For the basketball Kings, who open a unique playoff doubleheader at the palace in downtown LA against the favored Lakers, the game takes its most artistic form when they ignore conventional dogma, hurl caution to the wind and shoot from the hip. Their only realistic shot at throwing off the Shaqles of domination by the reigning champions is by turning it into a track meet with furious movement of bodies and ball. The Kings have the weaponry to do this if they'll shed the foolish notion of playing the Lakers' game with their mini-Shaq, Chris Webber. Co. In a sense, then, the best thing that can happen to the Lakers is for Webber to get hot early and the Kings to zero in on him as their go-to guy, abandoning all those other weapons. If, however, the Kings get big contributions from deadly Stojakovic, wise Vlade Divac, spectacular J-Will, athletic Doug Christie and valued bench men Scot Pollard, Bobby Jackson and Hedo Turkoglu, they can press the Lakers to the limit and make their antagonist, Phil Jackson, sweat Zen bullets.
Balance is everything, in basketball and in life.
This comes not from Sartre but from another deep thinker, John R. Wooden, the fundamentalist from Westwood. The Lakers are flourishing largely because they have figured out how to weave all their quirky elements into a natural fabric. The onus always seems to fall on Kobe Bryant, as if it's entirely up to the young man to determine whether others get involved and play to their potential. When he was taking more shots than usual in the season's first half, he was reacting to circumstances. Now that the Big Aristotle is in condition and Fox, Grant and Fisher are confident and healthy, Bryant no longer must take over games for long stretches for his team to compete.