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1. Why is Stephon Marbury taking Tony Parker's lunch money?
Tony Parker boosted his scoring average from 9.2 on 42 percent shooting last season to 15.2 on 46 percent shooting this season, but he didn't improve enough to outplay Phoenix point guard Stephon Marbury. The Suns beat the Spurs this year, three games to one, as Phoenix point guard Stephon Marbury averaged 32.5 points and 8.7 assists per head-to-head match on 53.7 percent shooting compared to Parker's 10.2 points and five assists on 29 percent shooting. Anyone for Dominos?

2. Is Chris Webber afraid of mice?
The virile Sacramento Kings have outscored the venerable Utah Jazz seven of nine times in the last 12 months but have yet to beat them once. In last year's first-round matchup, the Kings scored 356 points. The Jazz scored 352. The regular-season champs advanced after Vlade Divac picked up a loose ball behind the three-point line late in the fourth quarter of Game 4 and heaved it in before the shot clock sounded and all anyone can remember is Mike Bibby hitting jumpers against the Lakers four weeks after the fact. The Kings then beat the Jazz, 98-96, in their first meeting this year. Utah won the second game, 102-92, while the third one went into overtime. Karl Malone and John Stockton played a combined 32 minutes in the final game of the regular season for both teams knowing full well that the difference between bleeding and dying and corners and rats sometimes has nothing and everything to do with the difference between fast-break basketball with no-look around-the-back passes and the traditional two-handed bounce pass out of a textbook pick and roll.

3. Does Phil Jackson know where Saddam Hussein is hiding?
Kobe Bryant needed to score 43 points in the final regular-season game this year to finish at 30 a game. He scored 44. Shaquille O'Neal played 67 games last season, averaging 27.2 points per contest while tuning up for the team's third straight NBA title. This year, he played another 67 games while averaging 27.5. Robert Horry once played for a team that finished sixth during the regular season before going on to win another championship. This year, his team finished fifth. Rick Fox is still goes home to a former Miss America, Derek Fisher still starts as a role player and now, after A.C. Green, Horace Grant and Samake Walker, the Los Angeles Lakers trot out some guy named Mark Madsen at power forward without so much as a snicker or grin while the Kings, Spurs, Mavs, Pacers, Sixers and Nets, not necessarily in that order, insist that the three-time defending champs have no mental edge on the rest of the league. Whoops . . . I just saw Jack Nicholson smile. What do these guys in purple and gold know that they're not telling and does it even matter who they're playing in the first round or that that team hasn't won a playoff series in its franchise history?

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