...that I’m backing the Lakers. I can’t bring myself to back the Spurs. But, then, I will throw up all over my TV if I have to endure a Lakers-Celtics glory days revival for 2 weeks in the Finals. And I will simply punch it if I have to endure Spurs-Pistons again (Note: not true. I love my TV’s cold blue embrace).

It’s an agonizing situation. 4 teams, none of who I can really get behind. Go Mercury, anyone?

when i saw the score when i came home from my meeting… and i wasn’t even through the door yet

What can I say…I’m not going to take sides on this one. It will be interesting to watch from a basketball stand point. I really don’t know who will win…but if I have to pick one, I think the Spurs will be in the Finals again, they beat my Suns, and the Hornets. Both of these teams had everything needed to beat the Spurs…and came up short.
As for the Lakers, they beat a soft Denver team, and a Jazz team who can’t win on the road.

I long for the clory days when the Lakers were awful (1974-1979, 1993-1996)

something about the spur games being boring, plus they beat us, I want them out. As for the lakers, after Kobe, I actually like some of their players, it’s clearly a different team than the lakers teams from years ago that always beat us. This team has Gasol, Fischer, Odom, I like those players, its a shame Bynum is hurt, otherwise this series would be clearly over.

Maybe I’d feel worse about the Lakers this year with them beating us so badly during the season, but to me, this suns team needs changes, they need discipline, they need consistency, they need a leader. Nash was that leader but shouldn’t be anymore (sadly…but accurately). Amare is quick to turn on people, his pr staff (s), his coach, likely his other teammates….that’s not even close to a leader. Amare’s biggest weakness (skipping over lack of smart defense) has been his mental side, and I know his drive is great and all, not talking about that, when I say mental side…I mean his chemistry and relations with others. You can’t build a successful team around a selfish, dumb player…I don’t care how great he is offensively…..which disappeared there during big end games with the spurs. I say we rebuild. I say we try and trade multiple different players….I can’t even think of anyone that’d be off limits. Of course, Shaq will be too hard to trade, but all the others, Nash and Amare in particular, I think we could get that young franchise type player and start over while we still have pieces to trade with. But, with the way this suns management has sold,traded away so many draft picks, they clearly aren’t the thinkers that b.colangelo was for the suns.

Who’s out there that we could get for amare or nash….? If we’d kept marion and traded amare, i wonder how the team would’ve gotten along?

I’m still trying to figure out who I want to lose more in this series, since rooting for either team is out of the question. If you had me at gunpoint right now, which would be a silly thing to do over something so trivial, I’d probably want the Lakers to advance a little bit more, mostly because I can’t stand to see Horry and Bowen raise another title above their shoulders.

How about the referees? sigh…My son has been asking me this for a week as we’ve watched the Vampires Cockroaches Spurs stave off elimination. Over the weekend I came to the same conclusion Stan has posted—On pure basketball aesthetic I’ll take the Lakers, and then pull for whichever team from the East makes it. My hatred of the Lakers is second to none, but I can’t stomach the thought of another finals full of defensive highlights and 70-point games, and those 2 teams in the East don’t inspire me with hope that they’ll be lighting up the scoreboard against the Spurs. Plus, the less I hear of that whiny nasal announcer from San Antonio, the better.

has embraced the D’Antoni/Nellieball offense within the confines of the triangle, i.e emphasizing speed and passing over deliberate positioning.

He has a two guard who finally got his pubes this year, and alternates between channeling Michael Jordan and Steve Nash. Furthermore, he surrounded Kobe with a set of sympatico players even better suited to this system than the 2005 & 2006 Suns.

The reason Phil is being successful this year: more bigs than the Suns, better passing from all spots except the primary guard (Kobe is a decent passer, but Nash is top 5 all time in passing ability), clear alpha-dog type leadership and adult sidekicks, decent outside shooting, moderate team defense, better mobility in the middle, and the “if all else fails” ability to attack the basket from the best stunt basketball player in the world.

I hate to say it, but this is a good team.

If they had a different name, like Golden State, I’d root for them. But they’re the Lakers, and short of Steve Nash being in a Lakers uniform, I just can’t do it.

I thought he handled the down years with relative grace and aplomb. He developed players. He held the ship together.

However, I respect SA’s big three more than all the Fakers players combined. They are humble, hardworking, and with the exception of Timmy, they play at a discount.

But I hate the Spurs role players. Dirty.

I lean towards Lakers for the same reason PStan raised – better for viewing.

The newer fans (the ones who joined the suns in the nash era) should vote for the lakers and the older fans should vote for the spurs. Thats how I think it will work out for you guys.
Also I love how they revised the triangle to make it a fast break triangle now. I thought that was a smart move to adapt to the way the league is now. (I was all for it when we outscored you guys instead of trying to slow it down). Anyways enjoy the draft (even if neither of our teams are in it).

If the Lakers have Kobe, Fisher, Walton, Lamar and Pau Gasol on the floor at the same time, they have 5 decent passers on the floor at the same time, which is unique in the NBA.

Walton, in particular passes like a poor man’s Bird from the 3, even if he can’t shoot or rebound like Bird. Gasol passes like Walton’s dad from the post.

The Spurs are going to have their hands full, but the Lakers have no good answer for Parker and Manu (or Timmy for that matter).

As always, the key to stopping the Spurs is how you play Timmy. The Hornets threw a lot of doubles at him and that really didn’t work. To pull that off you have to work your ASS off to rotate and recover and that’s difficult to sustain for a full game if you are not used to playing that way.

One thing Mike D always did defensively that I liked was refusing to give in and double Timmy. I still think you have to play him 1:1 and just accept that he’s going to score a lot of points but if you can keep the Finley’s, Horry’s and Bowen’s from getting wide open three’s you can limit what the Spurs do. If you need to get a stop late in the game you can double the ball out of Timmy’s hands and hope that those other guys are cold.

Its really a shame Ariza can’t play. He would be perfect on Parker. As it is, like ldeep says, I don’t know how they are going to hope to stay with him. You have to either go under screens and hope his shot is off and/or collapse from the wings and stop the penetration early and try and force bad passes that give you time to recover.

Going in it looks like the fakers, but the Spurs are so deceptive.

Well it sure as hell is true that this match up is absolutely and totally a lose lose for Suns fans. Yet I have to agree that I’m going for the Lakers on this one. Yes I feel dirty even thinking of supporting the Lakers, but at least I will not have sullied my very soul by supporting the Spurs. For to support the dark evil that is the Spurs would be tantamount to high treason or the darkest sort of heresy.

In truth though all we have to truly hope for now is the East coming through for us and beating either the Spurs or Lakers.

After listening to Laker talk all day here (Prediction: Lakers in 5), and seeing Laker car-flags flying during my lunch hour, I’m now rooting for the evil empire. Or not. feh.