Game four: Lakers beat down the Spurs.

The NBA playoff series are a best of seven, but sometimes it doesn't take four to end end it.

It was only game four in this series but with a hard fought 3-1 lead the Lakers have moved on to the NBA finals and ended a dynasty. It's just a matter of which game the Lakers will use to offically enter it in the record books.

This game was the biggest gut check of the year. Getting blown out by the defending champs in game three, they had to win to prevent this series from turning into a torture test that would get more and more erratic, dangerous and unpredictable with each succeeding game.

The Lakers owned up to their faults after the last game but taking blame is of no value if you don't have the desire and fortitude to act on your mistakes and bad play.

This game actually was much like the first one. No, the Spurs didn't run off to a big lead, indeed they never had a lead of any kind. But like the first game, the Spurs played like hell. Like the first game, they knew how important this game was. Like the first game, the Spurs just kept comming. No matter how many times we put a little daylight between us, the Spurs, like some desperate, inplacable slugger chasing a faster finesse fighter, kept plugging forward, applying relentless pressure. By the forth quarter, both fighters had beaten each other to a pulp, now capable of only standing there, trading blows, waiting for one to weaken and fade. Like games one and two, it was the older, smaller, less athletic team that finally blinked, that finally had to take a breath and back off. In a game four, behind two games to one, on your home floor, you can't afford to back off and take a breath. The last Laker run, with the Spurs looking used up and tired late in the fourth was so familiar now to Laker fans. As you watched the lead grow, you knew this game, and the series, was finally over.

The toll this game took on the Spurs was evident in the final statistics. 39 percent shooting, 6 of 21 from the three point line. The Lakers went toe to toe with them for a second time, and once again came out on top.

You knew the Lakers were going to be differnt from the start. You knew they might lose, but not like the last game. This time, you would have to actually beat them. The Lakers opened 5 of seven. Lamar got and offensive rebound and took it home. Gasol attacked the boards and Kobe hit his first four.

The most telling stat, that demonstrated how committed this team was to end this series on San Antonio ground was in just the first few minutes we had four offensive rebounds. We have seen playoff games this year when we didn't have four offensive rebounds in a half.

Kobe 28 points and ten boards. The rebounds are the most impressive stat here. This was guy who was not going to lose this particular game from lack of effort. His statement was clear. "I don't know if Pau can motivate himself to rebound, but I will make sure it doesn't matter."

Vlad also gets lots of credit. This guy, in all the games in this series, win or lose, has brought his game. He is determined and is playing like it. The Space Cadet is performing with the concentration of West Point Cadet right now on the highest stage.

The Lakers were up by five at the half, and this was one observer who had a feeling we just were not going to give up the lead. The Lakers had 14 second chance points at this time and the Spurs looked like a team that knew they were in trouble.

They were in trouble because unlike the last game, the Lakers were going after rebounds, loose balls and playing defense. When Sasha hit the three and the foul near the end of the third, it was a big blow to the Spurs who kept trying so hard to fight back and get that elusive lead.

In the fourth as Duncan and Parker missed several point blank shots with Lakers around them, the die was cast, they had that same befuddled tired look they had in games one and two and so successfully shed in game three.

Now instead of energy, the Spurs were a step slow as they watched Pau move hard after the ball after a Fisher miss, instead of waving at it, like he did the last game to so many potential rebounds. When he got it back to Fish, who made it this time. This play was a perfect metaphor for the difference between this Laker team and last games.

It was fitting that Lamar and Pau, the goats of game three brought the game home. Lamar hitting two free throws and Gasol getting fouled going after yet another board.

No real reason to dwell on the last thirty seconds that could have cost us this series...except it gave birth to the "foul". Some stupid play and bad clock management and missed free throws made this game much closer than it was or should have been. Because of these mistakes, we made it close enough for the play that will be known as the "foul" to be born. No doubt Spur fans will talk of that play forever. It will once again fuel the NBA conspiracy talk to get the big market team in the finals, and other equally dumb statements.

Was it a foul? Who knows. All that matters is WHAT WAS IT CALLED. I have watched sports for a long time, and any of my friends can tell you one thing I don't do, win or lose, is complain about calls. The reason is simple: Bad calls happen in every game, in every sport. Sometimes they go against you. Sometimes they go for you. Fans never complain about the bad calls that go for their team. Bad calls in the first five minutes are never noticed. Bad calls at the end are talked about forever. Games are decided in the totality of ever single play. Not on a bad call at the end. Anytime your team plays, they have to be good enough to over come bad calls that will inevitably happen.

The Lakers put themselves in a positon to win that game, and the series. They did. For those Laker fans who are irritated by the Spurs fans crying foul, I would say this: If you were a Spur fan, would you be crying now? I would also say; blame the Lakers for screwing up so bad in the last thirty seconds that the "foul" will now be a part of NBA history forever. It never should have come to that. The win should have been seemless.

But lastly I would say, only in San Antonio will the "foul" long be remembered. In the end, the only thing in sports that lasts is winning that championship....and only one team from this series can. And it's not the Spurs.

Great accomplishment by this team. They have played the defending Champs for just four games and lead 3-1 with two games yet in LA. Think about that for a second. It's not really a series.

You have to wonder how bad the Spurs fans and organization must hate us. Just a few short years after Shaq left, the move Pops called the "breakup of the Soviet Union", and the problems with Kobe, we have repeated the history of a decade ago and superseeded them as the preeminant power in the West. No doubt they thought we buried, a relic for decades, like the Celtics have been. Now like a flu virus laying dormant, we have returned as an even stronger strain. Next year, with Drew, even stronger yet.

One other piece of food for thought. The Tim Duncan decade of dominance finally comes to a close. He won't witness another, "breakup of the Soviet Union." This time hes going out for good, watching us on top. No more titles. Hard to believe isn't it? The Spurs will not see his like again for while I think.

I mean, its not like they are the Lakers who replace one all time great player with another time after time after time...decade after decade...........they are just..the Spurs.

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