Ahhh, back in #1 seed.
Great 3rd quarter for us and I am glad to have Vlad back.
Great to see Coby and DJ out there (my prediction came true!) Dacos!!

Have a great weekend all!

I would prefer Bynum to come off the bench for the rest of the year!

How about you guys????

Good Morning Charles---Good Morning Laker Nation....

Just the type of game I was looking for---Mbenga and Coby adding some tastey icing on the cake---

Just looking at Mbenga's play it seems that he should play more which would mean being able to do what I have long advocted--playing Ronny more and playing him along side of Pau--let Mbenga be Pau's relief.....

More playing time for Ronny would mean moving Lamar to the 3 sometimes and less playing time for Puke (hooray!!)

A front line of Pau, Ronny and Lamar brings a lot to the table....

Rad played really well and just his presence and shooting makes the offense work that much better...it was good to see him hit some shots and open up the offense---same with Sasha--when those guys are hitting their shots (along with Fisher, who had a great game, and Farmar) we are vitually impossible to beat.....

If Rad ever gets close to his level of play from his Seattle days we might be the best team in the west...oh wait a minute....we already are yee fricken haw!!

Positives for Puke: well he did hit a few shots.....but overall he is reverting back to his sub par play---come on Puke practice shooting about 6 hours a day!!!

Does he (and Lamar) ever practice free throws---he never seems to make both, and Lamar only rarely makes both---come on practice the easiest and most consistent (as well as uncontested) shot in the game.....

Championship teams almost always shoot free throws at an efficeint level....

K -Bros---any news on the 15th roster spot? Also is Kareem indeed working with Mbenga and or Pau?

YET ANOTHER GREAT DAY TO BE A LAKER FAN!

GO LAKERS!!!

“Whatever remnants of whatever rivalry the Lakers and Clippers might have had a couple years back have officially evaporated”

Unfortunately for Titanic Nation, the so called “rivalry” was dreamt-up by writers like TJ Simers and JA Adande, who were desperate to get people in this city to read their columns. Titanic Nation bought into it, and flooded talk radio and the blogs with their delusions of grandeur. Once out of their miserable existence they managed to be two games better than the Lakers -- Once -- If that’s a rivalry, then I’ve had a rivalry with Vegas for years, when I won my one and only slot jackpot.

Look for the Spurs to pick and roll the Suns into oblivion tomorrow. The Suns are giving up 126 points per game. The Spurs will destroy them. By the end of the day the Lakers will have a 5 game lead in the pacific. Unbelievable. D’Antoni may not survive the season folks.

My concern is Bynum’s injury. I’m hopping the Lakers are just being extra careful with the timeline. I was disappointed to read PJ say he’ll be out the rest of the regular season. They will need him 100% to beat the Spurs. I think the Lakers know that.

So if Bynum comes off the bench for the remainder of the season/playoffs, does that mean we might see a return of Ronny to the starting lineup?

Bummer about Drew. I have faith that, though not as smooth as weaving Gasol into the team flow, Drew's return will be an instant gain - at whatever level he plays - for the LAKERS.

I would still like to know if 11 players scoring above six points is a record of sorts for us. Just for fun and evidence of our depth.

I also agree that giving Mbenga more minutes could not hurt. But what about putting Coby Karl in for Luke? That couldn't hurt too much either. He nailed those threes.

did anyone find it strange why he (coach Pop) sat his starters when they were only down 13 with better than 5min left to play? After watchin the Spurs last night I'm not very impressed. They started playing very dirty when they couldn't win..and Mr. (ill pump fake but if you don't fall for it..then ill just jump into to you) Manu looked mediocre at best..and the bad part about it is Denver isn't known for there defense. What I saw last night was a team playing dirty and thinkin that there defensive clout will allow them to play dirty thinkin the ref will see it as pressure defense. Oh and Coach Pop..watch the company you keep! Hehehehe!

Did anyone get that joke?

The NBA..were College phone calls gets you a NBA coaching recomendation happens

HmrHed,
"Look for the Spurs to pick and roll the Suns into oblivion tomorrow."

