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Let's go for that three peat! Matt Barnes you better clean your act up!
Let's go for that three peat! Matt Barnes you better clean your act up!
Lakers ‘10-11 Preview
30 teams in 30 days.
by Myles Brown / @mdotbrown
Is this really necessary?
We all know the situation. Adding Steve Blake, Matt Barnes & Theo Ratliff solidified the rotation. A rested Pau Gasol will be invaluable while Kobe Bryant and Andrew Bynum are on the mend. Lamar Odom won yet another championship and as of yet, Ron Artest hasn’t lost his mind. Plainly put, the West got weaker and the Champs got better. Oh, and Sasha got engaged. There. NKobe Bryant & Pau Gasolow can we talk about something important?
This is the end.
Phil is leaving, LeBron is coming and Kobe is almost gone. This is the last year the Los Angeles Lakers will be championship favorites. Now the pomp and circumstance normally involved with such a sendoff has been usurped by the Miami Heat welcoming committee, but maybe that’s for the best. Because in the end, the Lakers don’t need to win 70 games, they just need to win more games than anyone else.
It’s not an option this time, it’s a necessity. We may not even be discussing them as defending champions had the Boston Celtics not eliminated the two teams who would’ve held home court advantage over L.A. No, this time despite the inevitable injuries, the temptation of complacency and the malaise of February, the Lakers have to come out on top. Otherwise, they’ll have to come to Boston or Miami for games 6 & 7, a far more daunting task than handling business in a seemingly meaningless mid-March matchup with Milwaukee.
Presumptuous? Yes. Probable? Yes again. That’s the problem. For all the excitment surrounding South Beach’s Superfriends, the Big Leprachaun or Phil’s last dance, much of it will be treated as a formality. We’re all just waiting for June. But if all of Phil Jackson’s teachings could be summarized with a single lesson, it would be to live in the moment. And in this, his final season, it’s imperative that his team performs as though every moment counts. Because it honestly is that simple. In order to win later, they have to win now.
This may seem-no, it is-quite short, but it’s because we’ve been here before. We know the new guys will occasionally struggle with the offense, the bench will struggle with consistency, Bynum will struggle with his recovery and Kobe will continue to struggle with his ego. We also know there will be nights when they put it all together and contraction won’t sound like a bad idea for some of their opponents. This isn’t news, we know everything about this team already. Well, everything except the ending.
And that’s the preview that matters. So come back in about eight months and we’ll do this again.
Prediction? 60-22, Conference Champs. See you in June, bitches.
LOS ANGELES – Be ready, Kobe Bryant told Steve Blake. His championship coronation nearly doused in defeat, Bryant walked out of the huddle late Tuesday and welcomed his new teammate to the Los Angeles Lakers with a simple, two-word order.
A couple minutes later, Bryant rifled a pass behind him and into the waiting hands of Blake, positioned perfectly a step behind the 3-point line. Blake elevated and coolly buried the shot. With less than 19 seconds left, it was the difference in the Lakers’ 112-110 victory over the Houston Rockets.
Kobe Bryant thinks the Lakers have a more versatile bench than last season.
On a night he toasted his fifth championship and began his hunt for a sixth, Kobe put his fortune in the hands of a teammate with whom he’d never played a meaningful game. This was no ordinary assist, and Blake knew it.
“It was big of him,” Blake said, smiling, “to trust someone new on the court.”
It was just one shot, one game, but it’s upon moments like these that championships are built. There are Lakers who have gone entire seasons without winning Bryant’s trust. Ask Smush Parkerthe next time he returns from Russia.
Kobe’s competitiveness has swallowed opponents and teammates alike, and his stubbornness is equally unmatched. In Game 7 of last season’s Finals, he nearly shot the Lakers out of a title. As he’s grown older and his body begins to give way to all those miles, he’s had to learn he can’t go it alone.
The Lakers have long understood the same, which is why general manager Mitch Kupchak went back to work this summer. He gave Blake a four-year, $16 million contract and picked up a quality perimeter defender (Matt Barnes) and a veteran center (Theo Ratliff), both on the cheap. He also re-signed Derek Fisher and Shannon Brown.
As the Miami Heat assembled their super team with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, and the Boston Celtics added Jermaine O’Neal and then Shaquille O’Neal, Kupchak filled in the cracks showing on the Lakers’ roster. There’s a reason why the Lakers aren’t ready to cede this season’s title to the Eastern Conference: This team could potentially become their deepest in years.
“This year, we have a little bit better chemistry,” Bryant said, “in terms of pieces fitting together off the bench.”
Or, as he later said more succinctly: “We have guys that fit.”
Translation: They’ve signed guys who know their roles.
Blake stood idly as the evening began with last season’s team members introducing each other while receiving their 2010 championship rings. He then used his performance to show why he might need to be fitted for his own next year. His consecutive 3-pointers at the end of the third quarter reduced what had been an 11-point deficit by more than half.
Brown carried the surge – almost all of which came with Bryant on the bench – into the final quarter. Brown made four more 3-pointers – a testament, perhaps, to the work he put in over the summer. Already regarded as one of the league’s most explosive athletes (Phil Jackson praised his “up-ability”), Brown has tried to address the biggest hole in his game: his shot.
The Lakers will likely continue to lean on their bench as they try to find their health. Bryant is still working his way back from surgery on his right knee and, Jackson said, “searching for that moment where he can light himself up.” Andrew Bynum is recovering from knee surgery and isn’t expected back until late November. Fisher, now 36, will need to be preserved as best as possible for the playoffs. And Ron Artest remains prone to spells of zaniness.
