Basketball Championships

Lakers fans aren't letting the recession rein in their parade. Los Angeles sports retailers are reporting record sales as adoring fans snap up championship T-shirts, hats and flags. The outpouring of pride is more than welcome for business owners, who have been fighting a down economy for months. "Winning a championship seems to be curing a lot of people's blues," said Sean Ryan, vice president of merchandise for Anschutz Entertainment Group, owner and operator of Staples Center.

Jeff Van Gundy knows that Lakers fans will parse his every spoken noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, descriptive phrase, opinion, suggestion. If the score is 12-10 in the first quarter tonight night and Van Gundy says the Lakers are leading the Orlando Magic, 12-10, Lakers fans will search for hidden meaning in his tone. Did he emphasize the 12 or the 10, the word "Lakers" or the word "Magic?" And Lakers fans won't be wrong.

Elimination beckoned, and we all figured we knew what that meant. The run was over, here comes summer vacation, it's time to go fishing. Except the Nike puppets didn't go away. Even without LeBron James in the NBA Finals, Nike continues to run ads with the LeBron and Kobe Bryant puppets, playing on the theme that Kobe made the Finals and LeBron has to stay home baby-sitting the little kid next door, Lil Dez.

Seven years after their last championship, five years after a series of humbling losses in Detroit, and 362 days after a futile Finals effort against Boston, the Lakers were back, in a big way. A victory parade will proceed through Los Angeles on Wednesday, the celebration becoming official after the Lakers thumped the Orlando Magic on Sunday, 99-86, to win the NBA Finals, four games to one. Undeniably, it was Kobe Bryant's night.

The "beast" is 6 feet 11, 265 pounds, his physique like that of a Greek god. The beast is quick, athletic, powerful and dominant, a force unlike any other in the NBA. The beast is Dwight Howard -- also known in many circles as "Superman" -- who now has become a target the Lakers must contend with and contain. The beast and his Orlando Magic teammates will be here Thursday to play the Lakers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals at Staples Center.

In a season of redemption, where the Lakers decided from day one to finish off what they couldn't a year ago, another authoritative step was taken toward an NBA championship. Those who questioned the Lakers' resolve were quieted. Those who wondered if they were too fatigued now know the answer.

His pressed sweatsuit was white, his rumpled mood was black. Kobe Bryant met the media Wednesday as if he were playing defense against them, shoulders tight, eyes darting, snarl fixed. First question? Four-word answer. Question from beat reporter who has been following him for five years? Thirteen-word answer. Follow-up? Six-word answer. In this situation, a day before the NBA Finals, the world at the sneakers of the basketball's gods, LeBron James would have been charming.

Phil Jackson was immersed in a two-month trek that included stops in Bora Bora, New Zealand and Australia, where he caught lobsters and cooked them under the stars with one of his former players, Luc Longley. Never in the early stages of 2005 did he envision returning to the Lakers, who had signed Rudy Tomjanovich to a five-year, $30-million deal as Jackson's successor in the summer of 2004. But Tomjanovich quit abruptly in February 2005, and Jackson returned to the Lakers four months later.

Staff writer Mike Bresnahan ties up some loose ends on days of Lakers playoff games: That didn't take long. The Orlando Magic lost the first two games of the Finals, enough for Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Bianchi to publicly question Magic center Dwight Howard. "The fact is, Dwight is too predictable in the paint," Bianchi wrote. "Because his moves are so basic, Lakers defenders seem to know what he's going to do when he catches the ball.

SAN ANTONIO -- For the record, Darren Collison is ready to experience "One Shining Moment," but otherwise doesn't want to hear it. The song has become something of an anthem to CBS' television coverage of the Final Four, and UCLA players got a chance to preview the video that goes along with it. "That gave me chills," freshman Kevin Love said. It gave Collison a burn. "The video itself was cool.