After the San Antonio Spurs fell behind in their series against the Memphis Grizzlies, TNT’s Kenny Smith compared the Spurs to Muhammad Ali hoping they had one more fight left in them.
“It’s like watching Muhammad Ali in his last fight. But I hope they have one more rope-a-dope in them because I hate to see the champs lose.”
Unfortunately for San Antonio, they did not have one more rope-a-dope in them and fell to Memphis in six games.
Now as the Los Angeles Lakers are facing a 0-2 deficit to the Dallas Mavericks, Smith sees a similar pattern between the Spurs and Lakers and once again uses a former boxing champ when looking at the Lakers situation:
“Man. I saw Muhammad Ali go down, now I’m about to see Mike Tyson in his prime (go down). The difference between the Spurs and the Lakers is that the Lakers have about three or four guys that are still in their prime.”
Indeed the Lakers do have players in their prime but it seems the Lakers’ struggles might be due to team trust issues as Andrew Bynum alluded and the sub-par performance by Pau Gasol in the playoffs.
