During the joint team postgame meal, I had the honor of sitting next to the opposing coach.
Being an inquisitive young man, I asked the coach as to why, once his team had achieved a rather large and obviously insurmountable lead, he hadn't called off the dogs.
The coach glared at me...not unlike the way Kobe glares and scowls when he's doing his "Kobe Klutch thing."
You know...that scowl that so many Kobe-Haters hate, where his face transforms into a black version (I'm black, so save your cards and letters) of the Green Goblin from the Spiderman saga.
The coach said, "Son...I believe in killing flies with sledgehammers!"
My response was "Uhhhh ...Yes sir!" and I returned to quietly eating my cheeseburger.
Flash forward a few "millenia " to Game One of the Lakers-Jazz Western Conference semifinals.
The Lakers engaged in their all-too-familiar habit of blowing a big lead on an inferior opponent, allowing the opponents to hang around, and then found themselves in a late-game dog fight.
And before the cards and letters start rolling in from Jazz fans, allow me to clarify: The Jazz are "inferior" to the Lakers, but they certainly aren't an inferior NBA team.
Frankly, there are/were no "inferior" teams in the Western Conference playoffs.
The Lakers just knocked off the team out West with the worst record and they, the Thunder, won 50 regular season games and took the Lakers to a fortuitous sixth game in the opening series.
"Inferior" teams can't do that, and the Jazz are a better team than the Thunder and will be even more so if or when Andrei Kirilenko returns.
Many fans and media, pro and anti-Lakers alike, continue to find the Lakers tendency to lose big leads regardless of who they're playing as surprising. Some even a...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
