Two things though. As was mentioned in a comment above, the Celtics’ SRS was not 7.44 but 9.31, the fourth highest mark since the early 1970s when the Lakers were posting marks in the 11s. I think what hurts the perception of their dominance is their early playoff struggles, having to go the distance with a bad Atlanta team and a mediocre Cleveland even if they had Lebron. The thing was though, the team that struggled in the first two rounds was not the team that had dominated in the regular season. When the playoffs started, Doc River, inexplicably or not, changed his rotation and played Sam Cassell as the primary backup point over House. You might say that a single backup point shouldn’t make that much of a difference and we’re talking about Eddie House and some bad teams here but Cassell took up so many possessions by shooting and missing so much that his influence was significant. When the regular rotation was restored, the Celtics went back to looking like themselves. Another thing was the playoff inexperience of Rondo and Perkins, especially Rondo, in the playoffs. He really struggled in road playoffs games but dazzled at home. Having a young player who had never been in the playoffs before controlling the point is a little dicey.

Another thing but this time about the Lakers is that as dominant and great as Kobe has been, he has struggled mightily in the Finals, including even last year against Orlando when he shot 30 percent for like 2 1/2 games but wasn’t blamed for it because Gasol, Odom and Ariza shooting lights out kept them afloat. As great as those Lakers team were, I’m not sure they would have played to the peak against great competition in the finals.

99-00 finals for shaq: 38.0 points, 16.7 rebounds and 2.67 for shaq

00-01 finals for shaq: 33.0 points, 15.6 rebounds and 3.40 block