There's something spooky going on.
The Nuggets' bus catches fire. . . . Utah's Andrei Kirilenko has to skip practice the day before Game 6 in Salt Lake City to sort out his visa problems. . . . The Spurs have to sit on their plane for 11 hours to get here, take a 20-point lead in Game 1 and run out of gas.
Do you get the impression an Even Higher Power Than David Stern is rooting for the Lakers?
You might think the Western Conference finals opened and closed Wednesday when the Spurs took an arrow in the heart, blowing a 20-point lead in the last 17:31.
On the other hand, no matter what, the Spurs keep playing, as in the last series when the Hornets tanned their august hides by 19 and 22 points in Games 1 and 2.
"We're very honest," said Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich on Thursday. "No smoke is blown. We just talk about what we did well, what we did poorly, what we want to do better in the next contest.
"And then we go play. It's really simple because it's basketball."
Not that there's any minimizing Wednesday's catastrophe for an older team on short rest playing a younger one that had been sitting around.
Sure enough, after four days off, the Lakers took almost three quarters to get back up to speed.
Knowing Bruce Bowen would push up on him, trying to drive him into the Spurs' big men, Kobe Bryant spent the first half as a decoy . . . and decoyed himself right out of the game.
Despite Bryant's blithe assurance -- "I can get off any time, in the second half I did that" -- by the time he scored his fifth and sixth points, the Lakers were 20 behind.
It's not easy to come that far in so little time against a team as good as the Spurs, but the Lakers did -- with an ease that must truly worry the Spurs.
Barely had San Antonio finished its 15-2 spurt to go up, 65-45, when the Lakers scored 14 points in a row -- in 2:57 -- making it a game without exhausting themselves in the process.
With 7:35 left, Bowen's three-point basket gave San Antonio an 81-75 lead.
The Spurs didn't score again until only 1:22 remained, while the Lakers scored 10.
Now the Lakers are up to speed, Bryant has a better feel for the Spurs' defense and, as Popovich himself acknowledged, "We worry about energy coming back."
Of course, people bring up the Spurs' age whenever they lose. Manu Ginobili mentioned it Thursday and he's a Spur.
"When we win, we're the experienced team and when we lose, we're older than dirt," said Popovich.
