The Teams

Blue squad: Trevor Ariza, Jordan Farmar, DJ Mbenga, Ira Newble, Vlad Radmanovic
White squad: Coby Karl, Chris Mihm, Ronny Turiaf, Luke Walton, Sasha Vujacic
(The starting unit, save Vlad Rad on a limited basis, got the day off)

Best Play Runner Up
Walton's over the shoulder alley oop to Mihm, who throws down a one-handed dunk

Best Play
Walton's layup gets swatted by Mbenga, but the ball lands in Turiaf's hands.  Ronny throws what's just short of a touch pass cross court to Karl, who hits a catch and shoot from behind the arc.

Final result?  Turiaf converted two at the stripe, securing victory for the white team.  Newble called shenanigans, claiming you can't end on free throws.  "You can today," retorted Phil Jackson with a smile.

If I managed to make an intersquad scrimmage between bench players sound considerably more exciting than it actually was, my work here is done.

For your viewing pleasure, post game video from last night.  More to come as they're built out...

(UPDATE: Now with more Odom!  And more Sasha!  And more Sloan!)

The Lakers, despite some profound advances in the quality of the players around him, are still fundamentally Kobe Bryant's team, so when he took the floor with a very balky back for Game 5 of L.A.'s Western Conference semifinal against Utah with the series tied at two, there was certainly reason to worry.  Or maybe not.  Despite a quality effort from the Jazz, L.A. walked away with a critical 111-104 win Wednesday night at Staples.  Kobe was, despite his team high/extremely impressive 26 points, clearly limited and had to pick his spots, which meant the guys around him had to pick it up.  Rare are the close games in which Kobe doesn't attempt a field goal in the fourth, but that's what we saw last night, as his teammates, generally another member of the starting five, stepped in to fill the void. 

The box shows Pau Gasol had a huge second quarter, then finished strong late in the fourth (not without a little controversy).  Lamar Odom (22/11, two blocks) was a force on both ends, while Derek Fisher contributed key buckets and four steals and Vlad Radmanovic broke out of his playoff slump with 15 points. 

Coming so soon after Sunday's OT controversy - did Kobe abandon his teammates, or did they bail on him? - on Wednesday it was clear Kobe's mates came prepared to chip in, and did in support of their hobbled (but still pretty damn effective) leader.

Really, we'll do anything to work a Short Circuit reference into a post.  It's so transparent and cheap.  But damn if that movie isn't the epitome of delightful!  The way Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg were able to enhance their own humanity via an unusually human robot?  I think there's a lesson in there for all of us.  No wonder it was nominated for a Saturn Award. 

But I digress...

Wednesday night, the Lakers faced a pivotal Game 5 against the Utah Jazz in their Western Conference semifinal series, needing a win to hold on to home court advantage but facing life with a diminished Kobe.  (Perhaps you heard he hurt his back?)  It wasn't easy, nor particularly elegant, but in the end the Lakers got what they needed in a 111-104 win.  They'll take a 3-2 lead into Friday night's game in Salt Lake City, comfortable in the knowledge that should they lose, one more game on the friendly home floor awaits.  The Big Three were large for the Lakers, carrying them through different parts of the night.  Kobe's back was clearly aching, but he still had a major impact on the proceedings.

Click below for the breakdown, including a whole bunch of audio.    

Technically, it's not a must win, so we'll call it a "Damn, it sure would be seriously freakin' helpful to" win.  Kobe took his pregame shots with Sasha on his back, so I guess he's feeling OK. 

I might have made that last part up.

BK with the first....

FIRST QUARTER:

First good review of the night goes to the Staples fans, who have brought their collective A Game tonight.  The noise during the pregame intros was as loud as I've ever heard. 

11:40- Kobe opens by elevating and draining a three on the left wing.  He then comes back on the next possession, takes the pass, and drills a jumper from the right elbow.  Guess he's feeling OK. 

5-0 LAL. 

