If that is the team that shows up against San Antonio, then LA takes it in 6. I loved Shaq not feeling he needed to be the scoring focus, he dished 5 assists, but his his passing and ball movement were far more than that raw number, at least twice he turned down the open look to dish it out, once to Fisher and once to Fox, both converted, plus a couple of wicked blocks on Ming, his presence was enough to disrupt Houston's flow and he moved well tonight, he had a couple 3 second violations but what can you do. Malone had a very good game, although he uncharacteristally blew it at the line. Even George had his flashes, a couple of real nice steals and one very heads up opportunistic one. But Kobe was the man, Mobley was so out of his league tonight it was comical. He tried, props to him for that, his last foul against Kobe was funny, he knew he either bearhugged Bryant or it was automatically another 2-3 points. Kobe was in a serious rythm tonight, his 10 assists for the double double was the kind of team play we need, his in-out pass to Malone for the 18 footer in the 4th was so very, very cool. The second half was a thing of beauty.
Props to Houston for making the playoffs, although I loved the frustration on Francis' face. I guess the Shaq versus Yao question has been answered for this season for all except front runner bandwagon fans, huh? And in case anyone wants to argue that point, if you didn't see Shaq contributing off the ball and by his passing and looking for the open man first, you need to take your hater glasses off, he was a factor far more than his 12 points.
Looking forward to Sunday all you non-frontrunning, not bandwagonning, non-hating, legit Spurs fans out there, specifically 101, BBF, X3, the ONLY ones that count, the ONLY ones that really care that San Antonio wins as opposed to just LA losing, here's to a good series.