LOL..I like that.

okay. Here 's the deal. Can we Please cut out all this talk about the laker NATION?!?!? It sounds very bostonish, it's annoying, and it definetely makes you sound like a bandwagon/fairweather fan. Me personally, I'm a parade attender. a fan of the mighty franchise in forum blue and championship gold. even in down years!(sedale threatt anyone)?lol Try these on for size, Lakerville, Lakerland. La`la land. anything, But just killl it the lame ass nation talk.n
Anyway the team is looiking great and all my real laker fans can feel me.. you smell something? i smell something, a championship!!!!!!!!!!

can you say beatdown?

Ouch.

Go Lakers!

I guess such blasphemy is allowed by out dear moderators. We need Andrew to beat the spurs. What season have you been watching! in case all of you worriers having noticed. We have the best record in the west. As far as i"m concerned, we have the best stat of all going for us right now. Wins and Losses. We can beat anybody, Period!

Food for thought:

How will the Lakers match up with New Orleans with Bynum out, and Gasol in?

I thought that a large part of the Lakers' success against New Orleans was due to Bynum's neutralization of Tyson Chandler's rebounding, and scoring off of Chris Paul alley-oops.

Will Pau be half as effective in keeping Tyson Chandler from running roughshod as he does against other teams? I hope so.

Drew should definitely come off the bench for the remainder of the season. He'll be great off the bench and we won't have to drastically change our lineup at the most important point of the season.

laker4lizzife,

That sounds arrogant and unjustified. 15-2 -- OK -- how many top dogs in the west did we beat? The Mavs and Suns look terrible.

Do you think the team with Gasol alone would fair better than the team with Bynum alone against the Spurs?

We are talking about the champs in the playoffs -- not the Clippers or the Kings-- we need every weapon.

And yes I have been on record several times saying that the Spurs are not beatable without Bynum -- I stand by my comment.

I love this quote............ "We're here to win a championship," he said. "We're not here to develop players." ..........hows that working out for you?....ha..ha..ha ....

http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/PaolaBoivin/18868

Time is running out for Suns

You can slice, dice and dissect this trade all you want, but even after the Bass-o-matic treatment, the conclusion is the same: The Suns led the West when they traded Shawn Marion for Shaquille O'Neal a month ago. Now they sit in sixth place.

How long can you work out the kinks before acknowledging that they're not going away? If Friday's 126-118 loss to Utah at US Airways Center was a playoff preview, it's going to be a short postseason.

"We just didn't get any breaks, and we don't quite have the swagger to close yet, but I think we're on the right track," Suns guard Steve Nash said.

The Suns were better. But this dangerous fine line they're walking, trying to restructure their team while trying to stay in the playoff hunt, is getting dicey.

You can bet that fans will start barking about the Suns' bench again.

The Jazz went 10-deep, even without injured starter Andrei Kirilenko, and four of their reserves played 10-plus minutes. They are a solid bench of role players, including Kyle Korver, who scored all of his 14 points in the fourth quarter.

Coach Mike D'Antoni went eight deep instead of his typical seven, with the addition of new acquisition Gordan Giricek.

D'Antoni doesn't want to hear it. Nothing raises his hackles like criticism about his short bench.

"The object is to win," he said earlier Friday. "It's not, 'Play everybody and have a good time and everybody goes home friends.' I'm getting ticked, because our (starters) are playing less minutes than anybody in the league."

He has a point about the misconception of his starters' minutes. The Suns have zero players in the top 27 of minutes per game in the Western Conference. Raja Bell is 28th with 35.5 minutes. Houston and the Los Angeles Lakers each have three players above that.

You want crazy minutes, look at Allen Iverson (42.4), Stephen Jackson (39.5) and Baron Davis (39.4).

The suggestion that D'Antoni go deeper is mind-boggling to him.

"OK, I don't want to play Steve (Nash), I want to play D.J. (Strawberry). Yeah, that makes sense," he said.

D'Antoni wasn't ripping Strawberry as much as he was trying to reiterate what he always has believed: He sticks with players he trusts and refuses to apologize for it.

This is where it gets dicey. The window of opportunity for players to prove themselves closes quickly in this neighborhood. Once it's closed, it's hard to crawl back through.

"We're here to win a championship," he said. "We're not here to develop players."

He might not be developing players right now, but he is trying to develop a functioning offense. And that seems to be getting in the way of this championship business.

