The Los Angeles Lakers have knocked the Denver Nuggets out of the playoffs and are advancing to the Finals. Much to almost nobodies surprise, the predictable outcome invariably took place. Despite my firm belief that Denver was able to fight through the hardwood hell and come out alive, it just wasn’t possible.
Sadly, the Denver Nuggets faced execution in front of their home crowd. It must have been a deep and burning sensation of pain and joy to walk off the court with the home crowd giving you a standing ovation after losing in the Western Conference Finals.
With the newly charged offense as a result of Chauncey Billups at the helm, followed by a cast of supporting characters that just doesn’t sound right calling them supporting characters. Melo had times where he was playing absolutely out of his mind. Nene was battling through the paint with heart. The Birdman really thought he could fly and seemingly did with the amount of blocks he has racked up this series. Somebody should probably test his DNA. Seriously, it might actually be a good idea. Dahntay Jones, well, he did what he knew he could do. I’ll leave it at that.
The sad part, at least for me, is that I’m not a Nuggets fan. I really don’t feel good about the success of their season. I just really didn’t want to see the Lakers get through the beasts in blue. And as I said, I really had faith in the Nuggets and thought they could do it. Perhaps it’s just that I’m a Suns fan and really don’t enjoy seeing the Lakers do so well when my team is deciding whether to draft the best player for the position or draft out of need.
I’ve got one team left to bandwaggon for the rest of these playoffs just to keep my interest in the post-season and unfortunately, as of right now, they are down 3-2 and are looking to fight in enemy territory to stay alive. I’ll no doubt watch the rest of the post season no matter what but there will definitely be something missing. There will also be an interesting inner battle for me if the Magic were to advance to the finals — I really don’t care about the Magic. I would be forced to root against a team rather than for a team. I don’t particularly enjoy those situations.
For me, this year’s playoffs have been a chance to root for the underdogs who really put up a performance but just fall short each and every time. The Chicago Bulls really looked like they could pull out that extra juice and get passed the Celtics but they fell short. Denver really looked like they could get past the Lakers but they fell short.
For me and for likely many others out there, there will be one series that can change the game. One redeeming situation to bring some excitement back into this post season. We need another game winner from LeBron. We need an epic come from behind battle. We need to witness LeBron just get out on the court and show everybody just why they call him King James. This King… Think King of the jungle, this Lion, has been sitting in the shade getting teased by the jackals long enough. It’s about time he got up and just ripped everybody to shreds to prove just why they call him the King.
We need to witness a series that we’ll be telling our grandchildren about. For those of us that choose not to have kids, we need to witness a series that we’ll tell anybody and everybody about while wondering around the mall while senile.
Maybe my expectations are too high.
Maybe not.
There’s always hope.
