Seeing is believing, as the Lakers take an unreal victory in Brooklyn

(A MAMBINO live report from Brooklyn for the Nets-Lakers game last night)

"Unreal. Just...unreal."

I slumped back in my seat time after time, stunned at the game that was taking place in front of me. Quarter after quarter, the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers continued to shake convention in a contest that couldn't be any less believable. Still, I whispered in amazement for 48 minutes, sometimes with a smile on my face and others with a bewildered scowl, hands atop my head.

The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Brooklyn Nets in their first visit to the Barclays Center last night, 92-83, in a game the Lakers had to have, Brooklyn couldn't have tried harder to give away and ultimately, Pau Gasol would love to have back.

The Barclays Center is merely a 30-minute train ride away from my apartment. This gigantic iron behemoth is brilliantly located in the middle of New York's second most heralded borough, crossing almost a dozen subway lines and the Long Island Railroad. It stands out from the surrounding environ of a typical urban center, as if Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum lost the war on July 4th and a spaceship landed in the middle of the BK. The Barclays Center is convenient, marvelous, and most importantly, thanks to its NBA tenants, cheap.

Despite a move out of the swamp in New Jersey to a brilliant, shining, $1 billion dollar arena, the now Brooklyn Nets are struggling to find their place in NYC. Attendance is up to 16th this season, a solid upward trend from finishing no better than 25th in crowd support since 2009. However, like with any expansion or relocation franchise, it's been difficult to find a fervent, dedicated fan base when a team has little tradition, few marketable stars, and generations of followers tied to another organization. New Yorkers are still very dedicated to their beloved Knicks, and the ticket price to see the now contending Bockers is sky high. For the playoff-bound Nets? There's a far smaller mortgage to be paid for attending a game in Brooklyn. Knowing all of this before showing up to Barclays tonight, I shouldn't have been so surprised by the swath of Lakers fans in front of me.

Still, even high fives from strangers clad in Lakers hats and headbands couldn't distract me from the task at hand--defeating the then 28-19 Brooklyn Nets. LA came into the game short-staffed, with Dwight Howard missing his second consecutive game due to a re-aggravated shoulder injury and Metta World Peace due to a bogus suspension for "punching" Brandon Knight during Sunday's Pistons game. Chief amongst my concerns were how anyone would be able to check the 6'7" Joe Johnson, if Reggie Evans would now gobble up 25 boards instead of 16 now that Dwight was ruled out and if Steves Nash and Blake would just spot Deron Williams the 20 he would eventually score.

Amazingly--unreal-ly--this never came to pass.

(Read the rest at Silver Screen and Roll after the jump)

THE GREAT PODBINO, Episode #5

The latest PODBINO, courtesy of El Miz, Bockerknockers and myself talking....Lakers. Get ready for a full 45 minutes of defeatist talk and heavy drinking.

How did the LA Lakers lose in Cleveland last night?

(Copped from my Silver Screen and Roll  game recap)

Going back to Silver Screen and Roll's preseason predictions for the 2012-2013 season, most of us here were concerned with several different issues; a few of us pointed to team health, some asked questions about the coaching staff and a couple writers wondered aloud if the team's pieces were the right fit.


No one--not a single person on this blog, nor many fans out there--thought that the problem would be effort.


The team's early season slump was sent to an all-new low tonight, when the now 5-17 Cleveland Cavaliers thumped the Los Angeles Lakers 100-94 in a game that wasn't nearly as close as it ended.

The Cavs played a modest game to say the least. On the offensive side of the ball, they only shot 44% and a Howard-ian 57% from the stripe. After throwing down a ridiculous 54 first half points, Cleveland was stunningly mediocre for most of the rest of the game, including an unbelievable seven minute stretch at the beginning of the third quarter in which they made exactly one field goal. Part of the reason was a totally impotent bench that without Tyler Zeller's six points, would have gotten completely skunked. Omri Casspi, Jeremy Pargo and Daniel Gibson bricked all nine of their combined shots in an effort that would have left last year's Lakers bench shaking their heads in disbelief.


Amazingly, the Cavaliers caught only eight offensive boards, which is two more than Anderson Varejao's season average. On the whole, the team was crushed by the Lakers' rebounding edge, ceding 11 more to LA, 15 of which were on the offensive end. Cleveland's defense wasn't sterling either, with the squad sending the Lakers to the stripe 40 times. In terms of field goals, the Cavs allowed 54 second-half points to the Show after just 39 in the first half. Finally, they did a terrible job coaxing Kobe Bryant into bad shots, as the Mamba hit 16 of 28 for 42 points.


