The Official Los Angeles Lakers thread

[LAKERS_FAN89]

Lakers vs Spurs highlight video

[Doggystylin]

I don't know, he could be good but I'd imagine he would take a fat shit on the Lakers current chemistry, plus we need a playmaker/3point shooter at PG not another scorer

[Stone Cold is Bout It, Bout It]

Lakers vs Spurs highlight video

Better Quality   

Highlight Mix: Spurs @ Lakers - 12/10/06

http://www.sendspace.com/file/8mx3s2

Song: Jay-Z - Oh My God

[rik]

Lakers looking tough enough

LOS ANGELES -- No more wondering and doubting. No more pointing to the soft early-season schedule. No more poking holes and poking fun.
You can write it down: The Lakers can play. The Lakers are good.

And more than that, the Lakers are tough.

You heard right. Not slick, not pretty. Tough.

No less a stalwart than Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said so after his boys, who don't ever get pushed around, were manhandled in a 106-99 Los Angeles win Sunday night. "Their pressure really got us on our heels," he said. "We absolutely folded under their pressure."

Down 48-46 at halftime, the Lakers might have been the ones who folded, might have been the ones who figured they couldn't hang with a San Antonio team that seems capable, night in and night out, of doing anything and everything it takes to win. But instead, Los Angeles dialed it up, on both ends of the floor.

The third-quarter offensive numbers were impressive: 37 points, nine assists, three 3s and 62.5 percent field-goal shooting. But it was the Lakers' defense, scrapping, slapping and fighting, that made those numbers possible. They contested even the most perfunctory entry passes and gimme shots.

Smush Parker grabbed a Tony Parker lob almost before it left his hand and before you know it the ball is headed the other way for a Luke Walton 3-point play. Walton stripped Bruce Bowen in the lane and Lamar Odom picked up the loose ball and fired ahead to Kobe Bryant for a right-handed jam. Bryant stole a back-cut pass intended for Beno Udrih and ran down the floor and flicked it to Parker in the corner, who found Odom at the top of the key for an easy-as-you-please 3-pointer.

And so it went, stop after stop, transition bucket after transition bucket, and gut check after gut check; a 22-3 smackdown to go up 83-70 (a lead they would never relinquish) by the end of the third quarter.

"To beat a team like San Antonio it has to come from the defense for us," Walton said afterward. "We have guys who want to win and guys who want to play defense to make it happen."

Notice he said "guys," plural.

Kobe was his superstar self, coming up 34-point big (on a bum ankle and 13-for-25 shooting, including 4-for-5 from beyond the arc), and the crowd loved him for it, chanting "MVP! MVP!" as the game clock wound down in the fourth. But the Staples Center faithful reached a fever pitch in the third, loving every rough-hewn minute of the Lakers' defensive clinic, feeding off the collective intensity the players brought to each possession. The fans sensed they were seeing something, some kind of promise they can count on down the road, some new thing that doesn't just begin and end with No. 24.

All five Lakers starters were in double figures. Odom pulled down 11 boards. Kwame Brown blocked two, grabbed five and dished out three. Walton was 7-for-15 and was aggressive going for loose balls and open looks alike. Everybody got some. Everybody sold out. Everybody pushed.

"Everyone had each other's backs tonight," Walton said, still grinning from the feeling of it. "I knew it was in this team." In this team to be a team. In this team to D up. In this team to band together and put a very good team down. Decisively.

"This did a lot for our confidence," Brown said, moments after a crowd of reporters left his locker Sunday night. "We're taking pride as a team and in playing as a team. We know this is Kobe's team, but guys like me and Luke, we have to step up and take pressure off of him if we're going to go far."

It's too early to say how far they'll go, but it's not too early to say they look right now like a legitimate playoff club, with a capital T in Team. Last year they were Bryant and a bunch of backup singers, but this year's show is something else again, something more complete and something tougher to beat.

"They are much improved over last year on a variety of levels and they are just going to keep getting better," Popovich said.

There will be nights when Kobe carries this team by himself. There will be nights Lamar presses instead of letting the offense come to him as he did Sunday (he finished just one assist shy of a triple-double). There will be nights Andrew Bynum (3-for-4 from the field and one big tone-setting block of Tim Duncan) plays more timidly than he did against the Spurs. And there will be nights the reserves (who Phil Jackson called "inspirational" in his postgame press conference) struggle to make a difference.

But this defense, this growing possibility that it will define them (Staples was rocking with the call of "Dee-fense! Dee-fense!" throughout much of the second half Sunday), will, if they stay tough and true to it, carry them a long way, farther than we guessed at the beginning of the season.

It carries them now to Texas, to games with Houston and Dallas.

Talk about tough.

"We're going to see what we're made of," Brown said with a little smile Sunday, like they were eager for the chance to man-up


http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dailydime-061211a

[Stone Cold is Bout It, Bout It]

noooooooooooooo!!!! Lamar hurt his knee....he went to the hospital  ...hopefully everything is okay with him.

[LAKERS_FAN89]

Lakers vs Spurs highlight video

Better Quality   

Highlight Mix: Spurs @ Lakers - 12/10/06

http://www.sendspace.com/file/8mx3s2

Song: Jay-Z - Oh My God

yea yea

[GangstaBoogy]

damn i hope L.O. is alright. we have some tough games ahead, they're gonna be even tougher without him.

[LAKERS_FAN89]

yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa LAKERS up by 20

[wcsoldier]

damn i hope L.O. is alright. we have some tough games ahead, they're gonna be even tougher without him.

obviously, he won't play tomorrow against the Mavs... Lamar always does a good D job against Dirk... if I were Phil, I'd would start Ronnie to defend on him

[GangstaBoogy]

oh shiet, Kobe is 3 rebounds and 3 assist from a triple double. 8 minutes to go? DO IT KOBE!

[rik]

damn i hope L.O. is alright. we have some tough games ahead, they're gonna be even tougher without him.

obviously, he won't play tomorrow against the Mavs... Lamar always does a good D job against Dirk... if I were Phil, I'd would start Ronnie to defend on him

Vlad Rad is probably gonna start.

[Stone Cold is Bout It, Bout It]

wow! we better not lose this game 

[GangstaBoogy]

Wow Kobe goes to the bench and the lead gets cut from 20 to 7.

[wcsoldier]

WTF is this 4th quarter  ... Fortunately Kwame was on the offensive board

[GangstaBoogy]

Great performance by Kobe. 23 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assist, 1 steal. I don't like he closed the 4th quarter thought. He took some bad shots. The rest of the team needs to step up when he's on the bench.