Laker? I don't even know her.

Who is this team in the finals…these LA Lakers? Well they can certainly cry me a river, but as far as a basketball team I haven’t seen it yet. They find themselves out of their element playing against a superior defensive team, and have nothing but excuses. We all know about the foul disparity, but horrible officiating has been the rule rather then the exception these playoffs, so what exactly is this teams problem?
First of all they aren’t playing defense, and their star player is consistently riding all his teammates to the point he’s regressed to all time Big Me status. Top that off with the Celtics defining Ubuntu to a tea, and utilizing home court to its fullest and you have a completely defeated Laker squad.

How do they respond? Kobe says it has nothing to do with the Celtic defense, he’s just missing bunnies. Phil Jackson gives a contrived response in which he purposefully mispronounces Leon Powe’s last name. He apologizes later, but his point was clear; that a no name bench player had more free throw attempts than his entire team. It was a classless answer though. He obviously knows how to pronounce Powe…I mean when he was dropping 6-7 FG’s on his (Phil’s) team and the PA was happily proclaiming it was done by “Leeeeeeon POWE!” how does that not resonate in your memory? Let's top all that off with the 'ole "The rims are different in Boston" theory. You are professional athletes, you had two days off in between games, you should practice instead of bitching plain and simple.

Let’s take a look at their opponent, the Celtics. This team was getting shellacked on the road by the Atlanta Hawks, and getting zero calls. How did they respond? With nothing but respect for the young Hawks team. They admired ATL’s tenacity and recognized they were a tough match up (even when Joe Johnson was openly criticizing the C’s franchise), and when the ref’s didn’t call the game the right way they played through it and prevailed in the end. They played with a team first mentality refusing to make excuses, and showing they could correct their weak areas in order to dominate at home.

Now you flip the script and this Laker team not only makes excuses instead of shouldering the blame, but they disrespect a team like the Celtics in the process. No one on the Green will make a big deal of it, but trust me they’ll use these dis’ to keep their energy going all game. Phil calls Pierce’s injury suspect….Paul isn’t taking that, he’ll swallow his tongue for the media and let his game do the talking. Unlike the Lakers who seem to have saved their energy for post game excuses.