it's a good thing LA never continued pounding the ball inside to shaq. the series might still be going on if they had. don't make excuses for kobe, he should have been dishing it to shaq when he was in the paint [i]every[/i] time. detroit was guarding him 1 on 1 for practically the entire series! which is also a main reason for the huge free throw disparity. most fouls called on shaq come with the double team. so if you don't feed him the ball enough to cause detroit to start double teaming, he's never going to get to the free throw line. and kobe can flop around and whine and complain to the refs all he wants, but he's not going to get calls when he's only shooting jumpers. he rarely even got any dribble penetration going either (due to detroit's D). no inside out game, not enough touches for shaq, and [b]pitiful[/b] defense are the main reasons LA got their butts kicked. EDIT: injuries too. but i was talking about things they could have had some control over. EDIT: oh yeah, GO ROCKETS! [Edited on 6/16/2004 10:28:52 AM]