outrageous claims about the NBA playoffs.

• ray allen's career is quickly fading as many great shooters' careers have: see mitch richmond, glen rice, etc. those guys jumped the shark in a relatively short period of time, but were able to pick up rings along the way. is allen the next guy in that category?
• lakers fans want to claim that derek fisher put the clamps on deron williams. wrong, wrong, wrong, especially if you saw games 3, 4, and 5. fisher won't stop tony parker either, but it's not his fault, nobody is able to. now, if you want to tell me that lamar odom has been a lockdown defender in these playoffs, i'm listening.
• it's go time for pau gasol. he is the key to this lakers/spurs series. duncan has always been better than him. he needs to answer. his time is now.
• look for radmanovic to cause the spurs some problems. i don't think they want oberto or duncan out on the perimeter.
• flip saunders has fallen into the "experience trap," and it might cost detroit in some valuable moments in the series. guys like theo ratliff and lindsey hunter are just too limited offensively to help a team that already has problems scoring. detroit would do well to put jarvis hayes and afflalo in a little bit more often.