coming to us fine humans live from the vaunted Toyota Center in Houston Texas at 5:30 p.m. pacific time...
VERSUS THESE SINGLE STAGERS.....
lots of subtext and plot to this matchup, plus a likely playoff matchup for our heroes in royal purple....as well as being just about our toughest matchup in the great western conference
our likely starters...
at the point;
#2 Derek Fisher 6'1" guard out of Arkansas-Little Rock, in his 13th year in league...
at the shooting gaurd position;
#24 Kobe Bryant 6'6" guard/small forward out of Lower Marion High School, pennsylvania , also in his 13th year
at the small forward postion;
#10 Vladimir Radmanovich 6'10" forward out of Serbia-Montenegro in his 8th season
at the power forward position;
#16 Pau Gasol 7'0" forward/center out of Barcelona, Spain playing in his 8th season
and at the center position, the anchor;
#17 Andrew Bynum 7'0" center out of St. Joseph High School, New Joisy
and the home team....
and their probable starters...
at the point;
#12 Rafer Alston 6'2" out of fresno state in his 9th year
at the shooting guard position;
#1 Tracy McGrady 6'2" from Mount Zion Christian Academy, North Carolina, in his 12the season
at the small forward;
#31 Shane Battier 6'8" out Duke University in his 8th year
at the power forward;
#4 Luis Scola 6'9" from Argentina, South America in his second season
and at the center position;
#11 Yao Ming 7'6" from China in his 7th season
the head coaches are respectively...
Phil jackson in his 8th year as head coach for los angeles;
and his old venerated western conference foe;
Rick Adelman; in his 3rd season as Houston's head coach
all going down at this place;
on local televison, fsnWest with Joel Myers and Stu Lance or Radio am570 with Spiro Dedes and Mychal Thompson...
key reserves;
for the lakers: Trevor Ariza, EDIT; no SASHA THIS TIME Josh Powell, Sun Yue and maybe MAYBE Lamar Odom....
vs.
rockets reserves: Brent Barry ,Luther Head, Von Wafer , Aaron Brooks
Keys to the game...defense, defense defense...also get andrew bynum involved early...and feed him...stop giving up the easy dunks...this should be a great test as well as a tune up for our tough road schedule...
EDIT...due to our current injury bug this will be a very hard fought battle, and we must, i repeat MUST tighten up our game significantly, we must go in thinking playoffs, we MUST go into into their building and be singular with our defense....
We must be the bamboo, we must bend, yet never break....kobe, pau and andrew must all have great games...
and while the rockets certainly have their issues with injuries as well, that does not mean we can let off the gas pedal...
we must go for the win at the opening tip, we must start working ourselves into playoff mentality....our 3 month home stand is almost over....
key word for the game....MUST!!!
Nice game thread. Glad you did it instead of me.. I would have never done something that hilarious. 
