Call Me Crazy, But The Lakers Will Beat The Rockets in Five Games

With a minute left in game one between the Lakers and Rockets and the Lakers looking like they were about to go down 1-0, I turned to my friend, a huge Rockets fan, and angrily stated, "I guarantee the Lakers are going to win in five games." 

Now, you must be thinking this is just another cocky statement from an arrogant Lakers fan, but I speak the truth. This Lakers team just suffered an embarrassing and shameful game one home loss and I know from being a fan myself that this one is going to really piss off the Lakers. 

First of all, the Lakers have the most competitive person in the game in Kobe Bryant who is coming off a sub par performance where he had an average 14-31 field goal percentage. The last time Kobe had that bad of a performance with that many shots in a loss was game three in the first round against the Jazz where he shot 5-24 and the Lakers were handed their one loss of the series. 

Do we all remember how Kobe played the next game? A solid 38 points going 16-24 from the floor in a win on the road in Utah. Now, Houston is a much better team than the Jazz, especially on the defensive end of the floor. But I know for a fact that Kobe will come out very aggressive and will be hitting the same shots he was missing Monday night. 

But it is not just Kobe who is going to come out determined to tie this series up, the whole Lakers team is going to be ready to battle it out with the likes of Ron Artest and Yao Ming. When a great team has an off game (and the Lakers did have a putrid game even if it didn't totally seem like it going 2-18 from 3-point land), they always come back even hungrier and more focused than before. That's why the Lakers haven't lost more than two games in a row this season and it's because when they have an off game they wake up from their trance and bounce back to form. 

But back to Monday's game, Pau was missing 15 footers that he always makes, Ariza was missing wide open threes that he was hitting just last week, and Fisher was airballing from behind the arc as if he were Smush Parker instead of a three time NBA champ. Not to mention Lamar was playing as horribly as ever until the end of the game. Although for the opposing team, even though Yao, Artest and Aaron Brooks played extremely well, I didn't think they played as best as they could either to be quite honest. 

Though this is not of concern because the Lakers are just hands down the better team, and they need to and will execute the game the way they want to play from now on. I believe this was that one game that is going to light a fire underneath them and cause them to go on a tear the rest of the playoffs.

The reason I'm so sure of this is because as a Laker fan after game one, I was so distraught, disappointed and frustrated about how we played and lost the game that I wanted to practice my shot all night long and beat the living crap out of Ron Artest and the rest of the Rockets. And I'm not even the one wearing a gold and purple jersey.

So just imagine how the most competitive player in the game who is absolutely itching to win another championship (if you don't believe me check this article out: http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=4068270), a nine time NBA championship coach, and a group of guys who just last year lost to a rival in Boston by 39 points in the deciding game of the NBA Finals feel after losing a game one to a 53 win team. Lakers in five.