The Cavs did have a couple of bright spots however, which came from predictable places. Kyrie Irving had a timely return tonight, coming back from injury to drop an amazing 28/6/11 on the Lakers in a seeming 1-on-1 duel with Kobe Bryant. C.J. Miles somehow dropped 28 points, looking like a genuine starter rather than a scrap heap pick-up. Anderson Varejao continued to make his case for the Eastern Conference All-Star team with a fantastic 20 points, 9 boards and 5 assists. However, the rest of the team was a virtual offensive wasteland, combining for 24 points split amongst seven players.


Looking at all those statistics, how could the Lakers have possibly lost this game?

(Check out the rest of the piece over at SS&R!)

The Worst NBA Team You've Seen So Far

(Yesterday, I took a poll from the MAMBINO crew asking who the worst team they've seen this year was. The answers I got were the following two teams that have performed the most joyless form of basketball. I happened to agree whole-heartedly. And wept uncontrollably. Tears of blood.)

The Detroit Pistons


There's no doubt in my mind that the 0-5 Pistons are the worst squad in the league, even this early in the season. Only one player has registered a double double, which would be burgeoning star Greg Monroe. More impressively, one of those was actually a triple-double, a career first. Against the lowly Sacramento Kings. In a Detroit loss. But other than that, he's getting zero help; no one else on the team has registered more than 10 rebounds or scored more than 20 points. In fact, the team has shot just 43% over five games and ranks 28th in points per 100 possessions.

The rest of the starters are truly the unit that's sinking the Pistons. Second year man Brandon Knight has a really nice looking stroke, but that's it, quite frankly. He's only got 2 assists to every turnover he commits, and not even that can truly capture how poorly he sets up his teammates for quality shots. He's a wretched shooter in general, which is super duper convenient for the Pistons, considering he's taking 10 shots a night and is Monroe's main pick and roll partner. His backcourt mate Rodney Stuckey has been especially terrible in a nightmare first week for the Pistons. Detroit's starting shooting guard is 8 for 46 to start the year, a staggering 17% from the field. But it's not like Stuckey is shooting poorly because he hasn't made a three pointer or is just taking long, contested two-point shots. He's shooting less than 20% from every single area on the floor. Good to know he's not discriminating against the hardwood. Luckily for Stuckey, he still has a 3:1 assist to turnover ration and is still making free throws (84% on 16 shots), so at least he's doing the right things to...help his team lose.

In Defense of Mike Brown: What's Wrong with the Early-Season Los Angeles Lakers

(MAMBINO piece on the superb Lakers blog, Silver Screen and Roll. Check it!)

''I don't know if they will grasp it all,'' Jackson said the other day. ''Everything takes time and everything is instinctual. A lot of what you do you can't emulate or copy. You can't put it back in the same order you did it before. I may not introduce any of the usual stuff to the team until it's the right time. And it may not be the right time for four or five months."--The New York Times, October 31st, 1999

Before the seven more NBA Finals appearances and five more gold trophies adorning Dr. Jerry Buss' office space, Chicago Bulls maestro Phil Jackson came into Los Angeles charged with the task of making a talented, but underachieving Lakers team into a champion. He would install Tex Winters' vaunted triangle offense into L.A.'s offensive schemes, a conceptual scoring attack that even now (after 11 titles) some people regard as a form of smoke and mirrors witchcraft (one of Jackson's assistants on the Lakers, Brian Shaw, recounted last year to SI.com's Ian Thompsen "When I go out on head-coaching interviews and if I mention the word 'triangle,' it makes general managers and owners cringe. They don't want to hear about the triangle offense, they don't want to hear about Phil Jackson").

Ever undeterred, Jackson preached patience, and that's what he got. The 1999-2000 Lakers justified this attitude, and shot out of the gate, going 15-5 in November and along with his extraordinary past success in Chicago, captured the confidence of the city and Lakers Nation.

Mike Brown doesn't have Phil Jackson's record of success. The most the two have in common is coaching a 60-win team, appearing in the NBA Finals and their one Coach of the Year trophy apiece. What they do share is the journey of getting a team of underachieving superstars to buy into an intricate new system. For Jackson, it was the aforementioned triangle offense and relying on the team not to adhere to a certain set of plays, but rather to collectively grow within themselves a set of instincts that would get them open shots. For Brown, he's asking a team of veterans to buy not only into a complex Princeton offense, but also a tough defensive scheme that he only spoke of in theory, not in actual practice last season. Patience, as with Phil Jackson, has been preached by not just the coaching staff, but also by the team. 

