On the night my intramural team advanced to the second round of the playoffs, the National Basketball Association's playoff picture has fallen into place. And our beloved Denver Nuggets will be facing the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round.
This is bad news in my opinion; I would have much preferred to face the younger, less dominant New Orleans Hornets. However, you don't really get to complain when you squeak into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed.
As opposed to a full-blown preview right now, I prefer to focus on what I've seen from the Lakers lately, which is somewhat scary. Their biggest achievement, of course, is that they captured the Western Conference's No. 1 seed. I'm tempted not to read too much into this; after all, their 57-25 record is only seven games better than the Nuggets'.
More impressively, they've outscored opponents by 7.3 points per game (best in the West, third overall), and have the No. 4 scoring offense in the NBA (the Nuggets are No. 2).
But the weirdest thing about this Lakers team is how well Kobe fits in on it. From what I've seen, which admittedly isn't the whole season or anything, the Lakers are now the team of Kobe's dreams: built around his offense. But it works. In a recent game against the Clippers, a game the Lakers dominated but one in which he didn't shoot well, his teammates seemed to defer to him in just the right amount. Also, he didn't force crazy shots the way he has in the past.
That may not sound like much, but I think Kobe's selfishness has been the biggest thing holding him back in his career. Now he can just let his talent shine. I may be reading too much into what I saw that night, but this Lakers team seems to work hard and play well together. Good for them, because I don't really fear guys like Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom.
I've been hard on Kobe in the past, and I still think he was unconscionably self-centered at times in the past. But he also played incredibly well on championship teams at a very young age. And he has many of the attributes of the league's all-time legends, like an insatiable work ethic and a constant drive to get better. (That's huge, by the way: in my mind, it's one of the things that separates the Elways of the world from the Marinos.) Now the question is, can the Nuggets' twin stars divert his attention and make him revert to one-on-one battle mode? We'll find out starting this weekend.
Comments
I do think they can beat the Lakers, and the team seems to be committed to trying to win a championship. I went to the game last night and just before tipoff Marcus Camby took one of the mics and addressed the whole crowd. He said on behalf of the team he just wanted to thank everyone for their support and let us all know that they are going to work hard to bring a championship to Denver. It was pretty cool, kind of had a high school pep rally feel to it.