10:54- Lakers get on the board, as Vlad Rad gets inside, accepts a feed from Gasol, and lays the ball in.  On the other end, Melo comes back and hits the jumper over Vlad. 

10:07- Lakers up 7-4, after a scoreless first minute.  I already feel like I'm going to leave this series with a serious case of carpel tunnel syndrome. 

9:52- Vlad Rad picks up his second four, barely two minutes into the game.  Looking at the replay, it looked like Vlad went through Iverson, but that AI looked to sell the play, too.  Not sure why Vladdy didn't just go around him, though.  Either way, it's two on Vlad and Luke is in for him.

8:00- The Lakers have been exploiting the matchup of Iverson on Walton, going to Luke down low the instant the ball crosses the three point line.  They got one bucket out of it, an open look for Fish, and then another easy dunk from Gasol, all based on Denver having to overcompensate for it.  Finally, George Karl gets Kleiza into the game, for Carter.  That cleans up that matchup. 

7:10- Kobe passes up the open three, and the Lakers end up with the 24 second violation out of it.  Don't see that happen all that much.  Lakers up 11-7.

5:47- Two nice plays in a row from Walton, the first penetrating and feeding to a wide open Odom, who went down the lane for a big dunk, then coming off the screen, he took the pass from Kobe, had an open mid range jumper, but gave it up to Gasol in the post for an easier look.  Four quick points for LA.  On the other end, the Lakers are showing some help on Anthony, shading the double towards him.  Last time down, it was Gasol flashing, coming off Camby, who it's relatively safe to leave with a shot opportunity.  Certainly better than Melo. 

Timeout on the floor, Lakers up 15-9, and doing an outstanding job attacking the rim. Very few jumpers early.  Everything is being fed down low.  High percentage shots, and they also limit Denver's ability to run out.  Solid, aggressive play, but also very smart.

2:47- Timeout, Lakers, with Camby going to the line.  Overall, as good a start for LAL as they could hope for.  Up 23-13, doing a great job of getting the ball inside, and controlling the pace.  Even when they are shooting from the outside, as they did on the last possession, it's off a post (and in this case, a repost), forcing the Nuggets to protect the lane.  Harder to run the break with four guys standing under the basket.

Farmar in off the TO.

2:26- Melo to the line, and fans start a "DUI" chant.  They're in playoff form!

1:15- Nuggets go zone, and the Lakers respond by getting the ball into the high post with Gasol, who feeds LO, who misses the layup.  No points, but it's encouraging to see the first thing they do against a zone is to go into the interior of it.

:30- Kobe takes a three early in the clock with no ball movement, and the Nuggets grab the board and end up with an Iverson putback on the other end.  Next trip, Farmar misses a triple, and Walton is slow getting back on Melo from the other side, and the Nuggets get another easy bucket.  Eight point lead down to four in a heartbeat. 

END OF THE FIRST:

Bit of a breakdown in discipline over the last minute of play (6-0 run to close things out for Denver), but overall, it was a strong quarter for the Lakers, who finish the first 12 up 26-22.  The offense, at least for 11 minutes, worked from the inside out, with great effectiveness.  That, in part, helped turn Denver into a halfcourt team, where they're not nearly as effective.  Three more of those, and the Lakers will be fine.

AK with the second quarter.

SECOND QUARTER

11:40 - J.R. Smith absorbs some contact from Sasha whil taking it to the hole for a sunken layup.  Three point opportunity for Denver goes down as George Karl would have drawn it up.  The Laker lead's down to a scant point.

10:36 - Ronny Turiaf interferes with an exchange between Camby and AI, shuttles the swiped rock to Farmar, then recieves a feed en route to picking up a foul on Smith during a layup attempt.  The ball doesn't go down, but the pair of freebies offered as compensation do.

9:37 - Kobe checks in for Vlad Rad to play a little SF after the latter picks up his third foul.  To say the least, not the most productive of days thus far for Vlad.  A trio of fouls against a quartet of minutes.  Yikes.  Radmanovic looks seriously unhappy as he takes a seat on the pine.

8:47 - Kobe gets caught in centerfield mode, which ends up leaving Kleiza way too wide open for the three ball.  Not a guy you want to give clean looks.  He's not a huge name, but very capable of racking some points in big bunches. 

Phil takes a timeout as things have gone rather dry for his Laker squad.  Denver's on a 14-4 run with barely three minutes expired in the quarter and have upped their shooting percentage by 6%.

8:00 - Nice recovery by Pau by on a shaky entry pass from Kobe.  He manages to control it well enough for a shuttle Sasha's way.  The Slovenian's good from behind the arc.

7:16 - A reach foul by Kobe doesn't do enough to prevent Smith creating another and one opportunity for himself.

5:30 -  Some terrific inside-out ball movement sets up Walton for both a successful three, but also a "good shot."  There's often a difference.

5:01 Little to any challenge from Kobe during Anthony Carter's layup, right on the heels of Pau offering fairly amall resistance to a drive by K-Mart.  The Lakers' success (or effort, in some cases) in stopping the ball right now is next to nil.  If a serious sea change doesn't go down ASAP, there could be a fairly substantial Nugget lead staring them in the face during the halftime break.

3:50 - Great arching pass from Fish hits LO in stride as he streaks towards the basket.  A couple of dribbles and an emphatic one handed dunk work converge to help bring the panicked crowd a little more back into the proceedings.   

2:51 - Some fairly incidental contact by Kobe against AI leads to a third foul against The Mamba.  As a writer next to me notes, "That's an All-Star call."  I respond, "But Kobe's also an All-Star, so shouldn't the two cancel each other out?"  Apparently not.  Bad call.

