Lakers-Celtics

It's the matchup the hater in me was dreading. Already the hiatus is filling with stuff about the top ten moments in Lakers-Celtics history and hearing how "Meaning no disrespect to 28 other teams, thanks for getting out of the way." But the good news is that we have a scenario where I think it's pretty clear that L.A. is the superior team, but they're not wildly superior and Boston has home court since the Lakers played much of the season without their current roster. Consequently, I think the outcome's genuinely in doubt. I'd give the edge to L.A. but I'm surprised to see nine out of ten ESPN.com people agreeing with that since my level of confidence in that pick is pretty low.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/06/lakers-celtics/45175/