It always amuses me when I read a playoff series preview, how people do the position vs position thing, coach vs coach, bench vs bench, and then make some sort of conclusion that amounts to adding up points accrued along the way. Hell, it’s the easiest way to do it, and without trawling through two years of my blogging backlog, I’m sure I’ve been guilty of it at some point. But ultimately it’s a meaningless analysis. For a couple of reasons.

Firstly, basketball is a lot more than position vs position, PG vs PG, SF vs SF. This is blindingly obvious to me (and to you, I’m sure) but there’s a lot of clueless people who compare Kobe to the opposition’s shooting guard and call “game over”. Point in case is last year’s Finals. Kobe Bryant vs Ray Allen, in most people’s eyes, was a horrific match up for the Celtics because Ray didn’t have the athleticism, speed, strength and plain defensive talent to even hope to slow down Kobe Bryant. But of course what eventuated looked nothing like Ray Allen vs Kobe Bryant. The Celtics switched multiple defenders on Kobe, mainly Pierce and Posey, often throwing double teams at him, and always playing locked-in team defense when he threatened to attack. On paper the Kobe vs Ray match up was a nightmare for Boston. In reality, Kobe was the one living the nightmare.

Secondly, there’s just too many intangibles that play a huge role in a playoff match up. Experience, poise, momentum, emotion, confidence – both individually and collectively, heightening as a team gets closer and closer to winning that sixteenth and final game. To some extent, you never know how a team is going to respond to pressure, or a bad loss, or even an amazing win. Not one person predicted Detroit to win in 2004, and after their shocking win in Game 1 everyone agreed this was the wake up call the Lakers needed. The Lakers almost lost Game 2 before a miracle Kobe three and an OT win – the giants had apparently woken. It was a gut-wrenching loss for Detroit, so close to going up 2-0 – the entire team and coach looked severely depressed after that game. As a Detroit fan, it was demoralizing. “We blew it” was all I could think about. No one thought the Pistons would respond like they did, winning the next three games convincingly at home, still the only team to win the middle three games since the league switched to the 2-3-2 format. Position by position that Lakers team seemingly had the Pistons beat everywhere on the floor. But as Detroit would go on to prove for the next few years, the collective will of a team is far more important than any positional advantages.

So I find myself torn looking at the Lakers vs Magic lineup, resisting temptation to pair them off the tally the points, fully aware there are too many intangibles and a huge element of unpredictability about the whole thing. Having had a few days to ponder the two teams, their strengths and weaknesses, and the reasons why I think LA will win, the one factor that seems to override everything else in my mind, is hunger.

Hunger in sports is about as intangible and immeasurable a factor as they come, so I’ll excuse you for craving something a little more palpable. But it cannot be overlooked here. I’ve watched and read a lot of interviews of Kobe Bryant since his Finals loss last year, and while he tends to diplomatically tip-toe around the reasons the Lakers lost (“they took it from us” is his usual lame answer), the response I found the most revealing and believable, was the following admission by Kobe: “That Celtics team was hungry. And not just hungry, but full of hungry veterans.” There’s hungry teams, and then there’s hungry teams with three future Hall of Famers who have played 10+ years and never been to the Finals. Every team that makes the Finals is obviously hungry – that’s how they got there – but hunger is a sliding scale, and as Kobe suggests, sometimes it can overpower everything else.

I carefully watched the two post-game trophy presentations to Orlando and LA as they were crowned the Conference Champions. Here are the clips.

Do you notice any difference there? Never mind one is on-court and one in the locker room. Which team do you think looks more happy with itself? The Lakers mob look practically bored and Kobe looks like he’s at a funeral. Even Sasha Vujacic, perhaps the most emotional man in the league, couldn’t manage more than a smirk when James Worthy demanded the boys bring home the championship. Contrast that to Orlando where it actually looks like a championship celebration. They’re waving their hands and fingers in the air, jumping all over each other, Dwight can’t wipe the smile off his face and Coach Van Gundy looks like the most content pizza chef I’ve seen in my life.

I know, you have to enjoy the moment, I don’t want to take that away from the Magic. That emotion surfaces because of the realisation they have achieved a season-long goal – you can’t suppress that kind of thing no matter how hard you try. But the Lakers don’t look unemotional because they’re hiding it, they look unemotional because they’re not emotional. There is no sense of accomplishment for that team. As far as they’re concerned, they have failed until they win four more games. Just look at them one year ago when it was their first time – even Kobe is smiling his ass off.

Lakers 2008 Western Conference Champions

I don’t think you can underestimate these kind of reactions. The Lakers look 1000 times more focused than Orlando after their win. Dwight looks like a kid unwrapping Christmas presents. Kobe still looks pissed off. Phil Jackson looks like he’s falling asleep. The Lakers are collectively locked into one goal, and the fun police is out to make sure there isn’t one ounce of satisfaction in that locker room. It reminds me of the Bombers in 2000 when they dominated the AFL, losing only one game, driven by their failures the season before (a one point loss to the Blues in the Prelim will do that to you). When Essendon won their Preliminary Final against Carlton in 2000, they didn’t sing the club theme song afterward in the locker room (a long-standing AFL tradition). Celebrating at that point was the last thing on every Essendon’s players mind – the first thing being next week’s Grand Final. This is the difference you see in the Lakers and Orlando after their respective close-out wins. The Magic jubilantly sung the club song. The Lakers shut their mouths and moved on.

Make no mistake that the sting of last year’s Finals loss will be with the Lakers through 48 minutes of every game. I don’t expect them to blow another 20 point lead like they did in Game 4 against Boston. I don’t see them shying away from the physicality like they did against Boston. I expect them to be the aggressors. To try to be the bullies this time round – thanks to Boston they’ve witnessed first hand how to gain this edge. Having spoken to a few of the Lakers players during my US travels in April and May, it feels like everything they’re doing is built towards winning this championship. I’ll ask Ariza about how he feels his game has changed, or Sasha about how he’s coping with less minutes, or Odom about adjusting to coming off the bench – all their answers inevitably mentioned the words “championship”, “Finals”, or “improving on last year”. That was never part of my question, but it was always part of the answer. You can expect it’s been driven into them since Phil Jackson addressed the team after Game 6 of last year’s Finals. They’ve been living and breathing these expectations for an entire year.

I don’t mean to suggest the Lakers are more entitled – that is very dangerous for any fan or player to assume (I know, I’ve supported Detroit for many years). Orlando, remember, had beaten LA and Cleveland during the regular season so they were probably eying the championship earlier than anyone seriously imagined. They’re hungry, but they’re about to run into a team that is bloodthirsty hungry. And not just hungry, but full of hungry veterans. I don’t think the Magic are ready to handle that, at least not this year.

Tomorrow, we’ll start with the PG vs PG matchup.

1. Lakers, Magic, thanks for the memories
2. Phil Jackson teams are 429-0 when they win Game 1
3. Lakers Escape to go up 2-0
4. Game 3 Thoughts
5. Game 4 Lessons

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