Letdown of an ending

The Los Angeles Lakers narrowly escaped with a victory over the San Antonio Spurs in Game Four of the Western Conference Finals tonight, and by "narrowly escaped" I mean that they did everything they could think of to blow the game.

I tuned in during the fourth quarter, a period in which L.A. had semi-sizeable leads (seven to nine points), but couldn't make them stick.

The Lakers took a final seven-point lead with just under a minute remaining, but Manu Ginobili hit a three, Kobe Bryant forced a shot (believe it or not), and then Tim Duncan found Tony Parker downcourt for a breakaway lay-up, or technically a breakaway goaltending call on Lamar Odom. Anyway, the Lakers missed a couple of shots on their next trip but wisely used up most of the shotclock, leaving the Spurs down two with about two seconds left.

Brent Barry caught the ball, then took a long and lame three-point attempt to lose the game. Afterwards he lifted his hands up in shock that the foul wasn't called and for a second, I could understand why people say the Spurs are babies.

Except Barry was completely right. He had caught the ball and pump-faked, drawing Derek Fisher off his feet. Fisher came back down on Barry's shoulder, and Barry fired up the long shot in hopes of earning some free throw attempts.

Some people say refs should swallow their whistles at the end of a game and let players decide the outcome. These people are frigtards. Fisher's landing wasn't incidental contact (no way Barry could have taken a normal shot with that going on). Even if you believe in ignoring contact like that normally (and again, why would you?), letting a defender foul like that with so little time left clearly gives the defense a nigh-insurmountable advantage. It's really dumb that Fisher got away with it. (Yeah, I know, I missed it the first time too, but I was nine hundred miles away.)

I don't know that the Spurs can really complain, though. Well, sure, they can complain all they want. But if they can't defend their championship, they should at least be able to defend their home court. The game was disappointing because the Spurs' comeback was very impressive right up until the end. They weren't really getting a majority of the bounces or calls or anything; they just kept playing solid D and getting just enough opportunistic baskets to keep it interesting.

Hopefully the Spurs can turn things around on the road, but their previous road performances this playoffs don't leave much room for that hope. I still have some, though it's fading. And as a Nuggets fan, of course I still hate the Lakers for now, but does anyone out there really want to see Kobe win the title and get some measure of vindication for chasing Shaq out of town? (I call it just a measure, though I don't expect ESPN to.)

If you're short on Kobe-hatred, you should do what I did this morning and read the SI.com piece about how much he likes to win. While it's billed as an eye-opener as to how much this particular star athlete enjoys victory, the article merely reminded me how annoying the man is in the first place. Wow, Kobe likes to win how much? (So much!) that in high school he once chased a teammate into the hallway to yell at him for missing a shot in a drill. What leadership! What competitive drive! What an egomaniacal buffoon?