Game 1 10.27.09 LA Lakers vs LA Clippers 7:30 PT

[Desiderium]

^^ lol at ur sig tycobb

[TruSkool]

i think we can put the bynum vs oden discussions to rest...bynum is a much better player...id like to see bynum go up against dwight with a force now

[Lakers_1990]

Cheers to starting off the season on the right foot, and to remembering my login and password too.

[Flipdog69xxx]

awesome ring ceremony and nice win for the Lake-show! Pumped up that the NBA season has finally started.

[phat_24]

great ring ceremony. jeannie buss looks pretty damn fine. sloppy game but we got through it.

[snaquille oatmeal]

ok, so Ron Artezzle said during the game that when he came to play for the Lakers that he thought that Phil was going to use him as a role player, but Phil has asked him to be more aggressive on the offensive end. can you say reverse psychology.

[hermes]

reverse psychology



yay lakers win

good start to the year, lets keep it up, 82-0!

[Anklebreaker702]

Neither........just my opinion. Why is it that EVERY time I comment on Drew the guillotine comes swing at me. For future reference I won't be mentioning his name here anymore. Tired of having to walk the tight rope, the defense mechanism here for him is too potent. I done discussing him here.

And the funny part is I DIDN'T say a word about him all night.

Man speaking of defense mechanism. To be honest DEEP that's the whole point. You usually never say anything positive about him. It's always riding him about defense & rebounding. Tonight his defense was average at best but he rebounded & scored well. So when someone pointed out his number line you came in & poured water all over it but I don't think you should take it personal. You said you didnt mention him but sometimes silence makes the most noise especially once you break the silence & its negative when the situation was positive.

[BallAboveAll]

Good to get a win. I think we saw flashes of how disruptive Kobe and Ron can be on the floor defensively. Both were able to get their hands on balls, shade players to our bigs and a bit of denial as well.

Ron will be hit or miss at times. He had some good looks I'm sure he'll knock those down next time.

[semi-sentient]

To start, it was nice to see some of the Lakers greats and role players come out before the ring ceremony. Too bad Shaq couldn't have been there for it. You know you're running low on options when you have to get Robert Horry and Rick Fox out there to represent the 3-peat years, although Horry was instrumental for us on more than one occasion.


Anyway, not so impressive win to start the season. We looked sloppy on offense and didn't have any kind of rhythm. Floor spacing looked bad and ball movement was not there, especially when the bench came in. I wasn't overly impressed with our defense either. Had we played a halfway competent team we might have very well lost our home opener.


Bynum had himself a very good game and it's looking like he could really be the 2nd option on the team this year based on how he's played from the start of the preseason to the present. Maybe the fact that he never passes the ball out has something to do with that? I'm hoping we can give him big minutes (35+) so that we can always keep him or Gasol on the floor though. Our bench, outside of Odom, is so atrocious that we may not have much choice.

Rebounding-wise Bynum finally gave us some numbers to be happy about, but then you look at Kaman who grabbed 16 and they don't look so impressive after all. Almost half of Bynum's rebounds were on the offensive end so I'd like to see him focus more on boxing out and getting those defensive rebounds. It's cool that he's winning the "who looked better between Bynum and Oden" argument, but I'd rather him focus on locking down the paint a bit more.


Kobe had a solid game as well despite going 11-26 from the field. He must've missed 4 or 5 easy layups after some VERY nice post moves got him uncontested shots. If he makes a couple of those then we're looking at a 13-24 type shooting night as several of those missed layups also resulted in missed putbacks from him. I wonder if he started wearing down a bit as the game went on because a lot of his perimeter shots seemed erratic or came just short (in general, he's looking rather old). In the 2nd half he shot 4-15 I think.

That said, he was doing a great job of setting teammates up but they just weren't finishing. If Artest hits a couple of those wide open 3's and Bynum isn't going "Moses Malone" on us then Kobe ends up with 6 assists which is right about what he should be giving us on a nightly basis. On defense he was very active all night (as evidenced by the steals) but he's still giving guys too much space. I like that he's being more disruptive though.


Odom once again came up big as the 3rd option. Sedale hit it on the head earlier in that THIS is why we signed him (insurance for another big going down). He plays so well next to either Gasol or Bynum. Hopefully he can find a way to give us more coming off the bench because that is the one weakness that this team has. I'm not sure if he can though as he's just not a 1st/2nd option type player. If we can get him to produce off the bench the way he does when he plays with the starters then we truly will be unstoppable. Maybe we can address that by having Artest and Odom on the floor together.


Speaking of Artest, I like what I'm seeing so far -- at least as far as shot selection is concerned. He's not forcing the issue on offense and he's been a scrappy defender for us so far -- going after loose balls and getting his hand in there to jostle it loose in the first place. I'm surprised he's missing so many open shots though. I'm sure he'll start to pick it up as the season progresses and wouldn't be surprised if he shot a career high from downtown.


