#8: 11/14 - Detroit Pistons @ LA Lakers. 7:30pm. ESPN

[Kobay]

Kobe's shot was off, but the Pistons were able to focus their defense on the perimeter, it's ol' hat.

You wanna beat the Lakers? Outmuscle Bynum and Gasol, who've been pushed around surprisingly easily. Let Fish and Radmanovic jack up shots.

Overplay Kobe, and challenge him to beat you by himself.

It's the same old story.

A 7-0 start is meaningless, the regular season is meaningless if we don't address some serious (and old) problems on our team. If we're playing for championships, we've got to stop getting caught up in winning streaks and blowouts. It's going to be a different story against Detroit and Boston, let me tell you.

Fish is one-dimensional. Bynum has yet to handle the middle against elite opposition. Gasol tends to fade.

I didn't even watch this game, but Phil said Kwame outplayed Bynum. That is a punch to the gut.

I know Kobe shot 12-30. That's only 40%, not very good. But he actually shot 30 shots, which is a surprise, considering that's more than 10 his average before this game.

The only reason why kobe would shoot this much is if our offense broke down. Bynum and Gasol only took 7 and 11 shots, Fish took 16 and made four. Radmanovic, 1-6 as usual against top competition.

We need to fix this, and fix this early because the problem is not going to go away.

Start Ariza. Start Vujacic.

Or make a trade.

you didn't even watch the game.?lol wow anyway The reason the offense broke down was because Kobe was ballhoggin all game. Bynum wasn't outplayed. We didn't give him enough touches in the post. horrible defense.

We took 93 shots, there were plenty to go around.

[Kobay]

No offense, but im trying to figure out why some of you are so surprised by this loss. As already mentioned, the Pistons have owned the Lakers for the past four years or so, the record is 8-2. While I did think the Lakers were going to win tonight because the Pistons are still trying to gel with Iverson..im not surprised by the Lakers loss either. The Pistons were coming off a back-to-back as well..so they had just as many excuses as some of you are trying to throw out. Its just one loss, but its the way that the Lakers lost against this team is a little nerve racking.

The Lakers are a good team but so are the Pistons (Lakers 7-1, Detroit 7-2). Some of you are talking as if you thought the Pistons were a pick-up team. The scary part is when the Pistons get really used to playing with Iverson and that team starts clicking on all cylinders along with Rip hitting his shots (if Rip was hitting his shots, the Lakers could have lost by 30 pts tonight).. that team is going to be nasty. So im just saying, dont be so hard on your team because you have a good team. Take this loss with a grain of salt, but I hope people understand that just because your team made it to the Finals last year doesnt mean that they are a shoe in this year, and that teams in the East or West are going to just roll over..there are a lot of hungry teams out there, but the Celtics and Pistons both have not been good match ups for the Lakers...they are going to have to figure that out. Good luck on the season, I think the Lakers will do well.

I agree, I think we need a defensive and 3 point shooting SF. We saw every nightmare that happned before. Kobe switching on hot player and the other ones getting guarded by sasha starts scoring, absolute zero spacing aka horrible coaching, absolute softness by gasol. Though defense had alot to do with adjusting to sheed. He really made our zone useless by drawing out a big or just draining open threes, this can only be defended with man to man and we just dont have the personal to stop AI,rip, and prince 1on1
on the floor.

[hermes]

Kwame was on a mission tonight, its his old team and he wanted to show he could play
probably one of the few times he'll look like that

but props to him anyway

bad game, we've had them before and come back, but couldn't do it this time

can't win them all (as much as i'd like us too) but what are you doing to do
just go out and give a better effort next time

[Erik Eleven]

They played well, but the Lakers made them look great.

Nevertheless, nice showing by a rejuvenated Detroit. They looked very inspired and played aggressively for a full 48 minutes. Iverson, Sheed, Prince and Rip is quite a unit. Stuckey can really ball and so can Afflalo. Maxiell has been one of my favorite role players in the league for a while now — he's a beast. They're going to be tougher than I thought. Before Sheed and Iverson go ghetto on the team, maybe they can give the Celtics a serious challenge in the east.

The Lakers went ice cold for 48 minutes. If you miss that many shots, it's going to be a long night defensively. We could rarely set up our defense at all because we were back paddling in transition D all night after easy misses. Good game by Bynum.

Bad game by our point guards. The tempo was in Detroit's favor all game long. Why not recognizing that and taking your time setting up the slow half court offense? They were sagging in the paint all night. Well, well. Can't win them all. I'd like to see the outcome when we're playing well against them.

Revenge list: Detroit.

[Sedale Threatt]

Felt a lot like the Finals to me. A tougher, more physical team popped us in the chest, and we didn't want any part of it.

[DEEP3CL]

This is for Ballin02, I think you've missed the whole point here. Nobody and I mean nobody tried to down grade the Pistons or degrade their win against us. You said we shouldn't be so hard on our team......well bro that's just the way it is here on our board.

Some of you are talking as if you thought the Pistons were a pick-up team.

Nobody here implied that what so ever if they did find the posters quote.

I hope people understand that just because your team made it to the Finals last year doesn't mean that they are a shoe in this year, and that teams in the East or West are going to just roll over.

Again nobody here is talking like were entitled to just be in the Finals, again find the poster who said it. We're smart enough to know you have to play to get there period.

But just looking in on your forum..some of you are talking about what all the Lakers did wrong vs what Detroit did right. Face it, it was a convencing win.

