Are The Lakers A Contender Without Homecourt Advantage??

[Da Boss DJ Jo Corleone]

Tuesday night I was able to witness the Lakers have a home win stolen from them in six seconds, thanks to Andre Iguodala. If you missed the high lights from Tuesday night then I highly suggest you click on this link from NBA.com http://www.nba.com/video/games/lakers/2009/03/17/nba_phi_lal_002080....

Now for those of you who can’t visit certain sites because you’re on the clock just understand these few things. The Lakers were up by as much as 14 at one point in the game, and actually lead by two with six seconds left in the game. Now I would suggest you watch the video before reading on, but if you can’t here’s the result.

The ball is inbounded at half court to Iguodala, with Trevor Ariza guarding him with a foul to give. Iguodala dribbles the ball a little bit to create space for an open jumper and Ariza is just giving him space to insure the Philly’s new A.I. doesn’t blow past him. That space was all the A.I. needed as he pulled up and buried the 3pointer with no time on the clock to give Philly the win by 1 point.

They still seem to lack some toughness as a whole team, and some of their personnel don’t match up well with some of the big dogs out east. A lot of those guys will get pushed around and are truly not ready to bang with some of those players on the east coast.

My point in talking about this game in particular is to ask are the Lakers truly as championship bound as people think? They’ve gone 6-4 in their last 10 games and gave away a home game that they surely should have won. It’s also no secret that in order to give your self better odds at winning it all it helps to have home court advantage, which is now owned by my beloved Cleveland Cavaliers if they can get past Boston. And after the way Boston struggled on the road in last year’s playoffs I like the Cavs’ chance to make it to the finals if they hold on to home court.

But we’ll have that discussion as we get closer to the NBA Playoffs right now let’s focus on the Lakers. Now they do own home court in the west right now with a 9 game lead over the Spurs, but let’s be real the Spurs can win in any gym when at full strength and of course come playoff time they will be. And the Utah Jazz look pretty good right now as well. Either of these teams can, and will push L.A. to the max and maybe even beat them, if they don’t eliminate each other first.

They have 15 games left, and after Golden State tonight they play 7 straight road games starting with the Chicago Bulls. They’ll also visit the A.T.L., Detroit and Milwaukee during their journey. And if you didn’t already know teams seem to really get up for the Lakers, that’s the nature of the beast when your one of the top teams in the Association. Everybody’s gunning for you, and those teams are all fighting for playoff position themselves, so expect nothing less from them.

L.A. will finish the season as the top team in the west, but overall the #1 team and favorite to win it all is coming from the east, and L.A. better be ready for a dogfight in the finals. If they make it there.