Coaches do some nit-picking
BOSTON -- Lakers Coach Phil Jackson is not particularly fond of the late starts of the NBA Finals on the East Coast.
Boston Celtics Coach Doc Rivers is not particularly a fan of the 2-3-2 format.
The NBA is going to start to think these coaches are a couple of complainers.
With the series now shifting to Los Angeles for the next two games, three, if necessary, Rivers said the format only used in the Finals takes away from the team with home-court advantage.
In other words . . . his Celtics.
“From afar, what I’ve never liked about two-three-two is you fight all year to have Game 7 at home and Game 5 at home,” Rivers said. “Game 5 is taken away from you in this format. We’ve had three huge Game 5’s in the first three rounds.
“All of them have been at home. So that part of it changed.
“But home court is important every game. It doesn’t matter if it’s Game 1 or Game 2. All your home-court games are vital and key, so it doesn’t change the urgency in that way.”
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Davis mesmerized
Celtics rookie forward Glen Davis admits he wants to play in a game in which Kobe Bryant is at his best.
“I just want to see it,” Davis said before Game 2.
Davis, who still hasn’t played in the series, said that type of electric atmosphere would be comparable to when teammate Paul Pierce and the Cleveland Cavaliers’ LeBron James both topped 40 points in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Boston won that game, 97-92, to advance.
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Gino solved
The search for “Gino” has arrived at an unfortunate conclusion.
The Celtics’ many victories here this season have been reined in by a playing of a 1970s “American Bandstand” video on the jumbotron as the crowd’s victory cigar.
Its centerpiece is a young man grooving in a tight “Gino” T-shirt.
For a while, no one knew the true identity of “Gino” and the Boston Globe even initiated a “Finding Gino” search.
According to the Wall Street Journal last week, “Gino” was actually Joe Massoni, whose family owned a restaurant in Rialto.
Massoni died 18 years ago of pneumonia at 34, the report said.
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