Afterward, Artest stood in a corner of the locker room while filming promos for his upcoming appearance on “Larry King Live,” during which he’ll reveal plans to sell his championship ring to raise money for charity.
“I may want to keep the box,” he said.
The Lakers had reason to laugh. They’d christened their new season with a win. Some 2,600 miles to the northeast, LeBron and the Heat had limped out of Boston with their 400-member media horde trailing them. Someone asked Bryant if he had watched the Celtics’ victory. Only a little, he said.
“I don’t give two [bleeps] about that,” he said.
Bryant had seen enough of Blake and his teammates to know this season held promise. He’d driven into the lane and watched the Rockets collapse on him, leaving Blake alone, and he knew it would happen again. Bryant passed, Blake shot, and Bryant knew something else about his new teammate: “He’s not scared of anything. He likes those moments.”
Be ready? Next time, Kobe won’t even need to ask.
"No, we're not going to do anything like that. The season is too long. The travel is too difficult in the West conference. We just have to try and step out and get ahead of people in our division, our conference and play as it comes a long."
"Not the same defense, unfortunately. We have a lot of offensive prowess, we're very good offensively, but the defense isn't quite the same."
Los Angeles Lakers 99 Minnesota Timberwolves 94
"The way we played tonight was irresponsible and it was reckless and it was disrespectful. I can't get any clearer than that. There was an air of complacency, of arrogance, of 'we don't have to play as hard as the other team to win' that I didn't like tonight."
"I don't even have to look at a stat sheet. I don't know what the numbers are, what the stats are, we just didn't play the game the way it was supposed to be played."
This complaint doesn't ring true. He's just trying to get his team psyched so that they don't "let their guard down." He's just trying to keep them on edge....There observed and noted careless turnovers during that game.
Fisher said on an interview with ESPN:
This complaint doesn't ring true. He's just trying to get his team psyched so that they don't "let their guard down." He's just trying to keep them on edge.
...besides, if anybody has ever let down the Lakers and given careless turnovers and lax defense, it's Fisher!

Nuggets rally to hand Lakers first loss, 118-112
DENVER(AP) With the game tied and the ball in his hands behind the 3-point line, J.R. Smith hesitated for just a moment.
"I was thinking about not taking the shot because I missed the one before that and I didn't know how George was going to react," Smith said of his coach, George Karl. "When I saw how far Kobe (Bryant) was playing off, I just had to shoot."
Smith's gamble paid off. His tiebreaking 3-pointer with 4:12 left sparked an 11-0 run that led the Denver Nuggets to a 118-112 win over Los Angeles on Thursday night, handing the Lakers their first loss of the season.
"It was real big, especially against the Lakers," said Carmelo Anthony, who had 32 points and 13 rebounds.
Bryant scored a season-high 34 points and Pau Gasol had 17 points and 20 rebounds for the Lakers, who were trying to win their first nine games for the first time since the 1997-98 season.
Bryant came in needing 17 points to reach 26,000 for his career. He hit the milestone with a 13-foot jumper 49 seconds into the third quarter.
Early in the fourth it looked as though he would enjoy the milestone with a win. The Lakers led 95-85 with 11 minutes left when the Nuggets' small lineup, led by Ty Lawson, took over. The speedy point guard scored 11 points in a 16-0 run that gave them a 101-95 lead.
"I was just trying to attack," said Lawson, who finished with 17 points. "Their backcourt was a little stagnant and I wanted to speed up the game and negate their height."
It worked. Denver grabbed a 101-95 lead before the Lakers recovered. Shannon Brown's putback dunk and 3-pointer keyed an 8-0 spurt that gave the two-time defending NBA champions a 103-101 lead.
"It was one of those games where it was run after run after run," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "I was waiting for our run to catch theirs but we didn't get it."
The Nuggets had the final push. Anthony's layup tied it at 105, and after Gasol turned it over, Lawson pushed the ball upcourt looking for an opening.
"I was about to attack but everybody was late getting down," he said. "I saw J.R. at the top of the key, great shooter, and he knocked it down."
The Lakers missed their next four shots while Anthony hit two jumpers to extend the lead to seven.
"I thought Ty was great," Karl said. "When we went small our speed beat their size."
With injuries to Kenyon Martin and Chris Andersen, the Nuggets have been forced to play small this season. Against the taller Lakers they were able to overcome the size disadvantage.
"With a small lineup they open the floor and they're more of an attack mode," Gasol said. "They're very capable of making runs and getting hot, especially at home."
The Lakers led by five at halftime but opened a 14-point lead with a 13-2 surge to start the third quarter. Derek Fisher hit a 3-pointer and Bryant scored six quick points to spark the run.
The Nuggets made a run of their own and cut the lead to 79-74 on Al Harrington's 3-pointer. Bryant answered right back with two of his own to push the lead to 85-76 with 4:20 left in the third.
Smith's three-point play got Denver within 89-85 late in the third, but Anthony was called for a loose-ball foul and a technical on Los Angeles' next possession. Bryant hit the free throw and Brown nailed a 3-pointer to give the Lakers a 93-85 lead heading into the fourth.
Bryant struggled from the field in the first half, shooting 4 of 14 for 13 points. He was 11 for 32 for the game.
"We took what the defense gave us," Bryant said. "When they collapsed I made shots."
The teams traded leads throughout the first half. The Lakers finished the second quarter on a 9-4 run to take a 64-59 lead at the break.