Due to family obligations, I enter at the opening of the fourth quarter. It appears I haven’t missed much. Big Laker lead hints that this one could already be over.

JVG has just suggested that Phil Jackson close out the game without playing Kobe, as that would make the win more “meaningful.” A side of dumbass with that order, Jeff? Here’s an idea, maybe instead of the Lakers removing critical pieces of their team, your brother just coaches better?

11:27 remaining
Three ball from Reddick gets the Magic to within 14. 78-64.

10:59 remaining
Kobe baseline jumper makes it 80-64.

9:45 remaining
Nelson hits a three. 80-67. The Magic showing life, if "life" can defined as not completely sucking.

8:15 remaining
Kobe nails a three. Lead back to 16. Magic timeout. Jackson: “Bryant knocks down a dagger three.” Jackson knocks down a dagger cliché. Drink.

Bad commercial watch: Transformers playing basketball? Followed by a Transformers sequel trailer. After seeing another movie, my wife and I snuck into the first Transformer movie for five minutes in the theatre, and got simultaneous headaches in two.

7:04 remaining
Ariza throwdown. Laker lead is 18.

6:37 remaining
Mark Jackson and Mike Breen begin the Phil Jackson suck off session, calling him the best ever, etc, etc. Oh, KG why did your knee have to give out? At least when Phil was tied with Red, there was room for “the greatest” ambiguity. With the tendency for the league to tag superlatives to the current players and coaches, he will be called the best ever, bar none. Oh well.

5:50 remaining
Breen says that Kobe was sometimes “not the easiest teammate to play with.” This is a euphemism for “douchebag.” On teams that win, Kobe is quite pleasant and lovely.

4:43 remaining
Dwight has another dunk slapped away. Howard is so deceptive – seemingly powerful, yet so easy to strip down low, even though in this case, he kept the ball high.

2:52 remaining
Reddick drive takes them to within 12.

2:33 remaining
Kobe jumper puts it back to 14.

1:58 remaining
Reddick three takes it to 11. This does not constitute a "duel."

Bad commercial watch: A speedy Kobe puppet fetches sneakers and jerseys for LeBron to prove his rapidity. Has anyone else noticed that the LeBron and Kobe puppets speak in jive, call each other “my brother,” and dance to rap music? Where’s the watermelon and fried chicken? I can just imagine the negotiations with Kobe and LeBron’s agents – “Uhm, yeah, LeBron/Kobe find these commercials offensive, but if you want to pay them a ton of money, just use puppets and go ahead and do whatever you want."

:40.4 remaining
Mark Jackson: “As I watch the Lakers celebrate, I wonder what Shaquille O’Neal is thinking right now.” You don't need to, Mark. Just subscribe to his frickin' Twitter broadcast. I just got a message: "Congrats Kobe. Go to hell, Master of Panic. I'll be at IHOP at 10 A.M. Meet me there and I'll buy you a short stack."

Watching SVG shake hands with Phil, all I can think is "Poor little chubby bastard. He won't be back next year."

Kobe’s daughters are dressed like cheerleaders. Looks a little creepy, but if I were a Laker fan, I suppose I would find it adorable.

Phil seems to look very fragile as he hugs people out there. Is this man ok? They’re talking about him perhaps not returning due to “health issues.” I wonder if we could maybe unearth Red Auerbach’s corpse and have it just be an honorary assistant coach for Doc next year, so that he could maybe catch back up with Phil on the championship count. Am going to nba.com to search for rules on whether coaches must in fact be alive to coach.

Love to hear the “boos” at the intro of David Stern at the Larry O'Brien Trophy presentation. Stern hands it to Joey Bus, who looks like he’s 12 years old, and worse, sounds like it too. What is going on with that retard?

In most of the post-game interviews, they ask about the humiliating loss to the Celtics last year. Amusing. Oh, I hope the purple and gold and the green meet again next year.

Funny to watch Kobe and Phil embrace; these two were ready to meet in WWF Smackdown two years ago. It’s amazing what winning will do.

Congratulations to the 2009 NBA Champion Lakers. I’m not going to say World Champion, because then a whole bunch of Eurotrash is going to post comments about how it’s only the "North American" championship. Whatever.

What a playoffs. From the amazing Boston/Chicago series to this finals, we were always able to count on one thing - that the officiating would suck consistently. And it did. But the best team won anyway.

Here's to a summer of Basketbawful working his ass off to provide posts that entertain throughout the off-season.

Ta ta, y'all.

Labels: 4th quarter, Evil Ted, Game 5, Live blog