you think i got all these rings by smiling?

i'm here to say one thing and one thing only: y'all got it all wrong.

in all of our pants-creaming excitement about the basketball devolution, we forgot some shit. what we forgot, and i include myself in this "we" catergory, is that a team full of real hard dudes can shut down some flashy shit just by looking at people wrong. take the second round (no really, i insist).

a couple of really genuinely fun teams to watch, well 1.5 if you're like me and you only enjoy the suns because you always have and it feels wrong to root against them, are getting manhandled but two teams that are full of the type of people that PLAYOFF BASKETBALL are made out of. the warriors and the suns may have captured some of the essence of those showtime lakers, and the warriors even have a black point guard, but neither one of those teams has the balls to duplicate the success of those bygone years.

actually i should retract my statement: the warriors are crazy enough to do whatever they want on the basketball court (except shoot free throws. my theory is that they're bored at the line because they can't dunk it so they miss on purpose to piss off david stern.) but the suns are seriously some snitchin bitches.

note to the suns: this is fucking playoff basketball. you can't be bitching and moaning every time bowen throws an elbow. i never thought i would be defending the spurs, but the suns better just man up and lay the smack down if they even hope to get by these guys. the spurs have some serious old man muscles along with a ton of playoff acumen, and what that translates to so far is a willingness to do WHATEVER it takes to win. if whatever it takes is kneeing nash in the groin, so be it, they'll do it. even though nash has somewhat toughened his image, i just don't see anyone on the suns but raja bell willing to honestly kill someone just to get at a loose ball. and even in raja, that happens only rarely. maybe that lack of intensity helps them get through the regular season, but to win in the playoffs you need to be kind of mentally unbalanced.

nash keeps it too regular for them to be taken seriously.