I don’t usually do this. Predict a game. I just have a stronger hunch than usual about this one. The Lakers didn’t come all this way to lose home court five games into the conference finals. They aren’t going to be eliminated in Denver on Friday. Just aren’t. So they will win tonight, and the […]

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Interesting reader “poll” on the espn.com home page. Which only reinforces how many of us are most impressed by what we have seen most recently. It asks readers to vote on “which is the best team right now in the NBA conference finals?” A week ago, I’d guess that this vote would have come in […]

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Sure, the Lakers would have liked to end this in five games. But Denver rolled through the first two rounds, hadn’t lost a home game since March and won Game 2 in L.A. Had to expect the Nuggets would win one of these two in Denver. So, the Lakers, 2-2 in this series and looking […]

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It’s been a bit more than 24 hours since LeBron James made the three-pointer at the buzzer to beat the Orlando Magic and, without making any effort to search it out, I figure I have seen tape of the that final one second, oh, 200 times. By now, you are excused for considering it the […]

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Game 2 final: Nuggets 106, Lakers 103. That’s a game apiece, with Nuggets having taken home-court advantage from the Lakers. That’s bad enough news for the Lakers. It gets worse. The Nuggets played the Lakers almost dead even in two games in Los Angeles. Thus, it appears quite likely the Nuggets can win another game […]

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Wow. Tough game. Rough game. Up-and-down the floor, lots of contact, bodies flying, a scrambling, awkward, bump-and-run, busted-play, improvisational scrum of a game. That is, the sort of game the Los Angeles Lakers have not been likely to win since, oh, Magic Johnson. Yet they won it, and it was a huge victory. Lakers 105, […]

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This LeBron-Kobe story on espn.com is interesting enough, and was written in a way that is appropriate for generic sports/basketball fans. Jerry West, The Logo, the greatest Laker of them all, the Hall-of-Famer, coach and front-office architect of the Showtime Lakers as well as the Shaq-Kobe Lakers, was quoted as saying he believes LeBron James […]

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What a weird series. One team was clearly better in all seven games. Massively better, six games out of seven. Asked what he learned from the Lakers’ series with the Rockets, Kobe Bryant said, “That we’re bipolar.” He wasn’t kidding. In only one game was the margin of victory fewer than 12 points. In only […]

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Lakers are up 51-31 at the half, and it’s not because of Kobe Bryant, who was 2-for-8 for eight points in the half. It’s not because they’re going crazy from the three-point line. It’s because they finally are taking advantage of their enormous height advantage over the Rockets. The Rockets start no one taller than […]

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Reminding you of that Houston Rockets statistic. In every game of the Rockets’ playoffs run, and they have played 12 so far … when they have led after a quarter, they have won. When trailing after a quarter, they have lost. First-quarter score from Staples Center: Lakers 22, Rockets 12.

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