Read more over at Silver Screen and Roll

MAMBINO's NBA Finals Pick

(Part of this is lifted from the Silver Screen and Roll crew's season prediction roundtable post. Check it out when you have the time!)

NBA Finals Pick: Los Angeles Lakers...and Miami Heat
 

Even as what would amount to a 51 win team (prorated over a 82 game season), the Lakers were still very middling last year. They needed to get vastly better on both ends of the court if they wanted to compete for a Western Conference Finals berth, much less a NBA title shot...which they very well may have done. 

Defensively, I expect the Lakers to improve leaps and bounds immediately with Dwight Howard on the court. As I detailed yesterday in MAMBINO's Defensive Player of the Year prediction, D12's impact on the team should be stark. In his few games of preseason action, there was such a canyon-like difference on his activity versus Andrew Bynum's that, paired with how much better he made mediocre defensive players in Orlando, it's easy to think that LA's defense will be suffocating. Offensively, the team could take months to adjust to one another with a new system and point guard, but over that stretch I can see the defense making up for the confusion on the scoring end.

The key for the Lakers was getting to the Finals; Oklahoma City was the most troublesome matchup for LA, especially with Serge Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins able to give Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard the most one-on-one trouble as any duo in the league. However, with the Harden trade, I feel like the Lakers are much better suited not only offensively without his defense on Kobe, but also defensively in regards to staying in front of only two of the best 20 players in the league, rather than three. It's not a forgone conclusion that the Lakers can get past OKC--how can you underestimate Durant and Westbrook?--but the prospects just got a lot better. 

Can They Make it Work? -- Los Angeles Lakers Season Preview

That's some star power.

Starting Five: PG Steve Nash, SG Kobe Bryant, SF Metta World Peace, PF Pau Gasol, C Dwight Howard

Key Bench Players: PG Steve Blakers, PG Chris Duhon, SG Jodie Meeks, F Antawn Jamison, PF/C Jordan Hill

Notable offseason additions: Everyone good in the NBA, PG Steve Nash, PG Chris Duhon, SG Jodie Meeks, F Antawn Jamison, F Earl Clark, C Dwight Howard

Offseason subtractions: C Andrew Bynum, PG Ramon Sessions, G Christian Eyenga,  SF Matt Barnes, PF Josh McRoberts

Just writing the starting lineup gave me chills.

The 2012 season concluded with the following assertions as a near certainty: the re-signing of PG Ramon Sessions, the loss of F/C Jordan Hill to free agency, the amnesty cut of the underperforming Metta World Peace, an inevitable trade of the high-priced Pau Gasol and a high-priced extension of Andrew Bynum. It seemed that this era of Lakers basketball was over, and a new one, whatever trajectory it might take, was ready to begin its course.

None of that happened.

In a flurry of trades and signings over a month-long period, the Los Angeles Lakers went from the Kobe Bryant non-contending sideshow to a favorite for the NBA title. GM Mitch Kupchak and VP of Player Personnel Jim Buss saw every hole the Lakers had, and plugged them seemingly with options out of the fantasy basketball playbook. There's little more the front office could have done for the team in any sort of pragmatic fashion. The adjective I most associate with LA's offseason is...silly. All of this is just...silly. 

Kobe Bryant and the Overprotective Lakers Fanbase

(This is an excerpt from my latest post on the best Lakers blog out there, Silver Screen and Roll. Check it out!)

There isn't a Lakers topic more difficult to write about than Kobe Bryant. His depth both as a player and a person is far more vast than any one post or discussion could adequately cover. On the court, he's so far entrenched in a team's offense and defense in that it's extremely difficult to assess just how positively or negatively he affects a team's performance. No matter what type of negative statistical spin some writers want to assign him or how much idiomatic praise other want to heap on him, the beauty of Kobe's game is that the best way to assess the man is simply to watch him play basketball.

