The Element of Suprise

Okay, so here we are on Friday, a day after the Lakers lost a very important game but learned a very important lesson. The one thing that stands out about this particular matchup is how much people were expecting the Lakers to trounce Houston. This is way before Mutumbo and Ming even got injured. Everyone pretty much wrote off Houston once they heard they were facing my home town team. Showtime at Staples. It was supposed to be set in stone. This was supposed to be an easy series. The Lakers were supposed to do to Houston what King James (can I say how awesome he is? LOL) have been doing in the East. Steamroll. Sweep the Rockets and send them home to eat Ben and Jerry's in their favorite PJ's or whatever men do when their team is out of the playoffs. But Houston was not having that. Insert visual of Mutumbo's finger wave here. Sure they don't have a Kobe Bryant like we do, so what. Sure they don't have a Pau Gasol. So what. What they do have is three injured top ...