ERIC GILMORE: TIMES COLUMNIST
Warriors weren't prime for 'Showtime'
Contra Costa Times
Article Launched: 05/01/2008
Quick hits while we gauge the Warriors' pain and look under the big top of
that circus known as Stanford men's basketball.
The "We Believe" crowd had to be hurting when their Warriors just missed
the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, which went to
the Denver Nuggets.
But watching the Los Angeles Lakers and Kobe Bryant jackhammer the Nuggets
four games to nil may have eased their pain a bit. No, not because the
Nuggets got destroyed by an average of 13 points per game and let Kobe go
off for 49 points in Game 2. This has nothing to do with revenge.
It's just that the Warriors, with their late-season flop, avoided what
likely would have been a similar fate. Maybe the Warriors would have won a
game or possibly two against the Lakers. But that's about it.
The big, athletic Lakers would have been a horrible matchup for the
Warriors, an undersized team that was running on fumes by the end of the
season, a team that lost to Denver 114-105 at home in a stretch-run game
it
had to win.
[non-Warriors' stuff snipped]
