On Tuesday the Lakers put it all on the line. And I am not even
specifically addressing the season that ends if Los Angeles loses to
Boston at the Garden. No, the stakes I'm talking are even bigger: If
the L.A. doesn’t get the upset win in Game Six, I’ll eat a bug.

The Cal Worthington-esque vow came about Sunday in Venice, after watching Turkey’s thrilling comeback
win over the Czech Republic in Euro football action. The fam was all
gathered ‘round, and I just blurted it out. No one, excepting my older
son, had been feeling my assurances that the Lakers weren’t finished in
the wake of  Thursday’s historic meltdown. And I really needed to be heard.

I will keep my word, but I really don’t see myself snacking on an insect tomorrow night. And, oddly enough, none of my confidence has to do with the prospect of game fixing.
No. I simply believe the Lakers have outplayed the Celtics throughout
the series. My take on L.A., based on watching about three-quarters of
the team’s games this season, is that they are intellectual and finesse
oriented, as opposed to tenacious and tough. The Lakers, the NBA's
second-youngest team and most experts’ championship favorite for 2009,
tend to watch a bit of basketball before dissecting their opponents.
And that’s what had been happening in this series, before letting up on
the gas upended my guys on Thursday night.

In the process,
Kobe’s teammates have done a lot of growing up. Pau Gasol, a paragon of
European wimpiness throughout this series, showed his nuggets late in
the second half of Sunday night's win.
He began aggressively attacking the basket, punishing a foul-plagued
and injury-depleted Boston front line. Up until that point, the
much-heralded center had been a blemish on his home country Spain’s
name. Chickenshit. Chickenshit. Chickenshit. (To be fair, as a member
of the woeful Memphis Grizzlies Gasol had little idea what a meaningful
game looked or felt like.)

As on Thursday, Phil Jackson’s
charges took a big first-half league, then lost it. Again much of the
responsibility for the evaporation of points fell to Phil himself: He
added in the mix infrequent performers Trevor Ariza and Chris Mihm, who
fouled and missed shots and generally appeared confused. I think
Jackson played these cats as preparation for the upcoming Boston
contest(s). (Boston leads 3-2. No team has ever come back from a 3-1
deficit, which LA faced going in to Sunday's contest.  And no vistor
has ever won the last two games of a Finals played in the 2-3-2
format.) Kendrick Perkins — who would return to the line-up for Game
Seven — has intimidated Gasol and Ronny Turiaf. Mihm is the only player
on L.A.’s bench with a skill set approximating the defensive-minded
Perkins or even ancient mudder P.J. Brown. And Ariza is a stopper of the sort that’s in small supply in La-La Land.

So,
no, I am not looking up recipes for insects, either chocolate covered
or sautéed. And I’m not trying to find out what bugs go down best.
After all, I never said the crawler gets chomped on if the Lakers win the whole thing in Boston, which I feel in my gut they will. I only need Tuesday.