1. Kobe Bryant. This is a given, so I figured I’d get it out of the way. The man is a winner. Unlike Lebron, though, he’s a winner surrounded by other winners. That makes for a winning team.
2. Lamar Odom. Lamar is one of those guys who is not built like the average player. His abilities don’t make sense for his body type, and he uses that to exploit defenses in ways they’ve never seen from someone who can also cover a 7 footer on defense.
3. Orlando lives AND dies by the three-pointer. L.A. has been pretty beaten up by the inside game of the previous playoff opponents. They have not, however, been beaten at the three point line. Don’t get me wrong here- Dwight Howard is going to have a monster series. You have to accept that and ensure that he’s the ONLY one who does so.
4. Hedo Turkoglu is inconsistent. For his size, Hedo is an amazing ball handler. Luckily the Lakers have some equally-talented defenders (Bryant, Ariza, Odom) who could match up against him if it they needed to. Hedo appeared to pace himself against the Cavaliers in order to close out the games in the fourth. I’m sorry, Hedo, but you can save all the energy you want but you still have to out-do the best closer in basketball (yahoo answers is a reliable source for subjective opinion, right?).
5. The Lakers can capitalize on a missing Howard. If Howard sits, the Lakers have a clear advantage over his backup, Marcin Gortat. If the Lakers can drive to the basket and get him in foul trouble, Rashard Lewis and Gortat are going to have to work overtime to handle Gasol, Bynum, and Odom.
6. Rafer Alston isn’t the ball-handler that Deron Williams is, he’s slower than Aaron Brooks, and he can’t hit shots like Chauncey Billups. The point guard problem from previous playoff series’ is much smaller for the Lakers.
7. Courtney Lee is a rookie. Ask any NBA player about their first trip to the NBA finals (if they’ve even gone) and they will all admit it’s a very scary and intimidating event. I expect Courtney Lee to have some nervousness- at least in the first game or two.\
8. Home court advantage. The Lake Show knows how to play on the road, but no one can argue that home court advantage doesn’t matter.
9. Orlando is just as soft as the Lakers. The Lakers were beat up in their playoff run to the finals. The opponents were manhandling them all over the place. From Harpring to Artest, Carmelo to Dahntay Jones, the Lakers were simply muscled around. Orlando is much more similar to the Lakers in that they are more of a finesse squad than a “brute-force” squad (Howard aside, of course).
10. The Bench. The Lakers bench has been inconsistent at best. The Magic don’t really have a bench. Aside from Michael Pietrus, the Magic bench will likely have little affect on the series. The Laker’s bench shows up to play, sometimes. If Sasha Vujacic, Shannon Brown, Jordan Farmar, or Luke Walton have a good game, the Lakers will likely win that game.

For the record, Mikael Pietrus has fast-become one of my favorite non-Lakers. He is a huge asset to any organization who can get their hands on him (hint hint, Lakers administrative office).

How do I figure?

He's baaaaaaack! (ESPN)

1. The Magic have the Cavs on the ropes. The Magic. A team that struggled against a depleted Celtics team that needed seven games and 129 overtime periods to sneak by the 41-41 Bulls. I think it’s safe to say that either the Lakers or Nuggets would handle Dwight Howard and Co. with relative ease.

2. If the Magic do win the Eastern Conference Finals, and they lead the series 3-1, the Lakers would have homecourt advantage in that Finals match-up.

3. After the Lakers’ big Game Five win, the Nuggets statistically only have a 17 percent chance of winning the Western Conference Finals. Considering that the Lakers are the most talented team in basketball with the league’s best closer, I’d knock that percentage down to about 10. And I think that’s being generous. Add that Phil Jackson’s teams have won 16 of the last 17 series when up 3-2, and you can drop that down to about five percent.

4. Lamar Odom’s back is finally back to being healthy, and coincidentally he seems to have rediscovered his one-of-a-kind Swiss Army Knife game. When he plays like he did tonight, no team can beat the Lakers. This is why I think he can continue to play at a high level. He holds himself accountable.

5. The Lakers biggest weakness is the point guard position. Chauncey Billups poses a much, much bigger threat than anything out East. Rafer Alston looks pretty good now, but I think that’s more Delonte West and Mo Williams being exposed as frauds than anything else. I think the Lakers match-up better with both the Cavs and Magic than they do the Nuggets, mainly because of how much better Billups is than any PG either of those teams can put on the court.

6. Depth. The Lakers are the deepest team in the league. I think Phil Jackson rationing the stars’ minutes in the regular season is starting to pay dividends, and will pay off even more in the Finals.

As you can see, tonight was a huge win.

I honestly think this team transformed into a champion before our very eyes tonight. That run just felt special. You had Shannon Brown electrifying the Staples Center. Pau Gasol running the offense. Lamar “Candyman” Odom in full-fledged beast mode. Most importantly, Kobe Bryant had his M.J. game. You know, the game where it is rendonkulously obvious that he cares more about winning than any stat. The point where the player says, you obviously have to respect me, so now I am going to help my teammates become just as good at beating you as I am.

The play where Kobe had a wide-open three late in the fourth and decided to hit a hot Lamar Odom instead was the moment which best represented that. Sure, it was the higher-percentage shot, but I don’t think that was his only motive. Kobe’s confidence is sky high. Meanwhile, L.O. has been struggling mightily in this series. Kobe knows he will need Odom to win it all. With a substantial lead, he knew continuing to build Odom’s confidence back with an easy two was more important than his potential three.

You also saw Kobe doing similar things with Gasol. In the fourth quarter, Gasol was matched-up with Chris “Birdman” Anderson. Knowing that Bird is a great help defender who was mismatched guarding Pau one on one, Kobe told Pau to take him. He showed faith in his teammate and Gasol rewarded him with a bucket. Kobe also was smart to step back and allow the offense to run through Pau Gasol and Trevor Ariza with the two-man game on multiple occasions. Not only was the strategy wildly successful, but he will need both Ariza and Gasol in order to win a championship.

Maybe the most amazing super teammate play was when Kobe drew the defenders and kicked to a colder-than-his-native-Slovenia-in-the-Winter Sasha Vujacic for a wide-open three-pointer to end the first half. Kobe obviously has more confidence in the Machine than the Machine does at this point. This could pay off, though , and Kobe, as well as Phil I suspect (Why else would he keep playing Sasha?), knows this. After all, who knows when Sasha might have to step up and be John Paxson to Kobe’s Michael Jordan. This was a pretty big shot, so it could really help restore his confidence looking forward.

Kobe Bryant may have just lifted his teammates for the rest of the playoffs with his Magic Johnson-like performance tonight (hell, Magic even called it earlier from the studio). Sure, they will never be as good as him, but they may start to share more of both his confidence and consistency. Considering that the Lakers have a talent level that rivals the 80s Lakers, yeah, that’s a scary proposition for the Cavs, Magic and Nuggets. Like I said, crown our ass.