John Walters

Spurs-Lakers. This is the series we all wanted. The defending NBA champs versus the league's Most Valuable Player and its best team (you heard me, Boston). As well as its most glamorous. A few years ago, NBA commissioner David Stern was asked to name his dream championship match-up. He replied without hesitation, "Lakers vs. Lakers." 

Exactly (Bruce Bowen, you will have two fouls before the first TV timeout).

The truth is, Spurs-Lakers is a more compelling match-up, and between better teams, than most of the NBA Finals of the previous nine seasons. Spurs-Knicks and Lakers-76ers, for example, were 4-1 yawners while Spurs-Cavs and Lakers-Nets were sweeps. Oh, and yes, the Spurs and Lakers have won seven of the previous nine NBA titles…though only one of the two has drawn the type of television ratings that bring a pleased look to the commissioner's face.

As we head into tonight's opening game of the de facto Finals, here are five thoughts worth pondering.

1. Will the Spurs' flight woes leave them feeling LAX?
It would be a safe bet that less than 0.1% of the U.S. population slept on a plane on Monday night. And an even more miniscule percentage attempted sleep on a plane marooned on a tarmac.

That was San Antonio's fate, though, as their charter jet, owned and operated by the struggling carrier Champion Air (ah, but not NBA Champion Air), had mechanical problems. And by that time--after midnight, locally--it was too late for the Spurs to secure hotel rooms in New Orleans.

The Spurs spent yesterday de-lagging in L.A., and with good reason. Coach Gregg Popovich is well aware that his team is just 2-3 this postseason when playing a game on one day's rest. He may also know that the team that wins Game 1 in a seven-game series wins the series 79% of the time.

The Lakers, meanwhile, have had four full days between games, and Kobe Bryant feels spry once more. 

2. Would Tony Parker tell you that his wife, Eva Longoria, or his backcourt mate, Manu Ginobili, is the more convincing actor?
How bizarre was it to see Ginobili, in the waning minutes of Game 7 versus the Hornets, arguing an offensive foul called against him when the victim, Chris Paul, almost certainly flopped to incite the call? Manu has World Cup soccer-level flopping skills, but he is also a unique talent.

Slide show The second season Slide show: Top images from the 2008 NBA playoffs. NBCSports.com

The league's Sixth Man of the Year rarely starts, but he knows how to finish. Perhaps only Kobe is more reliable in the last three minutes of a game. Remember that it was Ginobili who had the incredible assist to Tim Duncan in San Antonio's playoff-opening double-overtime victory against the Phoenix Suns. And it was the awkward Argentinian who finished with a game-high 26 points in the Game 7 defeat of New Orleans.

Ginobili, a player who has inspired musicians to write songs in his honor, has a way of getting under opponents' skin. Remember a couple of years back when Kobe elbowed Manu in the face as he was attempting a jumper from the left corner? Kobe was called for the foul, and it certainly did not look inadvertent.

Who will the Lakers put on Ginobili to defend him? May we suggest pout-boy Sasha Vujacic? Those two guarding one another, with Manu's flops and Sasha's Zoolander 'tude, is worthy of its own iso-cam whenever both are on the court.

3. Did Kobe remember to send one of those $9,800 watches to Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace?
The Laker players dined out at a South Bay restaurant on Monday night, watching Game 7 of the Spurs-Hornets series and marveling at the swanky Jaeger-LeCoultre watches that Kobe bestowed upon them. Bryant did lead the Lakers in assists this season, after all, and the timepieces (Derek Fisher's apparently runs 0.4 seconds fast) are his way of thanking his teammates for helping him win his first Most Valuable Player trophy.

Still, even Kobe would agree that L.A.'s most valuable assist this season came via the munificence of Wallace, who sent Gasol to the Lakers in exchange for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton and a draft pick. And do you recall which NBA coach was most verbally irate at the biggest trade imbalance this side of the China-U.S. import situation?

"What they did in Memphis is beyond comprehension," Spurs coach Popovich told reporters. "I just wish I had been on a trade committee that oversees NBA trades. I'd like to elect myself to that committee. I would have voted no to the L.A. trade."

Gasol will create headaches for the Spurs much the way Amare Stoudemire of the Suns did. When Kobe drives to the hoop, Tim Duncan will not be able to double-team him as indiscriminately as he once did. If Kobe senses the double, he can dish to Gasol for the easy deuce. Duncan will be more susceptible to foul trouble as well.

4. No, you are not watching the Olympics on NBC.
There very well may be a time at Staples Center this evening when eight of the 10 players on the court were not born in the United States. The Spurs could send out a five of Tim Duncan (U.S. Virgin Islands), Ginobili (Argentina), Tony Parker (France), Fabricio Oberto (Argentina) and Ime Udoka. Udoka, though born in Oregon, has a Nigerian-born father, which made him eligible to play for the Nigerian national team in the 2006 FIBA world championships.

The Lakers, meanwhile, can counter with Gasol (Spain), Vladimir Radmanovic (Serbia), Vujacic (Slovenia), Ronny Turiaf (France) and Kobe, who is named after a Japanese steak and who spent much of his childhood in Italy.

Il y a seulement un, anyone?

5. The Western Conference finals should be sponsored by a standard transmission automobile (we do like those Volkswagen talk show ads) because these teams are so clutch.
The Spurs' aptly named Robert Horry, 37, owns seven championship rings and an entire franchise's worth of buzzer-beating shots over the course of his career. His most memorable one came in a Laker uniform, by the way. Derek Fisher's three-pointer with 0.4 ticks remaining in Game 5 of the 2004 Western Conference semis, at San Antonio, put the Lakers up 3-2 en route to winning the series.

The Lakers' Bryant, and the Spurs' Duncan (Game 1 vs. Phoenix last month) and Ginobili are the most lethal game-on-the-line shooters in the league. No team is more composed in the final three minutes of a contest than San Antonio, which is 4-0 this postseason in games decided by 10 or fewer points. The Lakers, though, showed similar poise in Games 5 and 6 against Utah after that Game 4 overtime meltdown.

The coaches, Jackson and Popovich, are a combined 13-1 in the NBA Finals.

In short, while tonight's Game 1 may be a blowout in the Lakers' favor, expect tight contests with players who live for them the rest of the way.         

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