And no, that's not a Charlie Murphy reference.
You always knew it would end up this way - it just had to. With all the talk about the Jazz giving the Lakers a hard series. With all the mumbo jumbo about homecourt advantage in the playoffs. With all the hype about Chris Paul and the Hornets being the future of the league.
In the end, you knew it would have to come down to the Lakers vs Spurs. It's the equivalent of basketball destiny at its' best. The road to the NBA Finals leads through the defending champ - could it really have happened any other way?
And so, here we go again, Laker fans.
Let's break it down...
Point Guard - Derek Fisher vs Tony Parker
As much as I adore D-Fish, I have to give the edge to Parker. That being said, there definitely are games where Fish will go on a hot streak and give the team a huge lift but in the average game, he's going to have a very tough time defending Parker. And without Bynum in the back as a stopper, I look for a lot of drive and dish in the Lakers' immediate future. However, seeing how rattled got at a picture of his wife, maybe the Lakers can line up every man she's ever nailed in the front row behind the Spurs bench during home games. It's all about the in-game strategy, baby.
EDGE: SPURS
Shooting Guard - Kobe Bryant vs Manu Ginobli
Let's call a spade a spade and admit that Manu is the real starting SG for the Spurs and not Michael Finlay - although Finlay is a tough opponent as well. Manu's the master of the wild driving, weaving, throw something at the glass, crash to the floor and cry about a foul move. Kobe is... well, he's Kobe. He's the best player in the game, period.
EDGE: LAKERS
Small Forward - Vladimir Radmonovic vs Bruce Bowen
This one is a bit of a tossup. Vlad-Rad is a better offensive player than Bowen but he's still prone to the type of mental mistakes that made Phil Jackson label him a "space cadet." He can have a big impact on a game - or he can simply disappear. You just never know which Vlad will show up. Bruce Bowen won't add much on the offensive end for the Spurs but he's one of the few players in the league not afraid to play one-on-one defense against Kobe and be effective at it. That skill alone gives the Spurs the edge here.
EDGE: SPURS
Power Forward - Lamar Odom vs Tim Duncan
A month ago, I would have said this was a slam dunk category for the Spurs but Lamar has played a masterful game in these playoffs. Being slotted into the third option for scoring as helped worlds with his defense, his rebounding, and his hustle. He does a lot of the little things that don't show up on the stat sheet. Tim Duncan is... well, he's Tim Duncan. He's one of the best players in the league. As good as Odom has been, I have to give the edge to Duncan and the Spurs.
EDGE: SPURS
Center - Pau Gasol vs Fabricio Oberto
This is an easy win for the Lakers. Of course, if you're a pessimist, you look at how Bynum's injury affects this entire series. Bynum would still take this category against Oberto, Pau sliding down into the PF spot gives Duncan more trouble defensively and makes that a closer matchup, Lamar sliding into the SF spot against Bowen gives an easy win to the Lakers in that matchup. Instead of a 3-2 edge for the Spurs in the starting lineup, you have a 4-1 Laker lead. Ahhh, but it's not to be... this year at least.
EDGE: LAKERS
Bench
The sign of great Laker teams has always been a really strong bench. Whether it was the Showtime days with Byron and AC or the Shaq/Kobe Lakers with Horry and B-Shaw, when the bench was deep, the team was successful. This year is no different with the bench performing extremely well most of the year and giving the feeling that it's not so bad when Kobe goes to the bench to rest [briefly.] So, while the Lakers' bench is thriving with Walton, Farmar, Sasha, and Ronny among others - the Spurs' bench is pretty much limited to Finley and an aging [but always dangerous] Robert Horry.
EDGE: LAKERS
Coach - Phil Jackson vs Gregg Popovich
Pop is a tough, good coach - but he's no Zenmaster. Phil will have the team coached, prepared, and ready to rock for this series. It's going to be a tough series and in a tough series, I'd rather have Phil Jackson using his brain to get us an edge than Popovich.
EDGE: LAKERS
So, to wrap it up...
Lakers have an edge in Coaching, Bench, Center, and Shooting Guard.
Spure have an edge in Power Forward, Small Forward, and Point Guard.
Lakers with a 5-3 lead... but I expect this series will be even tighter than that.
My prediction?
Lakers in 6, winning on the road to close it out again.
Showing posts with label Playoffs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Playoffs. Show all posts
2008-05-20
2008-04-22
OHHHH LAKER FANS!
Game One was an amazing afternoon at Staples. We got downtown early as we haven't been to a game in a year or two and wanted some time to check out the Team LA store and just enjoy the day.
The downtown area is rapidly changing with new buildings being put up [our old parking lot was gone!] and old buildings being renovated to look damn spiffy. They still have a long way to go to get the area to a place where your average person would be cool walking down the street when there's not a game going on but... it's progress.
Staples looked awesome with purple and gold balloons by the entrance way. People were gathering around the Magic Johnson statue to take photos before the game including yours truly. After making our way inside, we stopped at the Team LA Store to check out the latest merch... along with every other member of Laker Nation it seemed. The place was PACKED to the roof with Laker fans already decked out in Laker gear looking to scoop up more. I saw a few things that I wanted but they were sold out in my size. The Missus did pick up a new Laker shirt though.
We made our way towards the escalators to get up to our seats. Upstairs, they had decorated the pillars along the walkway so I stopped to get a word of advice from the Zenmaster. Or maybe I was giving him some sound advice on taking advantage of the Nuggets' porous defense? You will never know!
We made our way through the concourse where they were offering free purple and gold hair dye and facepaint to anyone interested - a table that was JAMMED by the way. I chose not to partake as I had a funeral to attend yesterday and couldn't afford to have purple and gold hair dye not come out... yeah, that's why... not because I'm not a face painter. Let's go with that.
