The San Antonio Spurs will renew their rivalry with the Los Angeles Lakers tonight in which the Lakers own a 3-0 lead all-time in the Conference Finals against the most dominant team in my opinion this decade. The Spurs are 4-time champs and have the ultimate package of big man (Tim Duncan), small man (Manu Ginobili), and point guard (Tony Parker). They are and have always been the most fundamentally sound team in the playoffs and have had great role players, and great coach, and none of their stars are "look at me" players. For this reason the NBA, media, and somewhat me don't want to see this team in the Finals. To me, the biggest question marks in the series are: Who will guard Tony Parker? and How will Kobe fare with his chance of the Finals without Shaq? I really see the team that gets the most out of their bench and controls the boards to control the series throughout. These two teams have combined for 7 of the last 9 championships but this Lakers team is less experienced than the elder Spurs. You could have expected the Lakers to be the more rested team of the two after finishing off the Utah Jazz Friday. But, not to this extreme...the Spurs were stuck at the New Orleans airport in a plane with mechanical problems because all the hotels in New Orleans were occupied because of a Cable and Telecommunications convention. They ended up staying in the plane sleeping for 6 hours then traveling 4 hours to Texas. To top things off the Spurs didn't practice on Tuesday! So game 1 looks to be in the Lakers favor. Though, it looks to me that there is a good chance of this series going all 7 and if that's the case I gotta go with the home court advantaged team, which is the Lakers. But, like I have done so many times in the past (pick against the Spurs), they will probably screw the NBA again and advance to another Final, hopefully not against Detroit!!!
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