A silly game played by kids. 

That phrase could also aptly describe what the Lakers (and Kobe Bryant's 52 points) reduced the Jazz into resembling throughout this 132-102 spanking. 

Those waiting for a truly bonkers scoring barrage from Kobe certainly got their wishes.  Whether The New Jack Bauer had simply been pacing himself for an TNT game (for the out of town fans with basic cable packages) is debatable.  What ain't debatable is the degree to which Kobe forced worse Jazz notes than those played by Kenny G.  His second half alone featured all but the one of the following stats:  9-10 from the field.  2 of 3 from behind the arc.  10-10 stripe shooting.  2 boards.  3 assists.  1 block.  1 Pulitzer Prize.   

See if you can figure out which is the fake achievement.

In the meantime, Lamar Odom was two assists shy of a trip-dub (14-11-8) and the Ronny Turiaf/Maurice Evans duo supplied big time contributions and energy off the bench.  And save Brian Cook (who may still be a bit sluggish from missed time while sick) everyone managed to log some PT.  Hell, if the game had lasted another 5 or so minutes, BK and I might have gotten the call.  Even we couldn't have screwed this one up... Well, not too badly, if nothing else.

More to come later.  (It's now been added, after the jump.)

AK 

Hit the glass, boys.  AK will take you through the first quarter.

BK

Hey all.  AK here.  Before the game starts, thought I'd share a couple observations I noticed while in the Jazz locker room.

1) Andrei Kirilenko's toenails are painted either black or shade of dark blue.  All ten of them.  I'm not making this up. 

2) Between AK-47, Mehmet Okur and Gordon Giricek, the Jazz have the collectively spikiest hair in the NBA.  For a second, I thought the Lakers were balling against Good Charlotte.

Anyhoo, the game...

Not a lot happening in the locker room before the game, but in talking to Jordan Farmar about this weekend's USC/UCLA game- did you hear, it's rivalry week!- I learned he was recruited by Vanderbilt, the pride of Nashville and my alma mater.  While he enjoyed the fact that the player benches are on the baselines (a perk for television and in-house fans alike), he found the program wasn't for him.  Why?  "I was going to a big time program."  Excuse me, sir?   Hi, we made the Sweet 16, like, two years ago and are frequent visitors to the NIT.  Dude could have gone down as the greatest Commodore of all time, soaking up Matt Leinart style privileges with the coeds until he declared for the draft (make no mistake, Vandy has some quality women).  Instead, he decided he "wanted to be the best Bruin of all time."  Admirable, but dude, that's hard!  Over Kareem?  Walton?  Miller?  Hazzard?  Just to name a few.  Certainly a tougher crew than Dan Langhi, Will Perdue, and Matt Freije.

Not big time enough?  That's bulletin board material for my boys in Nashville.  Look for them to come out swinging, should they ever face the Bruins.  Anyway, on to the game. 

The cool thing about being really, really, really rich is when someone says you have to give them $25,000 because of a few loose comments, frankly, it doesn't matter.  (As a member of the ever lucrative blogging industry, AK and I can totally relate... we just choose to eat ramen noodles every night, right?)  The $25,000 PJ will fork over to the NBA isn't the first fine he's received, and it won't be the last.  Nor will it be the final time he has some fun via the media.  What isn't fun was his team's performance against the zone in Tuesday's loss to Milwaukee, or their showing against it in practice on Wednesday (are you listening, Jerry Sloan?).  The bigs bore much of the brunt, mostly because they weren't much more active than Chris Mihm, who visited practice bearing crutches and a huge boot on his surgically repaired ankle.  Poor play has been the exception rather than the rule for Brown and Bynum, so the occasional (occasional!) bad game isn't a big deal.

The Lakers get another crack at the top-of-the-world Jazz tonight at Staples.  Perhaps they'll be a lil' sleepy after last night's grinding win over San Antonio.  Once again, it'll be about numbers as KB24 will see plenty of AK47.  Not surprisingly, D-Fish has become a leader in Salt Lake.