D'Antoni still is tweaking and fine-tuning. O'Neal would like to stay on the court longer, for example, but the coach doesn't want him and Amaré Stoudemire out of the lineup at the same time. And when Stoudemire is ready to come out, he wants O'Neal to be fresh.

Still, O'Neal has made sure to let the coach know he's ready. As he tells people in the organization, "I have no night life." Consider how often he comes to work out in the arena during the evening, I believe him.

It's hard not to feel nostalgic about what the Suns used to be.

D'Antoni still believes that the new-version Suns can be successful. He also still believes that his preferred rotation is the way to go.

"One of the reasons we could win 60 games or 55 or go to the conference finals is because we have this group of seven guys, where there shouldn't be much of a drop-off when a guy comes out," he said. True, but none of this short-bench business will matter if the Suns can't get out of the first round of the playoffs.

And lately, that doesn't sound like such like a crazy proposition anymore.
Topics: SPORTS, suns, NBA, Paola Boivin
posted by PaolaBoivin on Friday, March 7, 2008 at 11:44 PM

The Lake Show,

Agree with you post completely except for one thing.

We cannot dismiss the Celtics and to a lesser extent the Pistons. One of them is coming out of the East and they will be formidable.

"We're here to win a championship," he said. "We're not here to develop players."

I'm glad PJ took the time to develop the rooks or "whale bleep" as he use to call them -- It seems he changed his philosophy out of necessity. Now Farmar Vujicic and Triaf are integral parts.

My GF wants to know what kind of dog Luke has? His name is Gus. I couldnt figure it out.

just as i thought and hope for... that against a weak team, kobe doesn't need to go all out... just a minimal effort enough to kill the other team... MVP aura.

Lebron against a non play-off team scored 50...wow... he sure poured in a lot of juice...

Kobe against a non play-off team, just let his teammates build up some confidence... this is how you make your teammates better...

there has been a mis contention of the phrase, that a great player makes his teammates better. some, like hollinger will refer to the stats... and sadly he look at the stats only. i know there some guys out there, rely only on the stats. but its not only the stats.

i look farmar, sasha, ronny, vlad, LO, there swagger and confidence is much at the same level at Kobe's.. they don't have that few seasons ago...but now Kobe makes them feel that they are better.

as player myself, if you don't feel that you are a better player than before.. it would greatly affect your output. that is true to all kind of sports. in other words, it starts at your confidence.

for now LB is doing what he needs to do, to make his team reach the playoffs... right now Kobe is doing what he needs to do in order to win a championship.

THE STATE OF THE LAKERS AND OTHER MOMENTOUS SUBJECTS…

The main thoughts that ran threw my head as I watched the Lakers crush the Clippers last night were that God truly is a Lakers fan and the Clippers need to relocate to Orange County or Oklahoma City or they will never escape the shadow and legacy of the Lakers.

Watching last night’s NBA action at a sports bar with friends was like winning a trifecta. We cheered the Lakers romp over the Clippers while simultaneously rooting the Jazz to drop the Suns and Nuggets to dump the Spurs. Game, Set, Match. Lakers back as top seed in the West over the Spurs and 5 games ahead of the Suns in the Pacific Division.

You can really see the way that having played a tougher schedule earlier now benefits the Lakers, who have an easy rematch against the Kings tomorrow, while the Rockets and Hornets, Jazz and Nuggets, and Suns and Spurs beat up on each other this weekend.

If you ever wondered what it would be like if everybody on the team played great, then last night’s game was just what you ordered. The Lakers had 7 players in double figures and 11 players who scored at least 6 points. Other than Luke Walton, every Laker player shot better than 50% from the field and beyond the arc.

While Kobe was his usual MVP self and Pau his usual double-double, the guy who played a great game was Lamar Odom: 15 points, 8 boards, 4 assists, 4 steals, and 2 blocks in a team-high 37 minutes. While the great play of Drew and Pau have elevated the Lakers, the key to how well we are playing right now is Lamar Odom, who has become a beast.

While it’s disappointing that Andrew and Trevor will probably not be back until the playoffs, the news that Chris Mihm may actually be back by the end of this month could turn out to be a real plus for the Lakers, giving them another 7-footer to back up Pau and also allowing Ronny to move back to his natural power forward position.