PS: LeBron was phenomenal tonight, or at least he was early in the game when he was killing the Celtics on both ends. He's going to have a season for the ages. Just watch. His outside shot is looking better and when you consider that he's been working on his post game IN ADDITION to him entering his athletic prime... watch out.

PPS: Did Fox try to make out with Jeanie? That was a big wet one he gave her, followed by an awkward moment immediately afterwards. I bet he's been in that ass a few times.

PPPS: Those Kardashian chicks wear way too much makeup and look like a couple of whores. I can't stand makeup on women in general, but that was to the extreme. Are we going to be forced to look at these clowns every single game?

[Sedale Threatt]

Yeah, it's pretty hard to bust on Andrew after going for 26-13. The best part about that, to me, is that it never seems like we're really force-feeding him the ball. He's efficient and his touch around the rim is outstanding. You just don't see many big men with hands as soft as his.

I'd almost like to see him come off the bench -- not because he deserves it, but because the rest of our reserves suck so bad.

Seriously, haven't Walton, Vujacic and Farmar been around long enough not to look like a bunch of middle-aged businessmen getting some run at the Y on their lunch break? Especially Jordan. How does this guy manage to look so promising in the preseason and then go into the toilet when they start to count?

But back to Drew, I'd give him a B+ as he did make Kaman look like an All-Star at times and still didn't do much as a help defender.

There was one play in the first half that pretty much sums up his lack of instincts -- Kaman's camped out 20 feet from the basket, Drew is sagging off him near the foul line, Eric Gordon comes blowing by him to the rim...and he just stands there and watches him. Doesn't even make an attempt to contest the shot. That's just not good basketball.

Otherwise, Andrew played really well.

Lamar looked really active all night -- married life seems to agree with him -- and I was generally pleased with Artest. All five 3s he took were absolutely wide open; he just needs to start knocking them down, which history indicates he should.

The biggest concern I had about losing Ariza was the hustle plays, but Ron's going to get just as many -- just different kinds. Instead of steals leading to fastbreak dunks, he's going to worm his way in for offensive boards, pester passers into bad decisions, consistently come up with 50/50 loose balls, that kind of stuff.

If anything, he's trying too hard to fit in right now. But I liked his defense, I liked his teamwork, I liked his effort, I liked his recognition of mismatches and ability to attack them with his size...just about everything other than the facts that he was over-passing and he didn't knock down his shots. And that should come.

All things considered, in light of the fact we recently saw Miami get crushed by 40-plus on their ring night, I'll take a W. It's got to be hard to stay focused after something like that, so it's not all that surprising we looked so sluggish at times. Get Pau back to tip-top, our only real concern is the bench. (Seriously, guys, have some pride.)

[Danny Darko]

Cheers to starting off the season on the right foot, and to remembering my login and password too.

Hahah... Wholly crap good to see ya back.

[Danny Darko]

To be fair to Deep. I don't think he's specifically a Drew hater, I think he has super star expectations for him in the blue collar areas though. In that regard, I loved Drew's performance, I'm not unhappy that a guy with a very high shot percentage is a black hole at all.

Someday we're gonna have an aged or no Kobe and a Dominant Center will be essential to chips. Invest in this guy and do hope that he develops continually into a Dominant.

[semi-sentient]

I'd almost like to see him come off the bench -- not because he deserves it, but because the rest of our reserves suck so bad.

Man I've been barking about that since the beginning of last season. Bynum would rape off the bench. You could start Gasol at center, then bring Bynum in while he rests, then bring Gasol back in at PF to rest Odom (I have to be breaking some serious grammar rules with this sentence). Essentially, 2 of our big 3 would be in at all times. I think we could find a way to make that work to where everyone is getting solid minutes. The key to making this work is Gasol since he can effectively play both positions. The only thing is that Bynum wouldn't be in there to finish off games, which is fine by me because I think you really want your most experienced guys in there when it matters most (Gasol/Odom).

[Anklebreaker702]

You don't think Bynum played great today? He was real efficient and did a great job with the offensive boards. I think Kobe played pretty sloppy today in the second half, forcing up way too many shots. I love Fisher and all, but I think he'd be better with the second unit. Too many ballhandlers in the first group.

+1

[Anklebreaker702]

Greg Oden had a crazy defensive game tonight. 2 pts 13 rebs and 5 blks IIRC. The point coming only in the final 50 secs of the game.

He also had 7 turnovers and 5 fouls. Bynum had a superb game tonight, just by staying out of foul trouble for the first time in a while it seems like.

[Slava]

You won't be laughin when he plays against us though.