These Nuggets-Lakers Basketball Games Could Turn Out Okay

As you may know, your humble editor is a busy and important man and these past two months have been some of the busiest and importantiest.  As such I’ve been out of pocket for the NBA playoffs, only able to read about the games, like a traveler far from home subsisting on letters alone.  But now?  I’m back and I’m like a newborn baby to these things- I mean holy-damn, did you guys see that game last night?  I don’t have the exact stats, but I’d say there were somewhere around a billion lead changes as the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets took turns leap frogging each other by a point at a time.  That was hot, hot action.

Leading up, there was a lot of talk from ESPN and around blogfrica that this wasn’t Nuggets-Lakers, this was Carmelo-Kobe.  That would be the match-up that decided the game.  Well, let’s see how that shook out, shall we?

Kobe Bryant- 40 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists

Carmelo Anthony- 39 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists

Cot-damn, that’s a heavy weight fight.  I’m on the record as a Kobe Bryant stan, but Carmelo is my man as well- and has turned into an absolute assassin now that he’s got  Chauncy Billups ridin shotgun- and if this series continues to be a slugfest between the two of them, I’ll be pleased as punch.  My favorite clip of the night was the montage  of Anthony and Bryant going hard at each other on defense every play, arms tied up and whipping around, trying to gain the slightest bit of advantage or leverage.  Two stone cold ballers, playing their asses off against each other.  Lovin it.

Once you get past Carmelo and Kobe though, the story was the bench- the Lakers got 27 points out of theirs, the Nuggets only 16 from two players.  They need JR Smith to put on his blood-red wizard hat and be getting that on his own.  This is the Lakers, this is the conference championship, the Nuggets need their X-factor to be burning brightly.  For a few minutes there in the second half it looked like he was going to regain his stroke and the Lakers might be in trouble, but it didn’t last.

This series is going to be fantastic.  I’ve still got my fingers crossed for a Lebron-Kobe throwdown in the finals, but I hope this shit goes seven and keeps it close the whole way.

Oh yeah, and how bout that steal? It’d be an all time classic if this was a game seven (or if that’d been Kobe instead of Ariza).