A much better look

good to see pau back with a few regular season games remaining, lets hope bynum and ariza can get a couple in as well

lockdown defence and efficient execution on offence are going to be the keys to the lakers success; run the plays, get back on defence, and establish a big lead

EYES ON THE PRIZE, GO LAKERS!

AK/BK (or anyone else),

During the TV Broadcast, upon return from a commercial break, the broadcaster that does the courtside interviews (sorry, don't know his name) was talkng about Andrew Bynum and he said "The good news, Phil Jackson said that he "Tested Higher" than his rookie season of 2005"

Did I hear that right, and if I did, does anyone know what it means? I assume they didn't ask Andrew to re-take his high school GED.

Thanks much!

great game but...

AN HOUR AFTER TACOS:

FSN: "Weeks" is the word from Mitch.

Norm the Storm (cloud), says the Andrew report is a bad sign. "Can't count on him for the playoffs".
Huh, Norm?

He followed that up with LO, Pau and Andrew would be too slow to play together effectively.

These quips apparently missed the blog brain trust 'cause that's a 7.0 quaker on a normal day. The last one is to be proven but...

What does "can't count on him" mean? He didn't put it out there like Phil did about not counting on Andrew to help in making the playoffs. He inferred, Andrew won't be ready to help in the playoffs. The little tidbit about the three trees, LO, Pau and AB, being too slow was like a "oh, and by the way".

Norm's word isn't gospel, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know anything.

Meanwhile, Dirk's playin' and Pau's ankle still hurts.

Vitti, Vitti, Vitti! Latin for "I played, I sprained, I rehabbed" (indefinitely)

*_____________________________________*
WELCOME BACK PAU GASOL BANDWAGON
*_____________________________________*
(01) DREWPAUKOBE - Driver & Owner
(02) MAMBA24 - Riding Shotgun
(03) THE_D Director of setting the banquet
(04) TOAD – Getting experience to drive the welcome back Bynum bandwagon
(05) ROBYN - Dirfector of finding newn trainers
(06) AMAZING HAPPENS – Director of all things Amazing
(07) KOREY - Will personally replace all trainers
(08) CHARLES – Director of Analysis
(09) FAITH She will be new Laker trainer -
(10) DAVE - director of Keeping Eyes on Prize
*_________________________________________*
FAITH TO BE NEW LAKER TRAINER BANDWAGON
*__________________________________________*
(01) MAMBA24 – DRIVER OWNER

*_____________________________________*
WELCOME BACK PAU GASOL BANDWAGON
*_____________________________________*
(01) DREWPAUKOBE - Driver & Owner
(02) MAMBA24 - Riding Shotgun
(03) THE_D Director of setting the banquet
(04) TOAD – Getting experience to drive the welcome back Bynum bandwagon
(05) ROBYN - Dirfector of finding newn trainers
(06) AMAZING HAPPENS – Director of all things Amazing
(07) KOREY - Will personally replace all trainers
(08) CHARLES – Director of Analysis
(09) FAITH She will be new Laker trainer -
(10) DAVE - director of Keeping Eyes on Prize
*_________________________________________*
FAITH TO BE NEW LAKER TRAINER BANDWAGON
*__________________________________________*
(01) MAMBA24 – DRIVER OWNER

Good morning, Laker Nation,

I was about to come unglued during that first quarter... I could almost hear Faith screaming in my head, "Where's the D? Where's the D?" Alas, the boys were able to tighten the defense and force Portland into some tough shots (although, as Shaw talked about before the second half, a lot of those missed Portland threes were uncontested). Yes, the perimeter defense leaves a lot to be desired, but I think that having Pau back in the middle is going to help correct that issue over the next few games. And when Socks gets back... lookout Western Conference. The Lakeshow is BACK.

Go Lakers!

Ak/BK

Have either one of you heard how Sun Yue is doing/progressing? I tried to look up a few articles about him and haven't found anything new and the few clips I saw of him on youtube were pretty disappointing. It would be pretty intruiging to see the "chinese magic johnson" playing with kobe in the near future if he's really that good.

