4/27 - 1st round - Game 5 - OKC @ LAL- 7:30pm

[BeleiveInGosh]

good game boys.

[The Skyhook]

Nap time now. Its 1:17 over here on the East Coast.

[Gervin]

Good Game for the Lakers - now one more

[DubaLakers]

From chumps to world beaters game to game.

[VanExeleNT]

Simple Math!

If you keep your attempts close to the basket, you make more shots and have more putbacks. You also prevent the other team from getting out on fastbreaks with long rebounds. If they clog the lane find other ways to get your bigs the ball.

Also Kevin Durant just showed up to the press conference with a backpack on. Obviously he knows school is still in session. At least for one more game. smart kid.

Good Night.

[magic1fan]

bynum and gasol were players of the game by far. kobe played some amazing defense on westbrook and showed me he still has it. the role players played great. this was a total team effort.

[daddyfivestar]

So what have we learned from Game 5..........

1. When the Game Thread has the hot booty pic... the Lakers roll!
2. See #1. And if you don't believe, go look at the booty pics from Games 1 thru 4... oh wait.

I present you with a temporary piece of eye candy. The booty to end all booty's. KNEEL I SAY, KNEEL. Control thyself, girl.

Booty Pic

Game ball goes to Optms.

[chefy]

westbrook and durant got shutdown lol

[The Skyhook]

My keys to winning happened and we won.

Kobe - needs to facilitate to set the down. Play in the post if he wants to take shots but avoid shooting from outside early on.

Gasol - I see Pau being the guy who is going to take the game over. I feel really good about Pau's recent comments. It appears that he is going to will us through this game.

Bynum - Bynum is going to need to be a presence tonight. Whenever he is in he needs to play big. He needs to give us a double double and alter any shots coming his way.

Check. Kobe held back off on the shots and facilitated and the bigs played big.

The X Factors

Odom - Got to show up tonight. Lakers cannot afford to lose this game and if Lamar doesn't show up the Lakers are going to be in a long night. If Lamar shows up this could very well be a blow out. OKC won't know what hit them if he shows up. How can the Thunder feel comfortable if the Big 4 all show up. So far its been Kobe/Bynum/Gasol showing up and the Thunder have gained confidence that they can have their way with them 3.

Derek Fisher/Ron Artest - These 2 fall in the category. Got to start hitting their shots at an efficient rate.

Check. Lamar had a nice all around game and both Ron and Fish hit their shots at an efficant rate. Both shot at least 50% and gave us a combined 20 points.

Lets hope these guys can keep it up and close out the series in OKC to get some extra rest. This was the best performance by the Lakers this season.

Also this is what Kobe had to say about the win.

Jackson still wants Bryant to take more shots. Bryant says he doesn't need to.

"If I didn't have Pau, Andrew and the crew that I have, I'd score 45, 50 points and everybody would say, 'He shoots too much,'" Bryant said. "I have a great crew. I don't have to do that."

I wonder how long it took Kobe to figure out that one.
http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/page ... daily-dime

[Danny Darko]

pretty big adjustment to cancel Westbrook. Fish is our achilles right now, but if we learn to slow them down early and have Ron and Kobe on Kevin and Russell it should work out nicely. Props to Kobe for recognizing the challenge and not just saying "fish is old and washed up"

[DubaLakers]

When you see a dominant performance like that, it's frustrating because if they don't win it all, we will know that much of it was due to lack of effort.

Labronica hurt her elbow last night and even shot a FT left handed

[Sedale Threatt]

I loved everything about how Bynum and Gasol played last night, especially the cooperation between the two. Good activity, good aggression, just attacking at all times. We don't see that from both of them in the same game nearly enough.

[supaflash]

It was huge of Phil to pull Pau out a little bit instead of trying to double post them all the time. Pau is nimble enough to make those nice little moves from 17ft and dump off to Drew. Plus it allowed Ron to get some better cuts and posts to get him in rhythm. Our spacing was so much better and we didn't even have to hit 3s to get it. Pau and Kobe played a masterful game to get the floor open more and we went early instead of bogging down waiting for all the triangle options to play out and letting them get their fronting and doubles set up. I hope we continue to push the ball up and get in early offense in game 6, if we do there is no way they can stop our bigs.

[Sedale Threatt]

Our spacing was so much better and we didn't even have to hit 3s to get it.

That's what stood out to me. We didn't shoot the ball all that well -- our Achilles Heel, in my opinion -- and we still had ample movement. It was reminiscent of 80s ball.

[iamworthy]

Our bigs played big, Kobe was a surgeon, and the Interior passing was magnificent. The intensity was super high from the jump ball. I'd have to watch the game again but it seemed like everything was created from 15ft in. We also had very active hands. I can go on and on, bottom line is that the Lakers gave a great effort.