Lakers not bad, but . . .

Now that kind of game is why it can be fun to watch the NBA! At 1:36 left in the fourth -- after delivering several really stupid and unnecessary fouls -- the Lakers were down by 12 to the Houston Rockets. By the time the clock was down to :24-something, they were down by two. Then they got a steal and actually tied the game (Fisher's foot just inside the 3-point arc). I cracked open another beer and settled in to enjoy overtime, when Shane Battier on the Rockets made an impossibly long 3-point shot! The Lakes had time for the old get-fouled-make-the-first-miss-the-second-to a-teammate-who-converts play, but of course it didn't work.

I remember, it must have been six years or so ago, I drove from Atlanta to California (bringing my son's first car) and made sure I stopped in Memphis, where I had not been before. Saw Graceland, of course, and spent several hours on Beale Street. They've done a reasonable job of preservation. Anyway, I talked for a while to a panhandler who called himself the Mayor of Beale Street, and we discussed Shane Battier, whom the Memphis Grizzlies had just drafted. We both figured he would be a good solid NBA player if not a superstar. I don't think he realized his potential at Memphis, but on the strength of this first game he might be on the way to doing so with Houston.