The best playoff series right now is going on when most people are already asleep.
I'm not talking Wings-Ducks here. The Rockets-Lakers second-rounder has quickly developed into must-see-TV.
Not only are the Rockets offering a strong challenge to the Lakers, the series has become very heated and chippy. The Lakers pulled away in the fourth quarter of Game 2 Wednesday to even the series and there was all kinds of extra-curricular drama.
Rockets forward Luis Scola has not made any friends in L.A. with his physical play. Lamar Odom has been chirping at him and Luke Walton got a technical after giving Scola a piece of his mind. Derek Fisher then got tossed from the game late in the third quarter for leveling Scola with an elbow.
To no one's surprise, Ron Artest is also making headlines for his antics. After getting called for an offensive foul against Kobe Bryant, Artest ran to an official early in the fourth quarter and vehemently pleaded with him that Bryant nailed him with an elbow to the throat. Artest then raced over to Bryant and screamed in his face, resulting in another ejection.
Bryant smugly dismissed the incident afterward as "playoff basketball." Another Artest-Kobe confrontation seems inevitable.
If that wasn't enough, Houston coach Rick Adelman banished one of his players in the middle of all this craziness for insubordination. He told reserve Von Wafer, one of the great names in the game, to go back to the locker room after Wafer argued with him on the bench.
Can't wait to see what happens when the series shifts to Houston this weekend.