Off the court, Bryant is just a polarizing. He's one of the most instantly recognizable figures the world over, and yet there's so much about him shrouded in mystery. There have been hundreds of Kobe interviews over his 16 year career and literally thousands of minutes of on-screen airtime, and yet, we still spout responses like "It's hard to know how Kobe will react". He's an extremely intelligent man who perhaps by design constantly holds back something from the audience. Not to sound too dramatic, but Kobe is both a person we know all too well and yet not at all.

For Lakers fans, it's hard not to love Kobe despite this dichotomy. He's played in 14 All-Star games, seven NBA Finals, won five titles and been on the court for more minutes than just 16 men in league history. Despite all of his experience, Kobe is still universally recognized as the hardest working player in the NBA, never taking a night off and playing every single game like it were the playoffs. Bryant's "clutchness" or aptitude in taking the last shot of the game has been much maligned as of late, but in the latest 2011-2012 NBA GM survey, Kobe was voted the best in that situation by a landslide. Bill Simmons, one of the most recognized and visible Lakers haters out there, has written that Kobe is one of the top 10 players ever to live. Not that Simmons is the end-all, be-all of deciding who is great or not, but it certainly is telling of how the general population feels about Bryant. On the whole, Kobe is one of the most popular entertainers on the planet.

So why is it that Lakers Nation feels he's still one of the most hated in the game?

Read on at SS&R...

Tim Duncan or Kobe Bryant? Who has had the better career?

It's no secret that THE GREAT MAMBINO features a number of Simmons disciples here. We drink the Kool-Aid, heavily so, and listen to the musings of a man who spends an impossible amount of time thinking about basketball as a mere hobby.

Of course, with a false prophet, you've got to have the good book. And of course, in this sacriligious perversion of an analogy, the bible is The Book of Basketball. For the uninitiated, Simmons wrote a mammoth 700 page dissertation, the premise of which was that the Basketball Hall of Fame should be organized into a pyramid. In this concept, Simmons sets 96 players into five groupings, moving numerically upwards from several-time All-Stars, to the immortals of the NBA. In other words, Bill found a neat, clean (and profitable) way to rank the greatest ballers of all-time from bottom to top, with justifications, disguised as chapters, for each man.

It shouldn't surprise any loyal reader of MAMBINO that we'd naturally gravitate towards the particular ranking of one Kobe Bean Bryant. Simmons begrudgingly respects Kobe, though every part of his green and white being is dead set against ever truly liking the Black Mamba. Thus, when I read the updated paperback rankings in 2010 after the Lakers' 16th championship, I was surprised to see that Kobe had been elevated from the 16th spot, all the way to number 8. Just behind Tim Duncan.

And thus the debate started. While I have the utmost respect for Tim Duncan, who rightly wears the Barkley-ian badge of "Best Power Forward Ever" proudly upon his lean shoulder, I simply don't believe that he could ever outrank Kobe on the pyramid. The King, an infrequent contributor to MAMBINO and Boston-area scumbag, heartily disagrees.

This debate raged throughout the playoffs, and as both men were unceremoniously dumped from contention (is there any other way?), the stage was set for a late-August post where we scrap for any reason at all to talk about basketball. So here it is: Kobe or Duncan? Who has had the better career?

How could the Lakers NOT Win the NBA Title?

For the past few weeks, I've been a part of a series of Lakers roundtable posts by the fine folks over at Silver Screen & Roll. In the long, droning pace that's the NBA offseason, we've debated a number of subjects, but lately focusing on what could hinder this glamorous All-Star-laden starting five from doing anything besides parading down Figueroa in June. Here they are, aggregated and expanded upon. Check it out!

What's the biggest factor that could prevents the Lakers from winning a title this season?

Injuries. Plain and simple.

As I ran down a couple weeks ago, you really can't consider the Lakers the clear favorites for the Western Conference because quite frankly, there's too many variables before this famed new starting five even hits the hardwood together. This team's potential is vast; not just as a regular season juggernaut, but as a historically unprecedented vehicle for postseason glory. Thus, my prediction for their current standings had nothing to do with what I think their ceiling is. Far from it, in fact.

Out of everything regarding the Lakers potential deficiencies, team chemistry isn't a factor I'm worried about. The Lakers are facing a season of massive adjustments just in their starting five alone, from Steve Nash playing with the most talent he's ever had on a basketball court (all due respect to Marion, Amar'e and Joe Johnson, but we're talking about Kobe, Gasol and Howard here), to Dwight and Kobe getting less touches than they've ever gotten in their careers to Pau's role as a glorified Brad Miller-esque role as a facilitator and rebounder in the lane (that wasn't meant to be an insult..for real reals). However, these two biggest mitigating factors makes me think that these changes in on-court philosophy are miniscule compared to the task at hand:

Are the Lakers the Clear-Cut Favorite for the Western Conference Title?