"It's the most important game of my life.  Every game from here on out is the most important game of my life."

- Lamar Odom, on whether tonight was the most important game of the season.

And there you have it.

A pivotal contest approaches between two squads knotted at 2 wins apiece.  Keeping with that theme, here are five items worth keeping eyeballs on, in my humble estimation.

• Kobe's back: This would be the highest profile of X Factors, and on a couple levels.  For starters, how much pain will Kobe be attempting to play through?  Bryant said he felt better yesterday, but still couldn't ride in a car or sleep without experiencing discomfort and is just now able to do some shootaround stuff.  Hopefully, the additional 24 hours between Tuesday and tonight see a continued uptick in healing, one allowing him to play at reasonably close to 100%.  If not, the focus could end up revisiting the much discussed differences between Kobe during the fourth quarter (facilitating) and OT (shooting) of Game 4.  Whether you think Kobe tried to do too much down the stretch, his teammates didn't assert themselves enough or somewhere in between (and I'm really interesting in rehashing a 72-hour-old debate), two facts can't be disputed.  Kobe missed a lot of late-game shots and admitted his back prevented lift and explosion.  Unless his mend has progressed nicely (fingers crossed), a multi-faceted "something" will likely have to give. 

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Join us for Purple, Gold, and Blue today at 11 am, when our guests will be Bethlehem Shoals of Free Darko, and Ken Levine, host of Dodger Talk on 790 AM.  Click the show widget on the side of the page, or go straight to our show at NowLive.com by clicking here.

Took a team of writers to come up with that gem, folks.

But all terrible puns aside, tonight does indeed mark commencement of a pivotal game 5 between the Jazz and the Lakers (7:30 pm PST, TNT).  One that will feature Kobe Bryant playing through the mother of all back pain, an injury sustained early into Sunday's loss in Utah.  Kobe hasn't practiced since touching down in L.A., but as everyone would fully expect, there ain't even a snowball's chance in hell that he'll sit out this contest.  Thankfully, The Mamba is reporting a positive change in his condition and remains hopeful he'll grow even more pain-free come the tipoff.  His effectiveness on the court, however, remains unknown for now, as well as his approach while on it.  Game 4's loss saw Kobe in heavy facilitator mode during the fourth, followed by a heavy shooting performance in OT, followed by Phil Jackson's comments that the supporting cast let down their star. Some felt the finale was Kobe attempting too much while others felt that notion was ridiculous on any level.  For what it's worth, Kenny Smith of Yahoo! and TNT, PJ's thoughts were actually directed at both parties in question.  Whatever the case may be, the development has people wondering the style and effectiveness Kobe will be armed with this evening.

According to Derek Fisher, the Lakers as a whole are pretty savvy when it comes to assessing via body language Kobe's ability to play through injury.  Most of them have played with Kobe for at least a few seasons and have become familiar with certain physical tendencies.  Thus, through careful observance, it becomes more evident how much agony is involved and how limited he will or won't be.  Sometimes, that ability to read Bryant can even come off the court as well, and Fish labels Turiaf as the "most perceptive guy that can kind of figure things out."  The most recent example of Ronny's intuition came during Kobe's MVP press conference.  "(Kobe) was tapping the side of the podium.  Ronny and I turned to each other and he was the first to say, "Kobe is really nervous."  He never gets nervous, but just by that tapping of the fingers, Ronny could pick up on the fact that he was nervous. Thirty seconds later, Kobe said he was nervous."

From there, Ronny correctly deduced that Kobe would actually keep his trophy in lieu of putting it on EBay, but I don't necessarily think it was the boldest of calls.
 

AK will have more from practice later, but he just texted me with the news that Trevor Ariza has indeed been cleared to practice without restriction.  He'd been deemed ready by two independent doctors, who felt that his fractured foot had sufficiently healed.  More details later, I'm sure, but however it gets sliced and diced, the information is good for the Lakers. 

BK