The Human Victory Cigar

If I ever update my top ten basketball player names with nicknames, Darko "The Human Victory Cigar" Milicic will surely top the list.

I can't believe I was cheering for the Lakers. I think I got sucked into that whole "Mailman gets his ring" story line. After a while you just expect the Lakers' famous fourth-quarter miracle (flipping the switch, as we now call it). And since they've coasted through series with the Trailblazers, Kings and Spurs only to win them with one dominant quarter--well it doesn't seem totally mind-boggling (or it didn't anyway) that they would do it with the Pistons, too.

But the Pistons play gritty basketball. At one point in game four, when the Lakers were down five (five!), I turned to my step-dad and said with some exasperation: "do you know how hard it is to score five points in this game?" It's the reverse of the Kings-Mavs problem of two years ago: either one of those teams could make up a six-point deficit in under 30 seconds. No lead was safe until the very end of the game.

With the Pistons, a five-point gap with 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter seems insurmountable. And when they put Darko in, you know it's over.