Expanding on an earlier post from Silver Screen and Roll, do the additions of Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, Antawn Jamison and Jodie Meeks make the Los Angles Lakers the clear-cut favorites to win the Western Conference?

In a word, no. But let's go a bit further.

The two horses in this race are clearly the Lakers and the defending Western Conference champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder. It's easy to see why anyone would see this more like a lopsided Usain Bolt sprint rather than an actual fair competition: the Lakers imported two players who are one of the five best at their position and heavily fortified their biggest weakness in bench scoring. However, Lakers fans have to temper their expectations. Why? There's just so many variables:

Nash's age, Kobe's age, Jamison's age, Metta's age: Out of these four players, Metta World Peace is the youngster of the group at age 33 in November. Kobe will be 34 later this month, Jamison just turned 36 and Nash is of course 38 years old. Each of these men are still highly effective, competitive players, but are all on the downsides of their careers. I'm not so much worried about their skill level depreciating, as they all still are goodato excellent major league NBAers, but with advancing age, so increaess the risks for injury.

Dwight's back: Unbeknownst to many before his press conference last Friday, Howard admitted that he might not be ready for the beginning of the 2012-2013 season in November (even if he were to be cleared by the doctor today, he's looking at a two to three month rehabilitation period). His injury, originally thought to be a relatively minor hernia surgery, could keep him out of action for up to six months. Obviously back surgeries are a very serious matter, but if the Lakers were willing to give up a major piece like Andrew Bynum (albeit a piece who has injury concerns of his own), Dwight's injury can't be that serious. Right? Either way, it's going to be hard to tell how and at what strength he comes back at.

Game Recap: USA vs. Australia, Olympic Quarterfinals

What, me struggle?

     After watching the Russians, Spanish, and Argentinians advance to the semifinals, the US men’s team went out and took care of business against Australia, a repeat of the chippy quarterfinals in 2008. On paper, it was a 119-86 drubbing where the US dominated with 22 threes, 13 steals, and 18 forced turnovers. In reality, however, it was the third straight game where the Red, White, and Blues played only sporadically with the requisite focus and let their opponent hang in the game well into the second half. Thanks to LeBron’s steady triple double and the Black Mamba’s 2nd half explosion, the game never felt as close as the scoreboard indicated. 

USA Basketball 2012: The Stream Team

(This is a guest post from MAMBINO friend and brother of CDP, Big Plato. From SoCal, he's been intently watching the Olympics with a keen eye for historical implications. Check it out!)

No significant cultural or athletic event can pass without a title, a hook attached to the legacy. We love the pop pull of nicknames, of zingy summations of the historic impact or general character of whatever passed before us. Like all self-respecting sports entities, USA basketball has a proud tradition of accurate inscriptions. The Dream Team is a fondly remembered, hazy monument, an untouchable feat that can never be undermined despite modern considerations of talent and logic. We were Redeemed in 2008 and while much of the squad remains on the roster, the influx of new stars and an entirely different swagger sets the 2012 team apart. So what are they? We could pull out our rhyming dictionary and throw a slew of irrelevant adjectives and inappropriate nouns at the board until a syllable sticks, but there may be a simpler answer. And before any naysayers try to spoil the fun in favor of naturalism and letting the games speak for themselves, I would like to state, to insist, that this team must have a moniker. There is no way around it, we would be passing up too great an opportunity for jingling insight otherwise.

Without further ado, Uncle Sam proudly presents your 2012 American basketball all-stars, the Stream Team.

Instant Trade Analysis: Steve Nash to YOUR...Los Angeles Lakers

Los Angeles Lakers get: PG Steve Nash, 3 years, $27 million (absorbed through their $9 million dollar trade exception from the Lamar Odom deal)

Phoenix Suns get: 2013 & 2015 first round draft picks, 2013 & 2014 second round draft picks

In a completely shocking turn of events, the Los Angeles Lakers acquired Steve Nash from Phoenix tonight for a bevy of draft picks. For months Nash had been saying not only that it would be difficult to play for his playoff rival Lakers, but made serious overtures towards playing for the New York Knicks, Toronto Raptors, Dallas Mavericks and Brooklyn Nets. In fact, I wrote off an acquisition of Nash as a pipe dream in a free agency column for Silver Screen & Roll. However, after a phone call with Kobe Bryant, Phoenix's ex-point guard changed his tune, coming to LA in search of his first ring in a city where his addition would mean they won a chip. And indeed it would.

