Team 'tude: the Lakers might not be as good as they were the past three seasons, but they have rediscovered a swagger the Spurs know all too well.(Los Angeles Lakers; San Antonio Spurs)

It was not until Game 5 of the first round of these NBA playoffs that Lakers Pooh-Bah Phil Jackson finally saw something that made him comfortable. The first four games of the post-season trek seemed to follow no script, at least not one familiar to Tinseltown's team. In those games, Minnesota used the two magic beans associated with beating the Lakers--fullcourt pressure defense to disrupt the triangle offense, and pick-and-roll offense to fluster point guard Derek Fisher and draw behemoth center Shaquille O'Neal out of his comfort zone--to render the three-time, defending champs into some unfamiliar group of chumps. Savvy small forward Rick Fox was injured, megastar Kobe ...