 |
 |
 |
|
SAN ANTONIO -- So they're going to play the rest of these Western Conference finals. NBA commissioner David Stern is uptight like that. Almost anal, when you get right down to it.
They're going to play the rest of these Western Conference finals, but after the Lakers' 93-91 victory on Tuesday night for a 3-1 series lead, you know darn well this thing is over. Even you Spurs fans. You know it, and you know you know it.
|
|
| The Spurs get to steppin' after this loss. Catching up in this series will be quite a task. (Getty Images) |
This thing is over, and certainly there's a better usage of jet fuel than the hundreds of gallons it will take to get the Spurs from Texas to California. Millions of Molotov cocktails would be more efficient, but don't give one to the Spurs' Brent Barry. He might throw it at the officials for not calling the most blatant foul of Game 4 -- and Game 4 had 45 fouls.
OK, it had 46. But officials didn't call the Lakers' Derek Fisher for that 46th foul after he jumped into Barry with less than two seconds left and Barry -- who had made five 3-pointers already -- preparing to shoot the potential game-winning 3. This wasn't an example of an offensive player creating contact and the officials being smart enough to ignore it. Fisher jumped into Barry, and three officials were dumb enough to miss it.
Even Lakers coach Phil Jackson -- who is earning all kinds of points with me for his brutal honesty this series -- saw the contact. A reporter tried to delicately ask Jackson about that final play, and Jackson didn't wait for him to finish to concede the facts.
Reporter: "Sometimes a coach's best friend is getting a non-call at the end of the game. It appeared that Fisher --"
Jackson: "Bumped him? Yeah, he bumped him."
Fisher bumped Barry, and in this series, when Tim Duncan draws fouls for whimpering, a bump is a foul. But Barry was on his own, and he hoisted a 26-footer that hit only the backboard as the AT&T Center crowd of 18,797 booed and the Lakers hurried happily off the court.
It just isn't meant to be, Spurs fans. Your team's fifth NBA title in a decade, I mean. And maybe not another NBA title in the near future. The Lakers are only going to be better next year and beyond, with emerging star Andrew Bynum set to return from the knee injury that cost him the second half of his 2007-08 breakout season.
The Blazers will match Greg Oden with Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge and whatever gold they mine from this year's NBA Draft. New Orleans should be better. Utah won't be any worse. The Suns and Mavericks aren't going away. Well, the Suns aren't.
The Western Conference is getting stronger. The Spurs are getting older.
And the 2008 Western Conference finals are getting out of hand.