Speaking to reporters the other day in the heat of another classic Did-Shaq-Just-Dis-Me? moment, Philadelphia center Dikembe Mutombo explained the whole series of caustic exchanges between the centers by intoning, "This is war."

Actually, this is basketball, but thanks for weighing in. And as the rest of the players in the Lakers-Sixers series climb into their chauffeur-driven lives and speed away from the scene, this seems like the proper moment to ask: Isn't it time for a new analogy paradigm in sport?

The important thing here, obviously, is to make a stand, to win the battle in the trenches, to parachute into the fray and lay it all on the line. If we're going to emerge victorious, we've got to fashion an effective counter-attack on this battle-weary war theme.

Let's face it: The war thing's been done to death. A baseball game is a strategic battle, an NFL team launches an aerial assault, an NBA guard really attacks from the perimeter -- stop me before I get an itchy trigger finger.

In football, it is possible to throw a bomb, which is caught by a warrior, who is tackled by a defender, who really played the good soldier and took one for his unit, which brings us to a crucial sequence and quite possibly directly to the brink. The preceding message brought to you by "Pearl Harbor."

(Anyone else notice that the kids playing baseball at the outset of the Japanese attack in "Pearl Harbor" appeared absolutely flummoxed upon looking skyward and seeing the warplanes flying overhead? Just a guess, but this muddled confusion might have had to do with the fact that the actual attack began at roughly 7:55 on a Sunday morning. Tough start times on those Little League games in Hawaii.)

The important thing here, obviously, is to make a stand, to win the battle in the trenches, to parachute into the fray and lay it all on the line. If we're going to emerge victorious, we've got to fashion an effective counter-attack on this battle-weary war theme.

And, frankly, we're in fabulous luck. There are actually several new realities through which to focus the prism of the sports experience. All you need is a little imagination, and, preferably, a new set of cliche flash-cards before you climb into the broadcaster's booth, step before the interviewers' cameras or jump behind the wheel of the sportswriter's laptop.