Mike Bresnahan’s takes on the Lakers

Mike Bresnahan covers the Lakers for The Times and ties up loose ends on the day of his designated “Lakers game of the week.” The Lakers play tonight at San Antonio.

I’ve felt embarrassed plenty of times in my life, most recently on Saturday night when I ran into this woman I really liked a few years ago, got excited when I saw her at a Manhattan Beach establishment, only to see she was all over some dude with bad breath and a Santa belly.

Happens all the time to me.

Six months ago, there was my humiliating fling with the San Antonio Spurs.

After they got Richard Jefferson from the Milwaukee Bucks for next to nothing, I told the Times’ basketball editor that they were the team that would threaten the Lakers in the Western Conference.

So what did they do this season? Started out 9-9 and looked old, tired and injured. Great.

Don’t look now, but the Spurs are 22-13 and rising quickly in the West. Maybe I’ll be right this time. I can feel the momentum surging, the confidence brimming. No mountain is too tall to climb! Now if only I can run into that woman again . . . yeah, right.

Q&A of the day

Q: My dad has two courtside tickets to Lakers-Bobcats on Feb 3. He has to use one because they were given to him by someone, and he has one left to give.

He knows that my obsession with the Lakers is deep rooted and borderline worthy of seeing a psychiatrist. I watch every game I can, read every piece of literature the Internet has to offer on the team, allowing my work and personal relationships to suffer as a result, and I stalk the beat writer. [Bresnahan’s note: He really does.]

I’ve broken a TV because of a turnover in a regular-season game, left weddings early to watch playoff games, left my best friend’s engagement party to watch the Lakers-Hornets regular-season game in 2007, etc, etc.

Yet my dad has decided to take my sister to the [Lakers-Bobcats] game. Should I be upset about missing out on the Laker game, or worried that my dad doesn’t love me? I’m definitely more upset about the game.

-- Ankur Desai A: This is the type of thing that can drive a wedge in a family. Those courtside seats are each $2,600. Fight hard, Ankur! Fight hard!

Final thought

Record in weekly picks: 8-3

Finally got back on track last week, correctly picking the Lakers to lose in Portland (like that’s hard).

Unlike Portland, which has clobbered the Lakers nine straight times up there, San Antonio hasn’t been as mystifying. The Lakers are 3-3 in their last six trips there.

Call me crazy for doing this after watching Kobe Bryant’s dismal four-for-21 effort against Milwaukee, when it looked like he was shooting at those too-tight rims at amusement parks and carnivals, but I’m taking the Lakers tonight.

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

twitter.com/Mike_Bresnahan