J.J. VERSUS THE MONSTERS

Is this what the end looks like, punked by J.J. Barea?  His stat line showed 12 points in 17 minutes but the effect was greater, he disrupted our squad like a windup toy on crystal meth.  $1,815,000 versus $91,645,878.  Does anybody know how much it pains me to have a picture of this jerk on my blog?  And I’m gonna have to look at it every day?   That’s just cruel.  I’ll take it down when the season ends and put up something else.  Like blue skies and fluffy clouds.

This unlikeliest of heros drove relentlessly through every defender, threw up those stupid little running floaters that I hate, made ugly faces and finally, in the waning seconds, drew a forearm from Artest that was well-deserved.  Annoying little twit.

The Lakers have one bullet left in the chamber.  Just one.  We will not advance via the triangle, the inside-out game, the half-court sets or any other principal that I’ve butchered all year long.  We only win through fury, by attacking relentlessly, by playing 48 minutes of defense.  Their crowd will be louder than our crowd was, believe it.  We'll need to play better in their gym than they played in ours.  And we’ll probably need Kobe to go into hero-mode sometime around the first-minute mark.

I was watching a TV expert recently, predicting our summer roster moves.  This of course being before the series against Dallas began.  And, it was the easiest analysis in the world, yeah, they’ll keep all the major parts and make a few smart moves here and there.  That was when everybody was still predicting a championship.  If we lose in the second round, it all goes out the window.  Remember what happened after we lost to Detroit?  It wasn’t pretty.  Don’t piss off an old billionaire who likes to gamble.

When it comes down to it, we probably punted the season when we got rid of Sasha. Yup, I said it.  On a primal level, I’m fine with Artest's head-hunting.  Still, the suspension hurts - we can scarcely afford to lose our starting wing-man.  Sasha though?  Different story.  He would have gotten in Barea’s face, would have drawn cheap fouls and would have been grooming his eyebrows at the charity stripe.  Plus, he’s the Machine.

We’ve got a couple days to stew about this and listen to the pundits predict our demise.  Maybe it’ll light a bonfire or two.  I haven't heard whether the villagers have gathered with their pitchforks yet, they may simply be too stunned.  Personally, I’ll accept whatever fate awaits, as long as we leave all our monster-blood on the floor.

EVERYBODY KNOWS

I had every intention of writing something before the first round ended and certainly before the second one began.  I ruminated about Kobe’s thunder-dunk against New Orleans, the surprising end of the Spurs’ season and the Grizzlies’ continuing success in the first game against OKC.  And then the news of bin Laden, thoughts of writing derailed as images washed and words were said and people gathered in the streets.  Our world is shape-shifting ever faster and I can’t find the gray-scale anymore.

Monday night, the first game in the Bulls/Hawks series and nothing surprises now.  Atlanta won in Chicago against the league’s best record.  To make matters worse, Derrick Rose rolled an ankle in the last second of  a game that was out of reach.  The basketball universe was continuing out of alignment, the night was cold and drizzling and order needed to be restored.

Late in the 2^nd quarter of the L.A./Dallas opener, things started getting a little chippy and the Lakers made a nice run, capped off with Odom's heave from 3/4 court and he’s fouled and it’s actually called.  These circus shots are usually closer to half-time entertainment than an actual game but it made me laugh out loud - free throws followed by a technical against Dirk and Mark Cuban was close to stroking out in the stands.

The 3^rd period continued in promising fashion, Kobe finding his mark from outside and the building of a 16-point lead.  I’d started playing around with a post, imagining something about the transcendent roar of victory.  My last couple of pieces had spoken of finality and age and I didn’t want to write about the end anymore.

And then it started going away.  Like it does sometimes.  Hello darkness, my old friend.  I turned off the TV after the loss, wiped away the page I’d been working on and went to bed.

This is who the Lakers are at this point of their storied history - brilliance coupled with a defiant abandonment of principals. The spacing and inside game works, everybody knows. The sly misdirection of Pau and Bynum’s two-man game was beautiful until forgotten.  I don't want to foist the loss off on jacked-up jumpers.  It’s Kobe’s brilliance, his ability to so instantly morph that causes fits for the opposition.  And yet he’s too good for his own good sometimes. 

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded, everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.

This team tends to reset in unpredictable ways.  There’s trends in the league and there’s the Lakers.  And when it comes down to it, nobody knows.  Their switch is more like attention deficit disorder.  They can knock you out and they can be distracted by the kiss-cam overhead.   My best guess is that they’ll bomb through a lot more peaks and valleys and probably win it all before the seals blow out completely but who knows.

It’s easy to use wordplay to dismiss a team or a challenge. The simple truth?  Dallas is an experienced team with quality players and a quality coach.  They had the same number of wins as we had and they’ve got more size than most people realize. Chucking our game plan out the window is not the most obvious recipe for success.  

Once again, it's much too late.  This piece has been worried at like a bone, has come periously close to finding the dumper, like others before it.   The next game looms and if there's been a stranger season in recent history, I  don't remember it.