It will be fun to see if Phil experiments with playing Mihm and Gasol at the same time. It would give Pau and Lamar the opportunity to slide into their ultimate positions of power forward and small forward and the team a chance to work on their twin towers offense. It could actually make it easier for Andrew to fit in if the team gets a head start.

I have to admit that I was initially skeptical that the Lakers could perform as well as they have without Andrew (a small case of GHE, LOL) but the way the team has been playing has me convinced that they can win it all despite the late return of injured players. And if we somehow fail to go all the way this year, there are still the next 10 years.

You have to give Phil Jackson and the Lakers coaching staff a lot of credit for the level at which they have these guys playing despite the injuries and changes in personnel. Like Kobe, Phil deserves to win COY based on lifetime achievement if nothing else. How can you win 9 championships and only 1 Coach of the Year award?

Phil is doing a great job managing the team’s and fans’ expectations. His tentative plans for integrating Andrew in slowly make sense, especially since we will not really need him until the second round of playoffs at the earliest. I also agree we need to be careful not to disturb the current team chemistry, which is terrific. Bottom line, however, we won’t be the best we can be until we get Andrew back.

Finally, I was really glad to see Vlade start and play well. Luke has totally lost all confidence in his shot, although the rest of his game seems to be picking up. Having Vlade’s 3-point shooting at the 3 makes us a much more dangerous team. We need to just keep concentrating on winning the next game. Everything else will work it self out. We are going to win the championship this year. I guarantee it.

Tom

Radmanovic back in the starting line up made the Lakers a much better team.

Floyd:
"While I do revel in the past of this franchise and can vividly remember those 7 game losses to the Celtics (and Knicjs in '70), (which was the start of the deep hatred I have for the Celtics (the 80's only fueld the hatred fire, even though we were the better team throughout the 80's---and actually we were often the better team than the Celtics (and Knicks) in the 60's as well, the lucky SOB's).....I do, however, live in the present and am definitly reveling in this present exciting team. "
----------------------------------------
Amen Brother. I didn't think anyone here hated the GreenieWeenies as much as I do. And I live in New England.
Glad to see I'm wrong about that.

Go Lakers!

During yesterday's game, I found it hilarious that Stu seemed more interested in the Nuggets/Spurs game than the Lakers game. He was so happy that the Nuggets were leading.

It was good to see the Lakers confidently extend their lead on the Clips and give some extensive PT for the bench. The chemistry and camaraderie on the team is very encouraging. And how great was it to see DJ hit his turnaround Js and Coby knock down a pair of 3s?

I want to give a little PROPS to a fellow blogger!

I find myself constantly criticizing every blog entry (just to myself fortunately) for grammar, punctuation, spelling, run on sentences, etc....

Every once in a while I start reading a post for a while and I realize it is well written with proper punctuation, spelling, etc... There are concise paragraph structures (which really does make reading easier) and NO CAPS (except when necessary to drive home a POINT).

I am not talking about content, everyone has an opinion, and I enjoy each one of them. I am simply saying it is nice to see the occasionaly well written post!!!

Point is 9 times out of 10 the end looks like this....

"Posted by: LakerTom "

Props to LakerTom for many well written, and usually right on point, postings.

Lakerblog,

As many of you know, I'm from San Diego. As I've always known it to be, San Diego is an LA hating town. We San Diegans hate the Dodgers, we certainly hate the Raiders, and that hate spreads to the Lakers as well, except a few like myself, AZ, and ex of course.

Well, me being the die-hard Lakerfan that I am, I wore my Laker shirt today while hanging out in the Pacific Beach part of San Diego. You guys would not believe the positive reactions that I got just for wearing my Laker shirt today. When before, I would get, "Lakers Suck!", "Kobe's a bi**h"; today people were yelling, "Go Lakers!", honking horns, wearing Laker gear, etc.

Seriously, I've lived here my whole life and have gotten a heck of a lot more criticism for being a Laker fan than props. But man, today I felt like a superstar wearing my Laker shirt. And this is LA hating San Diego I'm talking about!

This Laker team is on the verge of something special and everyone knows it.

The team needs to stay humble and continue to execute.

Go Lakers!