Will the Sacramento Kings make it to the NBA Finals to give Chris Webber and Mike Bibby a shot at the rings, or will the Los Angeles Lakers continue in their quest to three-peat?  These are only two of the questions which will be revealed later tonight.

But some are questioning whether it should have even got to this point.  Did the officials really prevent the Kings taking Game 6 or is this just another element of the ?Lakers against the world? attitude many seem to possess?  If you look closely the former may have a point.  It is hard to deny that both Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O?Neal got some soft calls in Game 6, a fact that the free throw attempts supported.  Los Angeles shot 27 free throws in the fourth quarter alone.  

The Kings, meanwhile, could not buy a foul even when point guard Mike Bibby took a shot in the nose from Kobe Bryant late in the fourth quarter with the game still in balance.  The Kings were forced to take a timeout after the incident just to keep Bibby on the court while Bryant again ventured to the line to put another nail into the Kings coffin.

"We've played, what, six games?" Vlade Divac said. "We've lost one because they were better. We won this one. It's just not on paper."

"I'm not going to say what I really feel. I'll get fined. I'll keep my opinions to myself," added Chris Webber, referring to the fact that the Sacramento frontline ?out fouled? Shaq by a margin of 27 to 4.

To be fair we must look objectively at both sides.  While it is true that the Lakers went to the line more times than the Kings, but it is also true that the Kings had no one who could stop or slow superstar Shaquille O?Neal.  Shaq finished the game with a dominating 41 points and 17 rebounds, playing without the foul trouble which had hampered him in previous games throughout the series.

"They have to play me to so-call stop me," he said after the Lakers' practice. "There is no playing me the correct defensive way. We went to the line 27 times in the fourth quarter. We're supposed to go to the line 27 times in the fourth quarter."

So it all comes down to this.  We cannot change the past and we certainly cannot look into the future, but we do know that the best two teams in the NBA today are going head to head in a do or die battle which many believe will determine the winner of the 2002 Championship, despite their still being another series against the New Jersey Nets for the winner.

"If you look at the history of the game, and players that have more than two championships, they've won them each a different way," O'Neal said. "So this is just another challenge for us, and we forced a Game 7."

"All respect to Shaq and Kobe, the two best players in the world," Sacramento center Vlade Divac said. "But as a team, we're a better team. And to win the championship, you got to have a team."