Man that is a great word, kind of sounds like manure. By the way musnt is excellent with crow and ketchup. Wow manuer, musnt, what are we starting a new vocabulary here? Great words actually. I have always loved “waffle”. It sounds fine on it’s own as in “did you drop a waffle”, but said in rapid succession like “waffle, waffle, waffle, waffle” it is just ridiculous. Kind of like describing a penguin walking.

Am I rambling here, sorry…..

By the way nice thread, I like your style (writing that is)

Lakers in 5.

Manu is going to dunk on the entire Lakers team again.

C’mon Matt have some heart!

Also, your reverse psychology will not work on the Lakers. They will be taking the Spurs very, very seriously, even if Lakers fans like me do not.

Ok, I take the Spurs seriously, but I hope that the Jazz was the toughest opponent they face these playoffs.

As Spurs fans, aren’t you concerned about the Spurs’ performance on the road against the Hornets (except for Game 7, of course)? The Lakers played the toughest regular season road team, took one overtime loss there, and squeaked out a win.

I do agree the spurs didn’t have there best game, and tony parker has the best chance of taking advantage of the lakers defense. I just hope manu keeps spinning and blowing layups like the last game I saw him in.

This post illustrates how awesome this blog is. Regardless of the series’ outcome, I’m going to be entertained.

powell is way too enamored with the lakers. i think the NOOCH was a better team all around, but the kobe factor will always give them a chance no matter who they play.

NOOCH actually matched up about the same, with Fisher/Radmonivic staying on the 3 pt. line to drain 3’s (Peja, Peterson), a good inside PF presence (Gasol/West), and an athletic defender in the middle who’s offense is putbacks/rebounding/occasional passes inside (Odom/Chandler). The only difference is that when Kobe gets the ball, everyone tries to make him a passer…when Paul gets the ball, everyone tries to make him a scorer. shrugs

It is funny that Radmanovic starts on the Lakers. If he were on the Spurs he would be wearing a suit. How is he any better than Matt Bonner?

Wow. Lots of thoughtful analysis. Wish I could do that.

Whatever. I’m going to take a page out of Colbert’s Bible and opine from my gut: Spurs in 6.

God says: “Don’t knock the juju!”

Actually, lost in all the “OMG Lakers Lakers Lakers” love-fest at ESPN, etc. is that the Spurs haven’t lost a home game in the Playoffs either. (I think it’s 12-0 now, dating from last year too).... Last game they lost was Game 1 in Round 1 to the Nuggets last year, and everyone knows the Spurs always ALWAYS take Game 1 in Round 1 as a gimme/no biggie….which is why when they came back vs. the Suns this year, everyone-esp. us at PtR-were like “Whoa OMG!? YAY!!”

So if they win 1 in LA, say 1 of the first 2? They just have to win thier home games. That’s it. So that said, Spurs in 6.

For the “Road team” to win a playoff series, they need to win just 1 game at the others’ floor, and take care of business at thier end. For the “Home team” to win, they just need to win on thier floor. That seems to be the winning philosophy of Boston, in any case(since they are the opposite of everyone left, and haven’t won a road game yet.)

I will promise you all one thing. By tomorrow around 9:00 PM Pacific, the tone around here will be alot different, regardless of who wins. It will be nice to have something tangible to discuss instead of all of this abstract prediction crap.

By the way I will be at Staples tomorrow. I will be in upper level 11 th row, about 5 from the top. I will wave, maybe you can see me. LOL.

I just want to take this opportunity to give a shout out to our girls this evening. They too beat Phoenix.

http://sports.espn.go.com/wnba/recap?gameId=280520017

The disparity between Parker and Fisher is HUGE. Fish couldn’t guard Parker four years ago, to the point that PJax had to resort to a “hope” defense, as in “let’s put all five guys in the paint and hope they don’t make any shots.” He was right, then, as Turkoglu, Horry, and Bowen went into the tank, and Ginobili wasn’t the shooter he is today. Plus, those Spurs didn’t have Finley or Barry or Udoka as options.

Now? Parker can shoot it a little, sometimes. He’s better, and Fisher is worse. I still expect Big Chief Triangle to try to clog the lane and make the Spurs prove they can shoot from the outside. Can they? If they do, they win, if not, they lose. To me that’s what this series will come down to.

Regarding Lamar Odom, he reminds me a lot of Shawn Marion. He’s not a go-to guy, but he gets a lot of loose balls and “garbage” buckets. If that comparison is valid, the Lakers are in trouble, because the Spurs would render Marion totally invisible.

I find the argument as to whether the Jazz or the Hornets are better to be kind of bizarre. Who cares? They are obviously pretty close to one another as their regular season records were almost identical. They don’t get to play each other to determine 3rd place in the Western Conference, and I don’t think that the relative difficulty of the previous series will be at all determinative in this series. Different teams match up better or worse against other teams. All that matters is how the Spurs and Lakers match up. And like pslakerfan points out, we’ll see that tomorrow night.

That said, Spurs in 6 :-) If it gets to a game 7, the Spurs would have to play lights out to overcome the zebras on the Lakers’ home floor.

I think that’s a valid comparison, although I think Odom is better at help defense, and is a better passer and ball handler. I don’t really trust either one’s outside jump shot.

I agree with pslakersfan, I want some stuff ammo to gloat about or some stuff to make excuses for.

Man I am so not a gloater, but it is going to be really tough if we win this…..

I feel ya. It’s going to be an “upset” if the Lakers win (Matt’s strikethrough post notwithstanding).

Spurs fans – what is your concern about the Spurs’ crunch-time free throw shooting percentage on a scale of 1 to10, 1 being “It doesn’t matter” to 10 being “I think it will lose the series”?

Manu seems to miss a lot of technical freethrows but he makes them when guys are lined up.

He needs an audience :p

If the Spurs win game 2, I don’t want to hear and “where is pslakerfan now” comments. I will be at the game and I live 2.5 hours from LA so I won’t be home until late, but rest assured I will be back win or lose.

ESPN NBA fastbreak with Jamal Mashburn. Mash said the key to the series was that the Spurs had absolutely no one to deal with Lamar Odom. Vindication!!! Not that I care what Mashburn thinks, but I feel better already.

Aye, and tell us how the crowd is, etc…I’ve heard the one knock on the arenas in that area are all the celebs that get tickets to go and “be seen” and don’t really get into the games, get the Lakers hyped…I’ve seen some Laker games this year on TV where even the announcers were like “man you can hear a pin drop in this place” and that was after they got Gasol and were winning something like 10 + straight…. That also seemed to happen to the Warriors….a bunch of thier fans were saying that most of the time last year you see thier arena like you saw in the 1st round vs. Dallas…so loud it’d drown out your daughter’s stereo type loud, but this year a lot of “wanting to be seen” people (celebs, etc) started showing up, and the place started to become “the Staples Center v.2”.

If anything the Barry trade had NO BEARING on the Gasol trade for comparison. The only reason there was scrutiny regarding the Barry trade is because of Jerry Stackhouse’s fat mouth. Otherwise you would have seen the Kidd trade go down a LOT sooner, the Mav’s would not have eaten an additional 11-20 million in salary, and Stackhouse would have been waived 30 days later and back with the Mavs…so it would have essentially been a straight up trade with Kidd and thier other guy for Harris and the Ghost of Keith Van Horn.

That kinda talk is reserved for Mavs/Spurs fans, not Laker/Spurs fans :)