McDonald: Spurs vs. Lakers: Western Showdown

[duncan228]

Spurs vs. Lakers: Western showdown (http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/Spurs_vs_Lakers_Western_showdown.html)
Jeff McDonald

The Lakers visit the AT&T Center for the final time in the regular season tonight, providing a foretaste of what many prognosticators believe could be a rematch of last season's Western Conference finals.

Since winning that series in five games, the Lakers have reinforced their status as the best in the West, piling up the NBA's best record (51-13) and running away with the conference race.

Can the Lakers' run to another Finals be stopped? Express-News staff writer Jeff McDonald looks at five reasons the Spurs could be the team to do it:

The Mason factor

No offseason free-agent acquisition has provided the bang for the buck that Roger Mason Jr. has for the Spurs. The ex-Wizard is averaging 12.1 points, shooting 43 percent from 3-point range and has sunk four game-winners this season — including one to beat the Lakers in January. If a playoff rematch does happen, Big Shot Rog could be the missing piece.

The Gooden factor

The Lakers supersized their frontline last season with the addition of Pau Gasol, and the Spurs had little answer for it. This season, the Spurs upped the ante by signing Drew Gooden. He isn’t an All-Star like Gasol, but Gooden should give the Spurs what they’ve lacked for a long time — a second post-up player alongside Tim Duncan. Once he’s healthy enough to play, of course.

The Manu factor

The Spurs aren’t necessarily saying a healthy Manu Ginobili would have changed the outcome of last year’s playoff series. They just know that with their Argentine catalyst hobbled, they stood no chance. Ginobili is injured again, this time with a stress reaction in his “good” ankle that has caused him to miss the past 12 games. It could be a blessing in disguise, however, if the downtime enables him to be fresh for the postseason.

The bench factor

With rookie George Hill (above) coming along, Bruce Bowen still doing his lockdown thing, Kurt Thomas supplying valuable minutes as an enforcer and Gooden rehabbing in the wings, the Spurs’ bench should run deeper this postseason. One caveat: The Lakers’ reserve brigade, led by Jordan Farmar and noted headhunter Trevor Ariza, might be the best in the league.

The Bynum factor

L.A.’s oft-injured big man Andrew Bynum is out again with a torn ligament in his right knee. Even if he returns to the floor in April, it remains to be seen if he can shake off the rust in time to be a significant factor in the playoffs. Another word of warning, however: The Lakers outlasted the West without Bynum last season, too, and have gone 14-4 since his latest injury.

[JWest596]

Doubter. And nuts to your caveats. Lakers suck. That's enough.

[DespЏrado]

I can't waste a decent opportunity to rag on good old Jeff boy: The first sentence reminds me of a portion of the book the restaurant at the end of the universe. Brilliant book but makes fun of the future perfect tense that Jeff seems to use here.

"The Lakers visit the AT&T Center for the final time in the regular season tonight, providing a foretaste of what many prognosticators believe could be a rematch of last season's Western Conference finals."

The Douglas Adams quote reproduced here for my pleasure:



The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering. It has been built on the fragmented remains of... it will be built by this time, and ideed has been-
One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can't cope with. There is no problem about changing the course of history - the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.
The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you, for instance, how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations while you are actually traveling from one time to another with the intension of becoming your own mother or father.
Most readers get as far as the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up; and in fact in later editions of the book all the pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.
The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over this tangle of academic abstration, pausing only to note that the term "Future Perfect" has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be.
To resume:
The Restaurant at the end of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering.
It is built on the fragmented remains of an eventually ruined planet which is (wioll haven be) enclosed in a vast time bubble and projected forward in time to the precise moment of the End of the Universe.
This is, many would say, impossible.
In it, guests take (willan on-take) their places at table and eat (willan on-eat) sumptuous meals while watching (willing watchen) the whole of creation explode around them.
This, many would say, is equally impossible.
You can arrive (mayan arrivan on-when) for any sitting you like without prior (late fore-when) reservation because you can book retrospectively, as it were, when you return to your own time (you can have on-book haventa forewhen presooning returningwenta retrohome).
This is, many would now insist, absolutely impossible.
At the Restaurant you can meet and dine with (mayan meetan con with dinan on when) a fascinating cross-section of the entire population of space and time.
This, it can be explained patiently, is also impossible.
You can visit it as many times as you like (mayan on-visit reonvisiting... and so on - for further tense correction consult Dr. Streetmentioner's book) and be sure of never meeting yourself, because of the embarrassment this usually causes.
This, even if the rest were true, which it isn't, is patiently impossible, say the doubters.
All you have to do is deposit one penny in a savings account in your own era, and when you arrive at the End of Time the operation of compound interest means that the fabulous cost of your meal has been paid for.
This, many claim, is not merely impossible but clearly insane, which is why the advertising executives of the star system of Bastablon came up with this slogan: "If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?"

