As much as I hate the Lakers, the regular season is a different game for them. They will not go down without a fight come the playoffs, especially in a 7-game series.
Hogwash. Plain and simple, they are not as good this year as they were last. It's not because of the Artest/Ariza swap, it's primarily because they are complacent and arrogant and think they can just turn it on whenever they want to. They lost three of four, then put it on Utah, and as if to say "see, we're the defending champs, we can beat whoever we want when we want to," they turned into a pathetic effort against a banged up Spurs team that they might wind up playing in the first round, and got blown out at home. The Lakers are not good defensively, especially without Bynum, they get killed by guards (every team in the West has really, really good guard play), and their bench can't score if Odom has to start (four bench points yesterday, had a game with six bench points last week). If anyone thinks the Lakers are just gonna coast through the Western playoffs, think again. Denver is better this year, Dallas is better, Phoenix has been the unsolvable team for Phil Jackson since he came back, Portland is not afraid of the Lakers (which is the only difference between them and Utah), and Oklahoma City has first round upset potential written all over them, and they are only two games ahead of 8th seeded Portland in the loss column.
It's not that I think the Lakers are gonna get swept out of the playoffs in the first round. They are easily the most talented team in the West, and have probably the best player in the western conference, if he's healthy. Probably the third best big man. They are gonna be hard to handle. But this notion that 'all they gotta do is just show up' is the most annoying thing in all of sports to me (with the possible exception of judging players based on rings won), and I sincerely hope that someone flicks the Lakers switch to the "off" position this postseason.