ShowtimeTake2:

I heard the same thing and I don't know what that guy is talking about. He's more of annoyance than anything else.

Jon K: Has there been any realistic talk about ariza being available before the playoffs?"

Not if he's been near the trainers lately. LOL!

ESPN: Chad Ford Live Chat

Lakers vs. Pistons in Finals.

I will continue to check to queue to see if any tickets open up. I'll keep you guys updated.

wanted to check out how java (and kwame, i guess) did against the knicks and went to the griz's espn home page to get the box...

don pau? still prominently displayed.
who's guarding him? none other than cookie himself.
more quality four letter sports coverage. guess they'll wait till next season to change it.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/clubhouse?team=mem

sweet game by critter though! kid's got skills

cheers!

Jon K - At the Town Hall Meeting, Mitch said that the bones in Trevor's foot are still healing and that his return would be well behind Andrew's.

Speaking of Andrew, there's bound to be a natural frustration since Drew can't come back quick enough for the fans which gets exacerbated when we hear the coaches talking about how hard it is to bring back a player during the playoffs. The hope is that a lot of this is on Andrew's shoulders - that he will show the coaches he's ready and they'll play him. The pessimistic view is that he'll be ready and the coaches won't play him b/c they're in a hotly contested series. The irony is that people talk about the playoffs being a chess match and all about adjustments. Why the coaches wouldn't use Bynum (assuming he's ready) as a chess move is beyond me.

I think the win-win situation would be a quick series win coupled with an extended series for whoever their next opponent is. This would give the team 3-4 extra days to fully integrate a new line-up.

if the lakers beat the spurs and the hornets, they would have the tiebreaker over both, so they only need to tie them to get 1st

GO RAKERS:" ANYONE WHO IS INTERESTED IN BUYING PLAYOFF
TICKETS.......JUST WANT TO LET YOU ALL KNOW THAT THEY ARE ALL GONE
IM A SEASON TICKET HOLDER AND I COULDN"T GET ANY FOR THE FIRST PRESALE. THIS SUCKS"

What!! No playoff tickets for GoRakers. No, No, NO!
This will not stand.
*_____________________________________________*
FIND PLAYOFF TICKETS FOR GORAKERS BANDWAGON
*______________________________________________*
(01) MAMBA24 - Driver & Owner

Repost from earlier thread

Justa,
This season has been nothing but "trying something different" with the lineups. By position:
Kwame and Bynum and Turiaf. Fisher and Farmar. Sasha and Walton and Vlad and Ariza. Odom and Turiaf and Vlad. Gasol and Turiaf. The only "constants" have been Kobe and Odom, and they have both played multiple positions in multiple types of lineups.

Big lineups. Small lineups. Three-point shooting lineups.

Do you actually watch the games? Apparently not.

Posted by: exhelodrvr | April 02, 2008 at 06:16 PM

Ex

Yes I do watch the games and you should know that as I post during games as to what I see.

What you are failing to see is that in the beginning I was as happy as everyone with the depth of the roster and versatilty of it.

I said this team was deep and could go big or small and change lineups to play games to our advantage using versatility of our team to create mismatches.

The lineups were changed due to injuries mounting rather than creativity.
This is noted by the fact when we got down to 11 players with only 8 players used with 3 dnp-cd shows lack of creativity in utilizing all tools available. Until the criticism mounted Mbenga dnp-cd but finally got some playing time and helped in what he could do as role player.
Unfortunately this came too late because the 8 were over used and played extensively and tired out and created further risk of injury. Which did happen to Fish. I was constantly saying he should have been used to stay fresh for playoffs than burn him out during season.
Ira is still not used and could have played a few minutes in game yesterday to get him on the court. Where is the creativity? Coby also dnp-cd. A few minutes at the end could have given a little more under the belt. God forbid we get another injury and have to rely on a player who did NOT get any prep time on the court when he would be needed most. No creativity or foresight.
So yes I stand by by my opinion and PJ is not trying differently at least outright instead of reaction to injury.

