Point 1: Peja played. Phil might have used him differently, played him more or less minutes, encouraged him to shoot to find his shot, or. . .


Point 2: Phil's zen session the morning of the game obviously calmed the Lakers (in fact, he said most of them fell asleep) so that they were relaxed at the free throw line. The Kings gripped and dribbled the ball while setting up to shoot at the line as if it were the crown jewels recently boiled so as to be painfully hot to the touch.


Seeing the Lakers shoot free throws so well also obviously causes the opponent to shoot poorly. Look what happpened to the Nets last night.


Point 3) Of course the Kings would have played entirely differently with Phil. Would Phil have not instructed Vlade on what to do when he came back in the game with 4 fouls? Adelman allowed Vlade to get his 5th foul on, for goodness sake, the in-bounds play after 0.0004 seconds.


And I didn't hear Adleman say, "I want you and you and you and you to run the f**k back." Now that's coaching. Triangle that.


Most importantly, Adelman would have made sure everyone knew what to do at the end of game 4. No way Horry would have been standing around 25 feet from the action combing his hair when Vlade tips the ball away. Case closed: with Phil, the Kings win that game and win the Series 4 games to 1.


Overrated? I don't know, 9 (soon to be) Championships makes a powerful anti-case. Casey Stengel was widely regarded as a clown and a loser when he became the Yankees manager. He won 10 pennants and 7 world series in 12 years. Similar situation with Joe Torre when he took over the Yankees. Stengel and Torre clearly outmanaged their opponents in the World Series. As coaching in basketball is clearly more important than managing in baseball, ins't it possible that Phil (my tongue-in-cheek analysis above notwithstanding) does make a difference?