Hi Folks – I’m sorry to say I suffered a death in the family on the day the Lakers won this glorious championship, so I will be attending a funeral this afternoon instead of the parade…but I will be there in spirit. Those that have followed my posts through these playoffs shouldn’t have been surprised at all about what happened. I’m sorry I wasn’t in shape to comment on game 5 directly after it happened but… I TOLD YOU SO!!!!! I mean that with the most possible love, but I did say that Orlando would only win game 3 of the series, and that it would be close. I would even say that our first three wins of the series were perfectly in line with the first three reasons I gave for why the Lakers would win the series…in that order.

I’m not big on bragging rights, but even my brother (Noah Gottlieb – again, Chaminade University 2008-2009 season…look him up had to admit that I pretty much called it. You must keep in mind how much brothers hate admitting things like that, so it was pretty big for me. This season has been a blast. All the Kobe and Laker haters, fairweather fans and talking media heads fell silent when Fish hit those threes in game 4. Game 5 was more just a test of whether the Orlando Magic really could stand up to the Lakers when everything was on the line, and I wasn’t the only person who didn’t think they were up to the task. I have to give them credit though – the Orlando Magic played a great series and made the finals much more entertaining than they were last year, not the least of which is because they play beautifully at times. To have watched the finals game in which a team shot for the all-time record percentage is to be a blessed basketball fan. To watch your team win its 4th title in the last 10 years is an order of magnitude more amazing, and the distinct feeling that this Laker team still has a lots to accomplish is just the icing on the proverbial cake.

Bynum played strong in limited minutes, and the fact that he was hampered by foul trouble doesn’t bother me very much because almost all those fouls were preventing layups around the basket. That’s what he’s supposed to do, and if he’s not in 100% game condition, which he clearly was not, then he understood and executed his role perfectly in the series. Just look at the offensive numbers for Dwight Howard and tell me all that defense was because of Gasol…sure. Gasol did great on Howard in limited situations, but so did Bynum and he deserves that credit. Another standout for me was Luke Walton. Luke had an all-around solid series making all the right plays at the right times and keeping the bench grounded on both ends. In fact, I would say Luke had a few of the best highlight passes of the finals playing in pretty limited minutes. He was just ready, as was Jordan Farmar. Really the Lakers didn’t suffer from any real weakpoints on their bench, save for the perplexingly terrible play of Sasha Vujacic. Can I be candid and say I’d just rather have Shannon Brown than Vujacic, period? No offense to Sasha, because I love him and I think that he has some great potential, but Shannon Brown is probably a more important piece to our team puzzle.

Other than that, there’s not a whole lot more to say. The Lakers played a very up-and-down type of playoff season, but they pulled it out like all us die-hards knew they would and are now enjoying the taste of that beautiful hardware. Get a good long look at Kobe kissing that trophy…it’s the look of ultimate satisfaction, accomplishment and things yet to come. Thank you all for reading and commenting on my posts this season – it’s really been great and, as with these Lakers, you can bet there’s more where that came from!