Sit Down and Enjoy Lakers’ Ride

What is more volatile? The stock market of the last month or so or the Lakers during the playoffs?

JOANNE GAMLIN

Santa Monica

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So in the end, despite all of the inane declarations of Bonespur Bill Walton and Doug “Look, Shaw took three steps from the bench” Collins, the secret strategy to winning the Portland series was: Make your shots.

JAMES REPKA

Laguna Beach

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Until the fourth quarter Sunday I was happily watching my television until it began to exude a strange odor. The Portland Trail Blazers began to miss too many easy shots and were committing too many unnecessary fouls. My first thought was “the Chicago Black Sox.” My second thought was that can’t be, because these are among the highest-paid people in sports.

The third thought is a question: Is there someone, somewhere, a person or organization of real power, that did not want Portland to win that game? It seems to me that the powers did not want a championship series between small-market teams, and Indiana had already beaten New York.

Certainly, this idea is not supported by any fact other than sometimes things do get changed around to benefit the most powerful.

JOHN D. ANDREWS

Palos Verdes

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After Game 7 was over, I felt strangely deflated and cheated by a referee’s call against Arvydas Sabonis for a phantom sixth foul against Shaquille O’Neal. Taking Sabonis out of the game sealed the victory for the Lakers, one reminiscent of “The Long Count” in the notorious world of boxing, or even worse, the World Wrestling Federation. No L.A. Times sportswriter mentioned the significance of Sabonis and his huge absence as an offensive and defensive threat. No one mentioned this particular highly questionable foul among many questionable calls or lack thereof.

Was it a business decision based on the overriding entertainment value of the Lakers in the nation’s [second-] largest market over the mini-market of Portland and the ensuing lack of appeal of a Blazer-Pacer matchup? Was it because Sabonis is Russian [he’s actually Lithuanian]?

The look of glee on the face of Shaquille, Kobe and the rest of the Lakers was genuine. Unfortunately, nobody turned the cameras on the faces of the officials who took the sport out of the game.

BRUCE DANIELS

Running Springs

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Kudos to Gina Ferazzi for her spectacular photograph on the front page of the sports section on Monday morning. I stared at that picture for a full 10 minutes and could just hear the Staples Center crowd going absolutely bananas.

If ever a picture was worth more than a thousand words, it’s this one.

GREG GARNET

Canoga Park

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It was great to hear the tremendous crowd noise during the Lakers’ big comeback in Game 7 against Portland. Of course, the fans can’t take all the credit. Part of it was Scottie Pippen screaming, “Where’s Michael?”

ROB OSBORNE

Redondo Beach

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If the Lakers go on to win a championship this year, will Phil Jackson put an asterisk next to this season because Tim Duncan was injured?

ADAM PLATTS

Northridge

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The good news is the Knicks were eliminated from the playoffs. The bad news is that Spike Lee will start making movies again.

RAY LASKA

Los Angeles