-the-whole-Laker-team fiasco.

If you’re jonesin for more about the game, here’s great read about the Celtics’ defensive coach Tom Thibodeau and his strategy…

But of course in Thibodeau’s case, he didn’t really cheat. He gamed the system. We’ve been there before. A new tax code comes out. It is clear what the spirit of the code is, the intent. Still, only a fool doesn’t try to find the inevitable loophole to defeat the law’s intentions. Tom Thibodeau is no fool.

…What if you could run the following query through Morey’s machine - as Thibodeau had ample opportunity to do while at Houston. Which fouls are optimum? In other words, which fouls are the refs most likely to call and which fouls are they least likely to call. Even more subtle, which actions that are not really fouls draw fouls and which actions that are really fouls not draw foul calls?

…The results might show that statistically speaking the refs tend to call fouls (whether actual contact was made or not) where a defensive player makes an obvious swipe at the ball. Our hunter/carnivore past has blessed humans with a cerebral motor control areas and an occipital lobe designed to focus on motion - much like cats.

check out the whole piece.