[exstatic]

What?

[1Parker1]

What?

:lol My sentiments exactly.

[completely deck]

I can't waste a decent opportunity to rag on good old Jeff boy: The first sentence reminds me of a portion of the book the restaurant at the end of the universe. Brilliant book but makes fun of the future perfect tense that Jeff seems to use here.

"The Lakers visit the AT&T Center for the final time in the regular season tonight, providing a foretaste of what many prognosticators believe could be a rematch of last season's Western Conference finals."

The Douglas Adams quote reproduced here for my pleasure:

whatever you say, man :smokin:drunk

[Halberto]

Big shot Rog, I like that

[Drom John]

The Lakers supersized their frontline last season with the addition of Pau Gasol, and the Spurs had little answer for it.

More for Shaq, but Kurt Thomas was the answer for Shaq and Gasol.

[SenorSpur]

Spurs vs. Lakers: Western showdown (http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/Spurs_vs_Lakers_Western_showdown.html)
Jeff McDonald

The Gooden factor

The Lakers supersized their frontline last season with the addition of Pau Gasol, and the Spurs had little answer for it. This season, the Spurs upped the ante by signing Drew Gooden. He isn’t an All-Star like Gasol, but Gooden should give the Spurs what they’ve lacked for a long time — a second post-up player alongside Tim Duncan. Once he’s healthy enough to play, of course.

Instead of that, I would've laughed if McDonald would have have stated something like the following:
Gooden should give the Spurs what they’ve lacked since the departure of Melvin Ely — a second post-up player alongside Tim Duncan :lol

[MarHill]

Instead of that, I would've laughed if McDonald would have have stated something like the following:
Gooden should give the Spurs what they’ve lacked since the departure of Melvin Ely — a second post-up player alongside Tim Duncan :lol


That's funny, Senor Spur! :lol

However, I would like a big night from TD. He is due for one and I know Phil Jackson doesn't like to double-team in the post...so TD should be aggressive and go to work on Gasol or Odom whoever is guarding him.

I would like a 25 and 12 night from him.

:flag:

[MI21]

The use of tense and passive/active words in journalism is something a journalism student has rammed down there throat from first year through to graduation. Jeff McDonald sucks.

[VI_Massive]

who wants to go in on the domain name "firejeffmcdonald.com" with me?

can we take up a collection?

maybe we can make this an official ST cause like the carver academy? could we get badges for donating?

[Thomas82]

That's funny, Senor Spur! :lol

However, I would like a big night from TD. He is due for one and I know Phil Jackson doesn't like to double-team in the post...so TD should be aggressive and go to work on Gasol or Odom whoever is guarding him.
I would like a 25 and 12 night from him.

:flag:

I wouldn't mind seeing him get a 20-20 game, which is a rarity for him these days. With the 1st half that he had against Phoenix on Sunday, I thought he was on his way to one.

[Spursmania]

I like "Bigshot rog" and how he referred to Ariza as the noted "headhunter".

[lurker23]

The Douglas Adams quote reproduced here for my pleasure:

:tu to books by Douglas Adams.

[Supergirl]

LOL at the Lakers bench being called the best in the league.

[mytespurs]

My initial response to the article: What showdown? The Lakers are a good 7-8 games up on the Spurs. The Spurs aren't going to catch them unless the lakeshow totally tanks...and that's not going to happen.

The Spurs just need to get better for the upcoming playoff battle....believe it or not, there's always the possibility that these teams may not meet at all.
Sorry to be a party pooper here but that's the way I see it.

I think the Lakers will win tonight but I'll be rooting for my team-Go Spurs!! :toast