Magic, Serena are in and Cavs are way out

The Magic is in, and the Cavs are way out. Serena is in, meaning her usual controversy as well as the fourth round of the French Open. And Venus is out. Interesting enough weekend for you?

The Lakers had to love it. Without Phil Jackson voicing a single complaint, they now have the home-court advantage for the NBA finals.

ABC-TV has to rue it. Kobe vs. LeBron is simply another failed dream.

Tennis has to appreciate it. Serena Williams is what America finds irresistible, an unending drama, the true reality show.

LeBron James is a great basketball player. If he weren’t, the Cavaliers would have been swept by the Orlando Magic, instead of losing the Eastern Conference finals in six games.

What Nike’s going to do now with that commercial of Muppet-like characters representing a dueling LeBron and Kobe is anyone’s guess. What Cleveland’s going to do now that its team, which had the best record of the regular season, laid a dinosaur-sized egg is everyone’s guess.

LeBron leaves for the Knicks when his contract is up in another year. You want to hang around a team that isn’t a team, but just one magnificent player who virtually by himself could win two games in the playoffs but found it impossible to win four?

Venus Williams played, well, about as poorly as the Cavs, losing on Friday to someone you’ve never heard of, Agnes Szavay, 6-0, 6-4. Yes the multiple Grand Slam winner, the No. 3 seed, got bageled, which is what some of the tennis folk call a shutout. Only the 14th time in 662 matches Venus was blanked in a set.

But Serena wasn’t to put up with that nonsense. She not only rumbled back from her usual slow start on Saturday, over there on the clay in Paris, to beat Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 (don’t they have a limit of three names in tennis?), Serena accused Martinez Sanchez of cheating.

Now, there’s a lady you have to like. Enough of this etiquette stuff.

In the first set, Serena smashed a ball at Sanchez, and most people, including Williams but not her opponent, thought the ball never touched Sanchez’s racket but instead banged off her right arm and dropped on Williams side of the net.

Sanchez won the point, even though the rules dictate that if the ball hit her body, the point belonged to Serena.

Serena first apologized for driving the ball at Sanchez, the normal procedure, but then added about the apparent cheating, “I’m going to get you in the locker room for that. You don’t know me.’’

The rest of us do. Serena has the toughness needed to be a champion, the toughness the Cavaliers only wish they had.

The Orlando Magic aren’t a lot of frauds, not with people such as Dwight Howard or Rashard Lewis. But neither are they supposed to be facing the Lakers.

The script was LeBron against Kobe, this year’s MVP against last year’s MVP. Nice try.

Some of the people out there, the reasonable thinkers, had the smarts to point out that teams with one superstar never win championships, that Michael had Scottie, that Kobe had Shaq. LeBron’s cast didn’t provide that balance.

Amazing didn’t happen in Cleveland. Orlando happened in Cleveland. And to Cleveland. Orlando, in truth, was relentless. If it wasn’t for LeBron’s ridiculous shot with no time on the clock in game two, the Magic would have taken four straight games.

The Lakers will not take four straight from Orlando, but they will win another title. After its inability to show anything resembling Serena Williams’ gutsy style in the first few games against the Nuggets, L.A. came through with a vengeance to take the conference title.

You have to believe that the Lakers finally have figured out what is required. And, even with their sometimes listless play against Houston and then Denver, the Lakers did end up winners, which is all that matters.

Kobe seems particularly focused. He’s the man now. Considerable help from Pau Gasol and Trevor Ariza, but Kobe Bryant controls the game. He doesn’t need to share the basketball and for certain he won’t have to share attention.

No LeBron. But a very enticing NBA final. And should Serena continue another few matches, the final of the French Open could be just as enticing.

RealClearSports: Ignore 'Who's Better' Debates and Enjoy NBA Playoffs

By Art Spander

Another one of those unwinnable arguments. Another incessant and illogical need to compare. Another question that can’t be answered but has some people lined up determined to try.

Is LeBron better than Kobe?

Then again, is Kobe better than Michael? Or Michael better than Magic or Larry? Or, even though he played a different game in a different era, is Bill Russell, on the strength of his championships, better than anyone?

I’m going to appreciate every one of them. They were special, they are special. And just because ESPN or some other publication asks for a vote on who’s No. 1, we don’t have to be lulled into the trap and provide a response.

Now, if you ask if LeBron James was fantastic Thursday night, that’s different. Or if Kobe has been fantastic game after game. Or if Dwight Howard and Carmelo Anthony have shown they are among the elite, well, there’s no argument.

Basketball is the ultimate team game, so we dare not forget the other characters in the dramas, Pau Gasol, Chauncey Billups, Mo Williams, people far more than role players.

We’re getting everything we could wish, a postseason that – and yes, I’m breaking my own rule of rejecting comparisons – could be the best ever.

From the Bulls-Celtics series, that had it been the NBA finals and not simply a first-rounder still would have us talking and reflecting, the excitement has come sweeping at us in endless waves. What next?

Take it from someone, me, who has been there, someone who started watching the NBA when Jerry West, “The Logo,’’ was a rookie, 1960, it doesn’t get any better than it has been.

Even Magic-Bird. Even Rick Barry-Elvin Hayes. Even when in 1976 Gar Heard threw in that miracle for the Suns and forced the Celtics to go to triple overtime.

I was down on the NBA for a few years. The play didn’t meet the hype. The game was too programmed, too restricted, great athletes figuratively tethered by coaches who would rather have a wrestling match than a ballet.

But what’s out there now – what we’re witnessing, to expand on the theme of LeBron and the Cavaliers – is compelling theater, must-see theater. The wow factor has taken control. And isn’t that what counts?

If you’re a Lakers fan, a Cavs fan, or a fan of the other two teams still playing as May heads into June, it’s results that matter. For the rest of us, it’s method.

To watch LeBron hit that 3-pointer with time running out in Game 2, to watch the Magic hold off the Cavs with Tiger Woods in the building, to watch Denver attempt the virtually impossible scheme of keeping Kobe Bryant from getting off his jumper, is what sport is all about.

We don’t need Charles Barkley or Kenny Smith to tell us how great these games and players have been. We know. And we’re enthralled. How do the Cavs blow a 22-point lead and still win by 10? How does LeBron keep on running and jumping, shooting and passing?

It’s all worked out perfectly for the two networks, ESPN and TNT, one evening Lakers-Nuggets, the next Cavs-Magic, guaranteed excitement every 24 hours.

It’s all worked out perfectly for us, the sporting public who can’t wait for the next tipoff.

In his famed dictionary of 1755, Samuel Johnson, the Englishman, called sport “tumultuous merriment.’’ A brilliant definition, and surely the last few weeks the NBA playoffs have left us tumultuously merry.

Technical fouls have been called and then rescinded. Mark Cuban, unfortunately, belittled Denver’s Kenyon Martin via e-mail. In L.A., Jack Nicholson, from his $2,500 seat, has cheered the Lakers but given the high sign now and then to their opponents.

The NFL is No. 1 in America, a fact well recognized when this week Sports Illustrated put Tom Brady on its cover. And baseball has history on its side, carrying back to the 19th century. But basketball has found its place, on the tube, in our hearts.

If the play has been a trifle erratic, if it’s hard to figure why the Lakers look so good at home and so bewildering away, that’s only contributed to the excitement. Teams coming unglued. Teams coming back.

We were promised entertainment, and the playoffs have lived up to the promise. Is LeBron better than Kobe? Who cares, as long as they and Carmelo and Dwight are making us gasp and hope these games never end.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.   

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