Today's practice featured a familiar (if somewhat melancholy) face.  Chris Mihm, sporting a "just coming off surgery and now hobbled on the couch" beard, a casted right foot and crutches the size of stilts, dropped by El Segundo and shared some updated 411.  His ankle operation (two weeks ago yesterday) was a success and he's now on the long rehab road to recovery.  While Mihm didn't rule entirely out any chance of playing this season, I suspect he'd bet the "under" if you placed the odds at 2%.  "It's possible," Mihm said, chin high as possible.  "It's gonna be a long shot, but it's something I definitely have in my mind and it's something that I want to do."  But even with said goal on his "to do" list, more immediate and pressing business remains at hand.  "Right now, I'm focused on getting this thing right.  Finally, we know what was wrong with it, what needed to be done." 

There were some audio clips in last night's postgame wrap, but not everything that was said got in. In an effort to a) provide top notch material to our readers and b) clear this stuff off the mp3 recorder, here's the rest of it. Click below the jump for the smooth voice of PJ, and a little from L.O.

—BK

They say it's a good thing to be in the zone. Maybe, but if last night's 109-105 loss at Staples to woebegone Milwaukee was any indication, it might not be so good to be against it. The Lakers did manage to set a franchise record last night, but as Clark Griswold once said to his son who congratulated him for flying the family car 50 yards off the highway into the desert, "That's nothing to be proud of, Russ." The record in question — 37 three-pointers attempted — indicated that the Lakers weren't getting the penetration they needed to beat the zone defense Milwaukee employed throughout the game. (Try not to stare directly at the shot chart. Or the box score, which shows some paltry contributions from L.A.'s low post players.)

How about the max deal he gave Michael Redd back in 2005? If he had just cheaped out, Redd may not have been around to torch the Lakers for 45 in Milwaukee's ludicrously disappointing 109-105 win over the Lakers Tuesday night at Staples. The Bucks got all zoney on D, and the Lakers couldn't do much to crack it. Not that they didn't try, cranking up the Downtown Shot Machine to the tune of 11-37 from downtown. That, my friends, bests the franchise record for treys chucked by one. And not that the Bucks didn't do their best to give the game back to the Lakers, turning the ball over 16 times, generally picking the most inopportune time to do so, the 16th being the best example after Redd dribbled the ball off his foot to give LA the ball down by three with 16 seconds left. Unfortunately, Kobe's attempt at a game tying triple clanked off the backboard. Ruben Patterson hit a freebie on the other end, and that was the ballgame.

More to come in a few. (Which has been added now, after the jump)

—BK

Oh yeah, it's not just a game, but a game against the hated Milwaukee Bucks.  Okay, not really hated.  I think we did a Question of the Day last season on who was the team that inspired the least amount of vitriol among Lakers fans, and Milwaukee was my choice (it's BK, by the way).  Who hates the Bucks? 

Incidentally, some woman played the National Anthem tonight on her violin.  Kind of cool, very odd, very free form, very avant garde.  Kind of like Hendrix's landmark anthem, except on a violin so everyone just thought it was wierd.  Anyway, onto the game...

Remember, he who wins the tip wins the game, right?   Kobe Stopper out on the floor for Milwaukee.  I'm sure 24 is terrified.  Smush controls the tip.  Lakers will win.

Or maybe he'll keep the beard he's grown while battling strep throat, I have no idea.  But either way, the now scraggly power forward is feeling much better these days (although he's still inactive for tonight's action).  Described by Phil Jackson as "on the road to recovery," Cook's been mostly bedridden the last 3-4 days, dealing with everything from a 102 temperature to occasional back spasms during his illin' time.  Cookie suspects the culprit behind the sickness may have been his own nephew, who joined his family visiting for thanksgiving.  The kid's almost two, which more or less makes him a professional germ carrier.  The tyke "fell asleep on my chest and slobbered all over me," laughed Cook.  But his own admission, Cook is "King Patient" among his teammates.  Colds, allergies, sinus issues.  You name it, the dude is susceptible.  "I get sick a lot," he said, shaking his head.  Give the man credit for his willingness to gut it out.  Despite the sickness kicking in, Cook would have gladly stepped on the court during Friday's game against Utah and given it a whirl.  Probably best that he didn't, however, since he almost nodded off a couple times while watching the action from the bench due to a lack of energy.