The Los Angeles Lakers’ season came to an uneventful and disappointing close on Thursday when the Phoenix Suns yet again blew out the Lakers.
The Lakers showed heart in the second half but it was not enough to overcome the massive hole they dug themselves into the first quarter. The Lakers’ championship defense is over and the Phoenix Suns move onto round two arguably as the favorites in the West.
The Suns definitely had their fun at the expense of the Lakers at the end of Game 6. Chris Paul re-enacted Andre Drummond’s fake post-up from Game 3 and Jae Crowder salsa danced reminiscent to LeBron James’ new commercial.
The fun didn’t stop for the Suns on Friday as Cam Johnson took a subtle shot at the Lakers with his t-shirt design; sporting a Mickey Mouse t-shirt (second photo).
This plays into the “Mickey Mouse ring” argument that has followed the Lakers since they won the NBA Championship in the Orlando bubble at Disney World. For some reason, that championship didn’t count as a real one for the Lakers even though THEY were the ones who lost home-court advantage.
Cam Johnson’s shot at the Los Angeles Lakers makes no sense.
Not only were the Lakers the ones who had to sacrifice their hard-earned home-court advantage but they had to be in the bubble longer than any other team not named the Miami Heat.
The Phoenix Suns of course wouldn’t know that as they did not make it past the seeding games.
Speaking of those seeding games, the Suns were arguably the hottest team in the bubble before the playoffs. They won all eight of their seeding games but still could not make it into the playoffs because of the red-hot Portland Trail Blazers.
Call it a Mickey Mouse ring all you want, the fact is that the Suns (and all 22 teams who were invited to the bubble) cared about winning that championship. But now is time to discredit it?
A note from us pic.twitter.com/x2ZbVMcYgi
— Phoenix Suns (@Suns) August 14, 2020
The Phoenix Suns played great basketball but they also got lucky that Anthony Davis got hurt. Every winning team gets lucky with injuries, including last year’s Lakers, but let’s not pretend like a fully healthy Anthony Davis wouldn’t have changed this series outcome. It would have.
And while the Lakers do deserve some of the smack talk sent their way, I would advise Phoenix to win more than just one playoff series in a decade before puffing out their chests or they will soon be in the same situation the Lakers are in.