LAKERS OUTLAST HORNETS IN WESTERN CONFERENCE SHOWDOWN

Unbelievable game tonight. The Lakers jump out to a 30 point lead, only for the Hornets to steadily cut it down (with classic NBA "even up" officiating (to go along with fantastic Hornets' defense)) to 6. The Lakers build it back up to 13, and Peja Stojakovic starts a insane bombing campaign that brings it down to 1. In the end--shockingly--it was the Lakers' defense that was the difference, holding the Hornets scoreless on about 5 straight possessions down the stretch to clinch it.

In the game-within-the-game, the MVP race between Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant, both participants were fantastic. Kobe had 29, 10 & 8, with just one turnover, and Paul had 15, 6, and 17 assists with four steals. Paul did have a rough shooting game, 4-13 from the floor, thanks to the outstanding individual defense played by Derek Fisher and Jordan Farmar and the total team effort in helping out those two when Paul broke 'em down. Kobe outplayed him, and Paul stunk down the stretch when New Orleans couldn't get a good shot off to save their lives, but it's just one game, you can't decide the MVP race on that. Whoever you had going into the game should be your vote coming out of it. But I'll bet a lot of votes were influenced tonight, which tells you everything you need to know about the dipshits who vote for the NBA MVP.

Phoenix lost to Houston tonight, so it looks like they'll probably end up in that #6 slot with Houston at #5. That means that the Lakers-Spurs game Sunday will be enormous--the winner of that one will likely end up a 1 or 2 seed and playing Denver/Dallas; the loser will likely be the #3 seed and playing Phoenix. And I'm worried. I don't know if the Lakers can come off an emotional and high-energy win like tonight's and play strong a day and half later. And when you don't come ready to play against San Antonio, you lose. It's in LA, but I'm not sure home court will matter much in such a huge game--you know there won't be any home cooking officiating with all the world watching.

The good news is that the Lakers now probably have the (conference record) tiebreaker over New Orleans unless some weird stuff happens, so if they win Sunday, they have a great shot at that #1 seed. New Orleans would still need to lose 1 game, but they're at Dallas to close the season, and have a classic trap game tomorrow at Sacramento. But the key is getting either the 1 or 2, I just don't want any piece of Phoenix in a 7 game series.