Welcome To The 1980's

Well the Finals are set. Boston vs. L.A. Sometimes I wonder if we will ever see a non-L.A. or S.A. champion. Other than a Miami and Detroit oddball set of winners, all we've seen in the past 20 years has been Lakers, Spurs, Rockets and Bulls winning it all and its just DAMN depressing. Perhaps this is why the NFL is the most popular sport in our country. Anyone can win it all on any given year (with or without cheating). All my complaining aside, I will watch this series with great interest. Paul Pierce vs. Kobe, Pau vs. KG, great bench vs. great bench. It's a good match up of the best basketball talent in all of the world. Most in the U.S. would argue that the NCAA Final Four is the epitome of basketball. I argue that if you want basketball talent, you watch the NBA. If you want basketball hustle, college is the way to go. It is interesting though that the basketball offering more hustle does play a third less games than the other.

Enough blabbering, I need to make some predictions. In the regular season, Boston dominated the Lakers twice by an average margin of victory at 15 points. Throw that stat out the window immediately as Pau Gasol happened to be playing in Memphis while those 2 games took place. Another thing I want to touch on is that I constantly hear that if Kobe wins this title, he will have done it by himself. Or that L.A. is the favorite in this series. This could not be farther from the truth. Pau Gasol is easily one of the top 5 big men in the league as seen from his performance against Tim Duncan. Not only can he score in many different ways, but he passes even better than Shaq did in his prime. Throw in Lamar Odom, one of the most versatile players in the league and 3 spot up dead eye three ball shooters (Rad, Sash, Farmar) and Kobe clearly has more help than any of those champion Jordan Bulls teams. I did predict the Pistons to win it all over the Lakers, but I did not foresee Rip hurting an elbow, and Billups pulling a disappearing act. Defense wins championships, and Boston brings it like a 1980's LT Giants squad. GO CELTS!

Boston in 6