Jon K.,

I've heard nothing new about Ariza and I'm not expecting him to be ready at any point in the regular season. Maybe I'm wrong, but if that's the case, I'm happy to be incorrect.

Available during the playoffs? Maybe, but even then I'm keeping the expectations pretty modest. The Newble signing and the fact that Trevor's timetable seems to be continually moving backwards strikes me as pretty solid signs that they're not counting on much from him during the postseason. Unless the Lakers go a few rounds (fingers crossed, obviously), he might not enough time needed to round back into game shape and really contribute.

AK

If we won't be getting the 1 seed, then it'd be better to keep the 3 spot than 2.
Whether it's No.2 or No.3 in the west, many idiots of media won't vote MVP for Kobe since he didn't take the Lakers to the No.1 seed in the west despite all the injuries and the fact that they actually predicted the Lakers to be out of Playoffs.
But then again, even if Lakers take the No.1 seed somehow, they'll still say how Kobe got better teammates(whether they actually played or not) than CP3.
Chris Paul is the best thing happened to some biased media personnel like John Hollinger who were losing ground supporting LBJ based on his stats.

Anyway, if the 2nd round match-up will be against the Spurs, it'd never hurt to get a weaker opponent in the first round. And since it seems that Rockets will be the No. 6, and without Yao, they're surely easier team to deal with than Dallas or Denver.
So, let's just stay in the 3rd seed.
Once Kobe gets his Finals MVP this June, that'll teach something to the media

michiganlaker,

OK --Let's play it out logically:

Lakers are in the 4 or 5 -- They survive the first round.

Second Round: Lakers play #1 seed -- NO in your hypothetical. If they survive ...

Conference Finals: Lakers play SA -- assuming SA ends up in 2nd they will play the 7th seed (1st round) and then the 3rd seed (2nd round).

So if Lakers end up in 4 or 5 and things hold to form, there is no way of avoiding SA.

Notice that if we are 2 or 3 and things hold to form, we will face NO and SA anyway, just in a different order.

PsychedLakerGirl

Which blog paragraph link was that attached to? I'd love to find out who that person might be on this blog. I have a gut feeling who it might be...

Posted by: Charles

Wut up Charles, just curious who you were thinking that blogger might have been.
Also what do you think about was said in that post, b/c there is some truth to it.

Have a good one

VMAN:" "Trevor's timetable seems to be continually moving backwards" Vitti, VItti, Vitti"

BY GOD I THINK YOU HAVE SOMETHING THERE VMAN
NO ORDINARY TRAINER IR DOCTOR WILL DO! THIS IS A JOB FOR DR. WHO!!!

I was watching ESPN Fastbreak last night, and they were talking about about Tyson Chandler is an ally-op machine. MAN!!! too bad that they didn't get to see Andrew for a full season, but oh well... he is coming back soon and show them who is the real dunking, rebounding, shot blocking machine. MAN!!! can't wait to see Andrew tear down the rim again, and I wish we get to play the Suns somwhere in the playoff, so he can at least have 2 dunks over Shaq per game.

While I wish for Kwame's success,
I hope we don't get him next year.
If we get him back, PJ will go nuts with
his challenge and play around with it
during the regular season.
It won't matter that much actually as long as we
go to the playoffs and win the championship,
but that'll take away Kobe's chance for the MVP.
After seeing Pippen never won a DOY award,
I'd hate to see another deserving player missing
an award that belongs to him.

But then again, may be Bynum will win 6th man of the year which doesn't belong to him..... Hmm

Mamba24

"THIS IS A JOB FOR DR. WHO!!!"

If we don't get them all back? It might be a job for Dr. Kervokian. (For us bloggers)

AK,

Thanks for the information. Not what I was hoping for, but what can you do?

{Sigh}

GO LAKERS!