Inside the arena, the place was looking awesome. As mentioned previously, our seats were
literally in the last row of the building right next to the retired jerseys and the banners. But Staples was designed to go up and not out so really, I've never had a bad seat for a game there. For $12 a seat, this was a perfect seat for me. The place slowly filled through the morning as the Lakers ran various hype videos on the big screen. One thing to note that I love about Staples is the out-of-town scoreboard also shows scores from other sports so I could keep an eye on the Dodger game during timeouts and the like. The Dodgers should take a cue on their boards because there are a ton of Laker fans in LA who would like to be able to keep an eye on the team during the Dodger games.
Couple shots from shootaround...
You already know most of my in-game thoughts from the Live Blog. Pau was amazing, Kobe did his part but for me, the real MVP of that game was Lamar Odom. He was absolutely everywhere in that game. He was dishing assists, he was scoring for himself, he was pulling down boards, he was playing D, he was hustling for loose balls. The team looked great for most of the game except for a few stints where they got sloppy.
The big controversy of the night I guess was the "DUI" chant. For the record, I didn't participate in it but I found it slightly amusing. The first time it happened, I thought it was funny. The other times? It got less and less amusing. By the end, I felt pretty bad for him though. Laker fans hated it when Kobe drew chants like that during his legal trouble so I would think they would feel some empathy for another player getting heat for his off-the-court actions. And if that's not enough, personally I wouldn't want to piss Carmelo off since he's perfectly capable of dropping a big game on us if he gets motivated. There's already talk on the Laker boards that the Nuggets fans are considering a chant in reply to point out Kobe's past problem... something that I think will end very badly for them but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Most of the in-game photos aren't worth posting since they're from so far away but I did catch some nice videos that I might put up later. They're big files so I don't feel like waiting right now.
After the game, we made our way out to Chick Hearn Drive where the post-game showing of Lakers Live was taking place with a ton of screaming Laker fans. We joined in, possibly getting on camera a couple of times as the camera panned the crowd. James Worthy came out on the outside deck above the crowd and waved a few times to a big cheer. And after a few more photos, we called it a day.
Big first win for the Lakers. Fifteen more to go, Laker fans!
The downtown area is rapidly changing with new buildings being put up [our old parking lot was gone!] and old buildings being renovated to look damn spiffy. They still have a long way to go to get the area to a place where your average person would be cool walking down the street when there's not a game going on but... it's progress.
Staples looked awesome with purple and gold balloons by the entrance way. People were gathering around the Magic Johnson statue to take photos before the game including yours truly. After making our way inside, we stopped at the Team LA Store to check out the latest merch... along with every other member of Laker Nation it seemed. The place was PACKED to the roof with Laker fans already decked out in Laker gear looking to scoop up more. I saw a few things that I wanted but they were sold out in my size. The Missus did pick up a new Laker shirt though.
We made our way towards the escalators to get up to our seats. Upstairs, they had decorated the pillars along the walkway so I stopped to get a word of advice from the Zenmaster. Or maybe I was giving him some sound advice on taking advantage of the Nuggets' porous defense? You will never know!We made our way through the concourse where they were offering free purple and gold hair dye and facepaint to anyone interested - a table that was JAMMED by the way. I chose not to partake as I had a funeral to attend yesterday and couldn't afford to have purple and gold hair dye not come out... yeah, that's why... not because I'm not a face painter. Let's go with that.
Inside the arena, the place was looking awesome. As mentioned previously, our seats were
literally in the last row of the building right next to the retired jerseys and the banners. But Staples was designed to go up and not out so really, I've never had a bad seat for a game there. For $12 a seat, this was a perfect seat for me. The place slowly filled through the morning as the Lakers ran various hype videos on the big screen. One thing to note that I love about Staples is the out-of-town scoreboard also shows scores from other sports so I could keep an eye on the Dodger game during timeouts and the like. The Dodgers should take a cue on their boards because there are a ton of Laker fans in LA who would like to be able to keep an eye on the team during the Dodger games.Couple shots from shootaround...
You already know most of my in-game thoughts from the Live Blog. Pau was amazing, Kobe did his part but for me, the real MVP of that game was Lamar Odom. He was absolutely everywhere in that game. He was dishing assists, he was scoring for himself, he was pulling down boards, he was playing D, he was hustling for loose balls. The team looked great for most of the game except for a few stints where they got sloppy.
The big controversy of the night I guess was the "DUI" chant. For the record, I didn't participate in it but I found it slightly amusing. The first time it happened, I thought it was funny. The other times? It got less and less amusing. By the end, I felt pretty bad for him though. Laker fans hated it when Kobe drew chants like that during his legal trouble so I would think they would feel some empathy for another player getting heat for his off-the-court actions. And if that's not enough, personally I wouldn't want to piss Carmelo off since he's perfectly capable of dropping a big game on us if he gets motivated. There's already talk on the Laker boards that the Nuggets fans are considering a chant in reply to point out Kobe's past problem... something that I think will end very badly for them but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Most of the in-game photos aren't worth posting since they're from so far away but I did catch some nice videos that I might put up later. They're big files so I don't feel like waiting right now.
After the game, we made our way out to Chick Hearn Drive where the post-game showing of Lakers Live was taking place with a ton of screaming Laker fans. We joined in, possibly getting on camera a couple of times as the camera panned the crowd. James Worthy came out on the outside deck above the crowd and waved a few times to a big cheer. And after a few more photos, we called it a day.Big first win for the Lakers. Fifteen more to go, Laker fans!
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