Lakernoise

Magic Johnson raised the issue Friday. Asked about the nature of modern competition in the NBA, he pointed to the Lakers and Nuggets.
“It’s obvious that those are two teams that do not like each other,” said Johnson, the former Laker great who owns a minority percentage of the team yet also doubles as a TV analyst.
Such old-school dislike is a good thing for the state of the leauge, Johnson said, adding that teams shouldn’t be too lovey-dovey.
He recalled that back in the day he really didn’t want to be friends with players on the other teams, didn’t want to waste a lot of time shaking hands. The Lakers wanted to beat their opponents every night, and beat them badly.
The idea, of course, is not to leave any room whatsoever for the opponents to feel good about themselves after the showdown.
Asked about the nature of the relationship, Nuggets coach George Karl smiled wryly. You get a good win over the Lakers, as his team did recently, and suddenly things get testy, he observed.
Teams should have attitudes against the Lakers, Karl said, because “the Lakers have won a lot of games over the years, beat up on a lot of people.”
He agreed with Johnson that the uncivil atmosphere is good for the sport, and it’s good for the Nuggets.
It certainly signals that his Denver club is maturing into a contender, a process that began with the arrival of point guard Chauncey Billups early last season.
“We needed to step up and meet the challenge,” Karl said.
Games with the Nuggets are exceedingly physical, Lakers center Pau Gasol acknowledged, but they should be because there’s so much at stake.
Gasol acknowledged the obvious, that the season-long series between the teams and any potential playoff showdown will come down to rebounding.
Behind Gasol’s improved rebounding effort and numbers this season, the Lakers are prospering. So other teams will follow the Nuggets lead in taking the fight there.
Nuggets point guard Chauncey Billups said the Lakers are so good at moving and scoring and pushing the agenda that the only way you can challenge them is to come at them with multiple scorers, to win the battle of the boards and not let them get those second shots that are so important to the L.A. cause.
“That’s something we’ve been able to do,” Billups said.
That requires physical play and focus, Billups said, but it doesn’t mean that hatred is the ruling emotion.
Johnson’s comment obviously annoyed the Nuggets Carmelo Anthony. If teams start to challenge the Lakers, then they’re somehow viewed as dirty, or too physical, he said.
“We’re just trying to win ball games,” Anthony said.
At the very least, the challenge is a sign of a growing mentality in Denver. The Nuggets are determined to go at the Lakers. Denver’s clubs may have been somewhat weak-minded in the past. But that’s no longer the case these days.
So, yeah, Billups said, if Johnson is pointing out that a little old-fashioned dislike is a good thing, then it is good for the league. And it’s certainly good for the Nuggets.

Roland Lazenby is the author of Jerry West, The Life And Legend Of A Basketball Icon, set to be released by ESPN Books Feb. 23.