LAL is your "dumbest bet"............... 
clarification please 
On paper, it's a dumb square bet, a burial waiting to happen. The public-friendly Los Angeles Lakers laying points on the road to a Rocket squad that beat them in Game 1 and has fought hard with them all series. Combine that with Fisher being suspended and the reverse line movement, how could I bet on the Lakers in this spot?
Because this is the playoffs, that's why. The reason I love betting on the postseason and have been successful in it is because of the emphasis of intangibles. Motivation, doubt, fear and desperation are the trump cards now, not X's and O's, stats or matchups. And here are the Lakers in a mighty big spot tonight.
The Los Angeles Lakers have three major issues that prevent them from reaching their championship echelon. They are:
1) Break of focus when comfortable
2) De-emphasis on physical toughness
3) Lack of true camaraderie between teammates
And what's the beautiful part of all this? The Fakers have an opportunity to exorcise all those demons at once.
1) L.A. has been prone to mental lapses all season long. Give them a big lead, especially at home, and they'll basically just coast and hope for a win. Sometimes they've gotten away with it, sometimes not. But for them to continue to do this in the postseason is a recipe for disaster. It was Game 4 of the NBA Finals last year that was the turning point of the series where the Lakers blew a double digit lead at home to the Celtics to go down 3-1. But forget about mental breakdowns tonight. Why? Because they will have absolutely no opportunity to do that.
After sleepwalking through the Utah Jazz in the first round, they came out flat in Game 1 against the Rockets while Houston was still flying sky-high after a breakthrough first round win. Kobe said he relished the fact that he was finally tested and it showed after he dropped 40 to lead them to the win. But true to their nature, they had to first blow a double-digit lead in the second quarter before they went on and did that. Can they expect to do that tonight and get a win? A resounding "NO" answers that questions, and the Lakers are fully aware of this fact. This is sink-or-swim for the Lakeshow right here. Without Derek Fisher, their veteran championship-caliber floor leader, and on the road in a hostile environment with the possibility of going down 2-1, everyone on that team knows they have to step up. They know this is not going to be easy, they know they're going to have to fight for a win, they know they cannot let up at any time. And this, my friends, is L.A. at its most dangerous.
This is the most talented squad in the NBA, bar none. Kobe, Gasol, Bynum, Odom. Take away Fisher, they're still the best, by far. The only thing that has stopped them is themselves and luckily for them, there will be no opportunity for their slacker alter-egos to make their way onto the floor tonight. And in the end, would the loss of Fisher really be that big of a deal? He hasn't produced in this series and the opposing Aaron Brooks has ran circles around him thus far. A younger and quicker Jordan Farmar will have something to prove and may actually be the foil to the Rockets point guard.
showtime. lets go lakers!!!!!
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