As for the trade itself...the Lakers just got Steve F'n Nash. Even at age 38, he's in peak physical condition, showing zero signs of wear and tear considering the minutes and intense playoff battles he's waged over the past eight years in the desert. For years, the Lakers have lacked a pass-first point guard who was able to make the other players around him better. The triangle offense was the most efficient distributor for open shots. With Phil Jackson and that system gone, we've all seen the results of how the lack of a passer affects the Lakers offense - despite the speedy Ramon Sessions, Kobe Bryant and one of the best passing bigs in the league in Pau Gasol, the Show very rarely was able to get an easy shot and ranked amongst the worst in the league in transition buckets. Mike Brown's bread and butter was throwing the ball to Kobe, Pau or Bynum in the post, and hoping that their immense skills could simply overwhelm an opposing defense, rather than use ball movement to get open looks.

Generationally Defective: Why We Hate LeBron and Melo, but Admire Rose and Durant

LeBron James is a coward. The self-anointed Chosen One has led a NBA career with varying highs and lows, astounding us along the way with a dazzling combination of size, speed, grace and strength. Never before had we ever seen an athlete that drew comparisons to a Transformer; a burning locomotive train that could change into a blackbird jet at any given moment. LeBron's promise to his consumers has been that indeed, he would be the one to bring basketball to heights never before seen - we are all witnesses, afterall. However, in a folly of hubris fit only for a King, James has yet to deliver on his various pledges; while he has amazed, he has yet to conquer. The progenitor of the South Beach Theory, a situation where in trying to add value to your own personal "brand", you actually diminish it,  LeBron has somehow become the most despised player in the league. We should be thankful that he spends his time bestowing his gifts and otherworldly play upon us, and yet, we've come to resent the cowardice from a man who has shown a reluctance to walk the self-instituted path we've lined the streets of, waiting for ascendance. LeBron James was drafted in 2003.

NBA's Flopping Superstars: Double Standard or No Standard At All?

The MAMBINO crew (and the general NBA writing populace) has been afire with rage at the egregious and seemingly unending flopping going on in these playoffs. LeBron, Wade, Chris Paul, James Harden and the like have been throwing their bodies around the court as if they got hit by a Rhinoceros rather than a hard screen or an errant forearm from a shooter. Commissioner David Stern has taken notice and there are whispers that a "flopping" committee will be instituted to stop our favorite NBA-ers from being thespians rather than the hard-nosed ballers of yesteryear. 

But the controversy got us thinking, do the NBA superstars get away with flopping because the refs let them operate under a completely different set of rules? Or perhaps everyone does this, but maybe we're just a little too sensitive to our best and brightest flailing about the court? The CDP and I discuss.


The CDP: There's no doubt that the NBA disciplinary committee has had a pretty tough time keeping order in the L this year, with a rash of hard fouls on a mid-air Blake Griffin and lots of tough fouls to officiate. As a Lakers fan, my season was bookended with big Lakers suspensions by stupid fouls from our frontcourt: Bynum's assassination attempt on JJ Barea and Metta World Peace's elbow to the skull of James Harden. At the moment, though, the controversy is all about the Heat. On one hand, you have to admire a team like the Heat's ability to get to the line with their explosive athleticism and deft maneuvering into the paint. Sometimes it's hard to do anything else with LeBron and Wade but foul them. Through obscenely bad flops, constant yammering at the refs, and some Academy Award-caliber acting, it seems like this advantage has been contorted into something else entirely. There's a growing sentiment that the Heat are playing by a whole other set of rules. In one short sequence against the Knicks, LeBron flopped against JR Smith before treating us to one of the worst flops I've ever seen. It swung the momentum of the game and was initially called a Flagrant 2 foul before being downgraded to a Flagrant 1. Poor Tyson Chandler is rightfully incredulous, as is the announcing team, prompting Van Gundy to wonder what kind of league the NBA is becoming where this is a flagrant foul.

What do you think? KOBEsh, do you feel like Kobe gets treated the same way?

