Debatable. Especially against the porous Mavericks. Keon Clark is not a huge drop in talent by any means. If the Spurs can take out the Lakers, Sac has a very real chance of advancing to the Finals.
Someone please tell Jack to sit his ass down...I dont care what he paid for those seats...... http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2003/story?id=1551784 Can the real Lakers please step forward......
"Webber's absence is good news for the Mavericks, but Sacramento won in Dallas on Feb. 4 without Webber or Jackson in the lineup, and the Kings still have won eight of their last 11 meetings with the Mavs." From this journalists mouth/print to God's ear..... Even so they will not get thru the next round without their leading scorer and rebounder..... Harry could this be a conspiracy by the NBA and the ref's???.....
It's not like he blows up every game. Mostly, he just sits there with his Cheshire cat grin. Last night, he was speaking - er, screaming and yelling - for all Laker fans, who agree with a series of TNT and ESPN commentators that they've never seen this many offensive fouls called in the playoffs. Then there was the incidental rebounding contact that fouled Shaq out the other night... Before someone accuses Jack or me of whining, let me add that in my opinion the Lakers fully deserved to lose games 1 and 2 (especially 2...), regardless of the officiating, just as Sac deserved to lose last year - but everyone, fans included, still deserves to have the games called reasonably. As TNT showed, within a couple plays of Shaq's 3rd foul, Duncan made almost the identical move on the other side of the court - clearing out the defender while turning - and didn't get called. The difference was that Shaq only looked like he was clearing, while Duncan really was. On George's 3rd foul, he was indisputably pushed into contact by Ginobili. It's also indisputable that Kobe had a basket taken away on a mis-call. I'm sure there were some bad calls against the Spurs, too, but the real point is that, to the Lakers' credit, they didn't get shaken. Instead of collapsing when Shaq was taken out, they re-doubled their effort, tightened up their play, re-extended their lead, and fully imposed their will on the game. Basically, barring extreme events, they were just going to win last night. It's a lot of fun for a fan when his team is doing that, and it pisses a fan off to see an official get in the way: I'm sure even Laker-haters, or most basketball fans anyway, appreciated plays like Shaq's end-to-end in the 1st Quarter. Seeing a 350-lb. seven-footer doing a Tyus Edney is fun - and it was a demonstration of will, desire, and mastery. He was ready to put on a show, and the official was taking it away. So Jack got pissed, and anyone who'd rather watch the great players play had to be on his side. I don't know if the Lakers will go on to impose their will on the series - but that is what teams built around charismatic superstars (like Shaq, Kobe, Phil... and Jack) can usually do. In a way, having the officials and injuries and anything else working against them helps, giving them a chance to prove just how indomitable they are. It can make the other team feel that no matter how well they play and no matter how many advantages they have and no matter how many breaks they get, they're still probably going to lose. At that point, the second-rate players usually start missing, and the guys who never quite go the final distance get that hated familiar feeling back - and Jackson's psy-ops are great at reminding them of it. It used to be that way for teams when they played the Bulls back in the '90s, just like it's always ended up being for teams playing the Lakers the last three years. If the Lakers somehow pull this series out - and go on to take the championship again - Jack's explosion will be remembered for years as part of Laker lore. Furthermore, Jack's Jack. He is a constant reminder that being a Laker fan is cool. Usually, he charges around $10 million for a major performance.
With the Lakers limping, this year really looked like Sac's best chance to break through. Now, their identity as a hard-luck franchise is in danger of getting cemented. It would almost be an insult to Webber if they did go on to take the championship now - unless their opponents also lose key players. Chances of that are low. I think I hear the screaming of the Queens.
I didn't see Fat Jack whining last year, when all the commentators were commenting on the officiating that favored the Lakers over the Kings....err Queens. Hypocrisy.
No hypocrisy: He's a Laker fan. It's not his job to be objective. It's his job to a) root for the Lakers, and b) root for a good show. And, lets be clear, he wasn't "whining," he was shouting like a madman. I suppose we could re-play the Kings-Lakers last year in our imaginations - it's become accepted that the officials played a big role, but whiners rarely review the entire series. Instead, they focus on a handful of plays that they believe turned the games or the series around. One of the things that's stupid about whining about the officiating is that no one knows really what would have happened if the officials had called the games, all the games, "correctly" - whatever that is... There's also a difference between angling for better treatment during the series - gamesmanship - and claiming afterward that you deserved to win but the evil refs or the NBA conspiracy or something took it from you: That's bad sportsmanship, or whining. A real winner - I mean someone with a winner's character - after losing to the Lakers last year, would acknowledge that, to beat the champs, you've got to knock them out, then would come back with a determination to do it. I'll give the Kings enough credit to assume that most of the players accepted that, and took the wait 'til next year attitude. In a way, they've been hard done to by their own fans, and some commentators, who've whined so much about how the team lost that they've created a negative, loser's BOHICA image and possibly a psyche that the Kings may not really have earned. Usually, the aggressive team, the team that takes control with their play, and has done so in the past, also gets the benefit of the officials' calls. That's just the way it is. It's part of the game, and always will be. Just as officials will sometimes fail to call a foul when the player flops, even if the play itself really would have been penalizable. Somehow, if a player CAN flop, it shows that he wasn't really fouled so hard that he lost control - he was begging for it. All by himself, flopper-supreme Vlade has tended to ensure that the Kings don't get the benefit of critical calls. The Kings had their chances. A championship team shakes off bad calls, comes back and plays even better. They didn't come through: That's why they're Queens, and they will stay Queens until they do. If the Lakers lose, even if it's on last-play-of-the-deciding-game worst-call-in-history, I hope that they'll acknowledge that they have no one to blame but themselves for letting it get that close, and for playing badly enough to look and become beatable.
Nah, the refs aren't biased at all. In today's farce, we have the following statistics: Spurs: Personal Fouls: 31 Made Free Throws/Attempts: 20-26 Shooting % 33-74 .446 Assists: 18 Turnovers: 14 Rebounds: 41 Lakers: Personal Fouls: 26 Made Free Throws/Attemps: 35-45 Shooting % 28-71 .394 Assists: 14 Turnovers: 13 Rebounds: 42 Quite seriously, I am tiring of watching the poor and clearly biased refs from either side, whether it favors the Lakers, Kings, Mavs, or Spurs. No consistency at all. I never remember the refs being an issue in the Showtime days, and I think the players subconsciously feel they can't win on the Lakers home floor because they know the Lakers will get the calls. It is ruining the game. I am finding it boring. In a close game, it is the refs who are determing the outcome.....feels just like WWF to me.
I stand by my earlier post. The NBA is fixed. At the point one accepts that premise, he will enjoy the game that much more because he will no longer take it personally when he is screwed by a ref's call.