You’re playing and you think everything is going fine. Then one thing
goes wrong. And then another. And another. You try to fight back, but
the harder you fight, the deeper you sink. Until you can’t move… you
can’t breathe… because you’re in over your head. Like quicksand.
                                                 – Keanu Reeves as “Shane Falco”

If you’ve never seen The Replacements, then shame on you,
sports fan. Shame! Yes, the movie was about football, but the concept
behind that quote rings true for all sports.

Never did the defending two-time champion Lakers think their season
would end in Dallas. They definitely didn’t expect to be on the
receiving end of an enthusiastic broom handle. But that’s exactly what
happened.

There are no cliches about who wants it more, or who showed more
heart. It’s about execution. And that’s something the Lakers failed to
do throughout this entire series.

Ron Artest’s failure to score on a fastbreak sums up the Lakers’
performance in the most concise package imaginable. We could describe
the play step-by-step, but there’s no poetry in the end result. The
Lakers came up short.