State of Laker Nation Playoff Recap: Implosion in the Clutch

           With a loss like this, I’m not sure it’s the details that really need discussing as much as the emotional and psychological impact. The last two minutes are still burned in my brain. As KOBEsh wrote about Game 1, sometimes it’s a lot easier to swallow a big loss than one like this, which was also an amazing opportunity to steal a game on the road. As a result, I have a world class sports hangover this morning, the kind of pain you can’t believe you’re in over sports. I can’t believe how emotionally draining last night’s loss was as a fan and can only begin to imagine what it was like on the plane flight home. Did Kobe let anyone talk or did he mandate a team sulk on the way home?

As painful as this loss was, it wasn't all bad. I have to give Coach Potato Head credit for making adjustments and having his team ready to play last night. And they were great, for a gritty first 46 minutes, where they had a 7 point lead. They won the rebounding battle and played stifling defense, forcing 14 turnovers. Russell Westbrook came back down to earth and James Harden had 5 TOs. Offensively, the Lakers took care of the ball and got to the line. The bigs even showed up and controlled the paint. Bynum had a huge hook shot to extend the lead to 7 with 2:09 to play. Then it all went off the rails and the Lakers imploded in a terrifying fashion. After holding the Thunder to less than 70 points through those 46 minutes, the Lakers coughed up their 7 point lead and let the Thunder voodoo shamans rip our collective heart out. A couple of quick Harden layups, a turnover, and a clutch Durant jumper. All of a sudden we were down and unable to respond. Game over.

State of Laker Nation Playoff Recap: We Can Finally Exhale

Before the game started, I had goosebumps. You hate being in a Game 7, particularly when you’ve had a chance to avoid it, but it’s a truly special moment in sports. I just wanted to get off to a good start and help the Lakers settle into their game. Being successful in a Game 7 requires managing emotions and playing in rhythm. This is where legacies are created and the palpable weight of history can sometimes suffocate a team.

After it was all over, Lakers 96, Nuggets 87, I could finally exhale. Denver put up a hell of a fight and will be dangerous next year, but there would be no more waking up in the middle of the night thinking, “What if…” Ty Lawson’s Speedy Bunch is gone and hopefully lit a fire for Round 2. Special props to Afflalo, Lawson, and Al Harrington for bringing their A-Game tonight and all series long. Overall, the Lakers exhibited a great team effort tonight, a game to be proud of. Denver never buckled and the Lakers earned every inch. They ground it out as a team, even when the shots weren’t falling.

State of Laker Nation Playoff Recap: What?

(Seeking solace from one pathetic Lakers apologist to another, The CDP and I exchanged a series of e-mails regarding Denver's laugher over a listless Lakers squad last night. Here's our e-mail exchange, in the form of a game recap)

This kid's Xmas ornament was as useful as Payton in purple and gold.

KOBEsh: There were so many parts of last night's Game 6 that made want to hurl myself out a window and alternately throw my Gary Payton #20 Christmas ornament at the television. What do you think was the most egregious offense made by the Lakers last night?

The CDP: I'm gonna go with Mike Brown and his rotations, which have been a problem all year. Kobe may have been the only guy who showed up, but he was also sick and Brown played him 37 of a possible 42 minutes before sitting the last 6 minutes when the game was out of hand. More than that though, if your team doesn't show up, you have to spice it up. In the third quarter, Pau was absolutely killing us as the Nuggets built a big lead.

Despite Jordan Hill being our most effective big for the series, Brown waited nearly 9 minutes before throwing the Spaniard on the bench. Even the bottomless reserve of energy and hustle that is Josh McRoberts could have mixed things up. To me, it's unclear that Mike Brown has been able to hold his bigs accountable, either through rotation choices or off-court film sessions. I was angry that Pau was bricking jump shots, but the problem with our bigs last night was the story of the series: lackluster or non-existent help defense and marginal effort on the boards.  Considering the context, it's a fair question. Was this 3 point, 3 rebound "performance" Pau's worst game as a Laker?

Jeremy Lin: 2 Incredible Stories from Knicks-Lakers

I have been staring at my computer screen for 10 minutes. I have 22 e-mails in my inbox from the last hour. I've sent text messages to over a dozen people. I can't concentrate. I keep on trying to come up with a series of complex sentences and metaphors to describe what I've just seen and how I'm feeling and nothing's coming to mind. I write thousands of words a week, and somehow I can't find the words to adequately describe the one sports story that I've had the biggest emotional response to.

Jeremy Lin just dropped 38 points on Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Am I dreaming?