Are the Atlanta Hawks and the Los Angeles Lakers disrespecting the game of basketball?As a bettor you have to at least think maybe.
If you’ve watched the Hawks and the Lakers in the playoffs in the past two years you might know what I’m talking about. Whenever the Hawks or Lakers play against a team that they should beat fairly easily they always seem to be on some bullshit.
Last year, the Lakers took seven games to beat the Houston Rockets. Dumbass bettors like myself were thinking sweep and ended up cursing the TV screen after watching the Lakers fuck the dog on the road. It’s the same deal with the Lakers this year. They cool cat it on the road, knowing they can turn it up at home. You can’t tell me the Lakers are giving it their all on the road when they are getting drummed by 20 and Kobe Bryant isn’t putting up a shot in the first quarter. All he does is put up shots, it doesn’t make sense. It especially doesn’t make any sense when they go home and blow the same team out by 30. Home court advantage is big, it’s not that big.
And then there’s the Atlanta Hawks. At best, the Bucks should win one game in this series without their center Bogut in the lineup. Instead, the Hawks looked like they didn’t even make the flight to Milwaukee as they dropped two games in a row that really weren’t even close. I felt like putting my foot through the TV screen, but then I remembered, Josh Smith doesn’t live in my TV screen.
What upsets me is not only am I losing my bets, which upsets me the most, but in the bigger picture, when teams do this, I feel like they are disrespecting the game. If a team can beat another team in four games, it should happen, you can’t hot dog it knowing that you can always win at home, that’s disrespecting the game of basketball. Jordan’s Bulls never did that. True competitive teams don’t do that. People wonder why there’s no more dynasties in the NBA anymore, well this is one of the reasons. You can’t be a true champion when you take days off. Out of pure spite, I am now hoping the Lakers and the Hawks get upset. They won’t, but if they did all would be right in my world again.
Here’s what could happen though if the Lakers meet the Cavs in the Finals. Having being used to dogging it on the road, they come up short to the Cavs who happen to have home court advantage. I wonder what everyone will say then, “The Lakers never learned to win on the road in the playoffs” that’s what they’ll say, and I’ll say “that’s what you get for disrespecting the game and costing me on my bets!”
