Gazing into our crystal ball

The Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs tip off the Western Conference Finals tonight at Staples Center (no Amy Lawrence, they’re not moving it to The Forum).

The Lakers and Spurs, who have combined to win seven of the previous nine championships, split the regular-season series 2-2 with each team winning on its home floor (the Lakers have home court in this one).

The WCBias.com crew is also split when it comes to picking the playoff series between the two West rivals. Here’s how we see the series in our convoluted crystal balls:

GSlim: Lakers in 6. Kobe is too good, Gasol too long, and Duncan too old.

Ryantific: Lakers in 7. It will be a battle but this will come down to two things, Lamar Odom can't be guarded by the Spurs and the young legs of the Lakers bench.

BG: Spurs in 6, a) to be different b) until they actually lose, they are the team to beat. However, if Stern decides to spring Donahey out of prison so he can blow some whistles in LA's favor in Game 7 to avoid another awful Pistons-Spurs Finals matchup, then I reserve the right to switch my pick.

BSlim: Spurs in 7. My wife is a huge Spurs fan, her cat is named Duncan and the dog named Ginobili. If I don’t go with the Spurs, I’m sleeping on the couch with Manu. Like BG, I reserve the right to change my pick if Joey Crawford is wearing stripes.

Tale of the Tape (regular-season stats):

	SPURS	LAKERS
PPG	95.4	108.6
RPG	41.3	44.1
APG	21.0	24.4
FG%	45.735	47.639
FT%	76.099	76.916
3PT%	.369	.378