It's call breaking down the game man, you call your team out on their mistakes( we do that here weather we win or lose) and you acknowledge what the other team did right to expose your team. Nothing wrong with that. If you've really read the post here without looking at it as if we're just mad that the Lakers lost, you'll see we've acknowledged that if was just a flat out beat down clear cut end of discussion. We were talking about the problems we KNOW our team has, and problems we know that will become big issues if not rectified soon.

In my final analysis it seems as though you want to run and post some where else say that "Laker fans can't admit they got beat and wanna make excuses why they didn't win", this couldn't be more farther from the truth. Go back and re-read the game thread........we criticize our squad way worst then most other boards do with their team. While what you posted here was level headed and just your opinion your intent seemed other wise.

[semi-sentient]

Felt a lot like the Finals to me. A tougher, more physical team popped us in the chest, and we didn't want any part of it.

Yep... I felt the same way. It was an ugly game from the start and I never got the sense that we really competing.

Our FC has got to toughen up a bit though. They got outplayed by Sheed/Kwame, so hopefully they rebound against Shaq/Amare.

For the 3rd straight game they've been out-rebounded (24-21, 22-14, 23-19), so they definitely need to start hitting the glass harder and doing a better job of boxing out. Bynum in particular has to stay aggressive, as in all 3 games his rebounding dropped of in the 2nd half (4, 1, 3). Some of that is probably a result of his conditioning which I'm sure will improve as the season wears on.

[Sedale Threatt]

That's the frustrating thing. While there's a chance Andrew will develop more of a mean streak, Pau pretty much is what he is at this stage of his career. He brings a lot of things to the table, but a physical presence isn't one of them.

Totally agree about the need for better boxing out, especially with Andrew. He's absolutely terrible at this. Almost all of the rebounds he gets are because he's so ridiculously long. But in terms of just sticking his ass on somebody and pinning them down, he simply doesn't do it. It's not a hard habit to pick up, and it would make him so much more effective in an area he's already pretty strong.

[Mos Def]

Great points guys ^

I think a lot of the problems we faced during the game (rebounding, toughness etc...) are the direct or partial result of Odom having a "reduced" role. His minutes are down from 38 minutes last season to just 26 minutes this season... I think a lot of what Odom brings to the team involves rebounding and an underrated toughness (if that makes sense). Even though Ariza is getting some of Odom's minutes, and is producing at a high level... he doesn't quite bring some of the same things Odom does... these might be some far fetched observations but its all I could come up with in 15 minutes... but like Hubie Brown said, Odom's minutes will increase...

[Mindflayer]

Everything the Pistons threw up went in. Wallace's bank 3 as the 24 second clock expired. It was one of those games. Nothing to worry about except our lack of toughness. I'm not sure how we adress that issue. Bynum needs more minutes.

[Sedale Threatt]

Not sure either, and it's a pretty big problem considering it was our fatal flaw against the Celtics. If I hadn't seen it last year, I'd be a lot less concerned about a loss in November.

But it was the exact same formula -- push our frontcourt off the blocks, then swarm on Kobe as he's forced/inclined to take matters into his own hands, all while running around with our collective heads cut off on defense.

Most NBA teams simply aren't equipped to pull that off. But as we learned last summer, one is all it takes. A big step back in terms of growth, as far as I'm concerned.

And JK, as much as I dig your avatar -- I wish Mos Def would quit f'ing around with acting and get his ass back into the studio -- I have to disagree that more minutes for Lamar is the solution, or even part of it. Like Gasol, he's a finesse-oriented player who neither provides physical play nor responds well to it.

Unfortunately, with an obvious exception in Kobe, that seems to be the fundamental DNA of this particular group of players. I don't know how you fix that without wholesale roster changes that could end up cutting off our own nose to spite our face.

[nonplayerzealot]

Look im bi-partisin, I could have cared less which team won tonight. But just looking in on your forum..some of you are talking about what all the Lakers did wrong vs what Detroit did right. Face it, it was a convencing win.

Edit- Come on now, you're better than that.

[Cboywhitey]

Guys I watched the second half again. It wasn't as bad as many are thinking.

A. Our defense was terrible. An obvious lack of effort. Nothing special about the pistons or anything they were doing.
B. We're not going to beat the pistons by simply outscoring them same as boston...that is obvious from last year.
C. The pistons were hot. 90 percent of their offense was jump shots and they still shot 50 percent. I watched the pistons lose their first game the other night. The commentator said it's simple if you want to beat the pistons shut hamilton down...(we did) and make rasheed shoot 3 pointers (we did) he just made 50 percent of em against us...one even banked in. The pistons also shot 34 free throws.

I don't think it's time to hit the panic button. The pistons had a perfect game. And we were coming off a 13 game win streak if you count the preseason. Some lazy habits were setting in.

This game was 100 percent lack of effort. We didn't get pushed around. We scored 95 points...that would have been enough to win 5 of our first 7 games. With a little more effort on D it would have been a different game. When a team is hot a team is hot...and you have to play your best game on nights like that to walk away with a win. No matter how good you are you have to play to beat quality teams...and when they're hot well...play harder. This deciding to play in the 4th quarter business isn't going to cut it. We did cut the lead in half but it was just too late.

I predict a bounce back of effort on the defensive end and a pounding of the bulls. If not then we can start getting concerned. Effort! I don't think effort will be a problem come playoffs...so I'm not worried in the least. If in fact our old defensive habits creep back in and last nights game isn't just a fluke then I will join in on all the nervous reservations. I need a few more poor defensive games that are not coming on the end of long winning streaks to change my mind.

I don't think I've ever heard so many people ask for changes on a team that has the best record in the NBA.

[Komodo]

Any word on Vujacic's injury?