Hey, let’s be honest…I can’t dunk. I can barely touch the rim. I mean, ok, why lie? I can barely touch the net. As Ty Webb said in the locker-room at Bush Wood Country Club, “You’re not a…you’re not good.”
I’m a hockey guy pulling for the Nuggets. We all should be pulling for the Nuggets. We deserve this. I will spare you with all the statistics and matchups between “Bigs” and guards in transition for one reason: You definitely know more about this than I do. But I do have an opinion on us versus them, the people, the fans.
People in L.A. are just too busy to be bothered by all this Playoff stuff. They have shopping to do, friends to meet for coffee, phones to answer, non-stop texting, appointments with their trainer…places to be…places to be seen. I’m biased towards Coloradans. I love us. We work hard, we play hard, and more importantly as sports fans, we cheer hard. People in L.A. just want to go to the game to see who’s in the front row. It’s the place to be, the thing to do. Fans here in Denver go to the game because they bleed baby blue and gold. They have followed this team through thick and thin. A Round 1 upset over the Lakers is on the menu and these people are starving.
Kobe has won 5 Championships. Good for you. Kobe has a gazillion dollars. Good for you. Kobe’s jersey sales are through the roof. Good for you. Kobe is going down. Good for us. The Nuggets are built on character and teamwork. I once heard George Karl say something like this, “Why have one big super star, when you can have six or seven that are top 10 players at their position?” That means a lot and I think people here in Colorado can relate to that kind of unselfish mentality. The Nuggets want to win by committee, not by the standards of one superstar. Don’t you feel like they have earned this opportunity to hammer the Lakers? It very easily could have been the Thunder and maybe even the Spurs, but an 8-2 stretch to finish the season led them to La-La-Land. It’s destiny.
During the regular season the Lakers won 3 of the 4 matchups by an average of 5.5 points in those games. Does it matter? No. Could you believe it when the Green Bay Packers lost to the New York Giants in the Playoffs after going 15-1 in the regular season? What about the Vancouver Canucks getting wiped out in 5 games to the 8th seeded L.A. Kings this year? Or how about Duke and Missouri losing early during March Madness?
It happens. Upsets, they happen all the time. Ask 10 NBA analysts around the map who they think is going to win the Nuggets-Lakers series and I’ll bet 9 will take Los Angeles. Ask 10 hockey nerds like myself the same question and it’s a landslide for the Nuggets. We want the good guys, the under-dogs, the ones who worked their butts off to get here, not the self absorbing snobs that promote their own brands and count on their fingers every time they win a trophy. My guess is, a much bigger power takes over here in this series and for once, the good guys will finish first. As Clubber Lang said, “Prediction? Pain.”
Nuggets in 6.
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