43.5 - Spectacular touch pass from LO under the rack sets up Gasol for among the easiest layups he'll see this series.  Credit Kobe for the good feed to help up Lamar's.  What have we learned from this little sequence?  KEEP MOVING THE BALL INSIDE, KIDS!

22.1 - LO goes up for the one handed snag of Sasha's errant downtown attempt, then puts the ball on the floor towards the bucket for a layup and his 9th point.  With that number matching his rebound tally (along with three assists), Odom's come on quite strong for the half.   Dude's been everywhere and anywhere on the court. 

The half ends with Sasha making a terrific block on Kleiza's buzzer beating three ball attempt, helping preserve a two point Lakers lead going into the half.  The Lakers did a nice job recovring after seeing their lead fall in quick fashion as the frame kicked off.  Too much of that dry period was spent launching long shots, failing to move the rock inside and REALLY failing to stop the ball.  It also doesn't help that Kobe's half has been fairly non-descript and ineffective.  But that the Purple and Gold are up by a duece having gotten so little from Kobe should serve as a sign of hope.  If nothing else, it reminds us that he's not doing it all by himself.  We'll see what adjustments go down in the third with BK at the helm. 

THIRD QUARTER:

11:14- Melo picks up his third foul, on the offensive end, on LO.  Could be important if they can squeeze out one more.

11:00- Another Kobe jumper oer Martin, and again he misses.  Unfortunately, he gets caught in no mans land on the way back, and the Nuggets get an easy layup out of it.  He redeems himself on the next trip, stepping into the passing lane and going the other way for the layup attempt-

-he's hacked by Carter going up, then shoved under the hoop.  Refs t him up, as they should.  Timeout on the floor from George Karl, who has seen teh Lakers run out to a seven point lead to start the half.   

The Lakers have started the half out strong, and recognize the mismatch inside that always results when Carter and Iverson are on the floor together.  With Martin on Kobe, that leaves one of the littles to pick up Vlad.  While Raddy isn't exactly a post up force, it allows an easy entry for LAL.  They can't go that well often enough.  Once the ball is inside, Denver has been forced to scramble. 

9:14- Rad gets fouled own low.  Same matchup, same good result, so coming off the inbound, the Nuggets go zone.  Hopefully the Lakers continue to work the ball until they get inside of it.   

7:56- Kobe hits the shot in the right corner off the inbound, pushing the Lakers lead to 13, 73-60.  That's a 13-4 start to begin the third, and Karl takes another timeout.  Lakers are only 4-9 for the quarter, but they've managed to grab three offensive boards, helping them push the lead.  More importantly, the ball is getting inside, and both scoring and slowing down the Nuggets at the same time.  That Denver has started off 2-9 from the quarter helps, too.  But a lot of that comes from keeping them from running. 

7:10- Not sure where the call was there, but Kobe is whistled for his fourth, on Anthony, sending Melo to the line.  He makes one of two, and PJ chooses to keep Kobe in the game.  Bit of a gamble at this point, but obviously PJ trusts him not to pick up his fifth.  He shifts over to Kleiza. 

5:11- LAL 78, Den 66.

Sasha and Farmar in for Fish and Kobe. 

By the way, Denver is just killing themselves from the line.  13-23?  If half of those go in, this is a different game. 

3:05- Good patience from the Lakers, who don't settle for the perimeter shot, instead working the ball around against a loose Denver zone until Vlad finds space underneath, and hits a cutting Gasol on the other side for the dunk. Great work from the Lakers.  Gasol now has 32/10/5. 

1:00- After a terrible, foul ridden first half, Vlad has done a nice job in the quarter- not necessarily shooting (he's make one- wait, now two threes- but more from a distribution standpoint.  He's found himself in territory he doesn't usually go, down low, and has made some great extra passes to give the Lakers easy baskets.  Good work from Vladdy.

END OF THE THIRD:

Farmar hits the triple at the buzzer to put the Lakers up by 19. Outstanding Q3 for LAL.  They lay down the hammer on the Nuggets, dropping the ball down low over and over, mixing in with a little bit of perimeter game. 39-22 in the quarter.  Gasol was absolutely huge, going for 16 points, and Vlad chipped in with six.  Kobe found a bit of a goove, too, with 10 points on 3-6 from the line, and more importantly, 4-4 from the line (he didn't shoot an FT in the first half). 

Barring something unusual, the Lakers look good for Q4.  But if something unusual does happen, blame AK.

FOURTH QUARTER

11:24 - Smith gets called for a flagrant after basically pulling a WWF move while trying to "make a play for the ball."  Thankfully, cooler heads prevail, Smith actually apologizes to Luke, and nothing bad comes of it.  Yet, if nothing else.

10:46 - Kleiza blows past Sasha, then manages to navigate around Walton's raised arms in the paint to rack the layup.  For all the AI/Melo talk, Kleiza's been the one absolutely killing the Lakers tonight.  9-12 from the floor and hopefully not counting. 

10:14 - A very quick fourteen footer off little to any ball movement fails to drop for Kobe.  On the next possession, he misses a chippie after spending the entire possession iso'ed and dribbling against Smith and not ever looking in any teammates' direction.  At 5-20 from the field, it's been one of the worst playoff games I can recall Kobe playing in a while.  He's both off with his touch and seemingly trying to shoot the Lakers back into a game where they're already ahead.

7:03 - After slicing his way to the rack on the heels of a three ball, Kobe picks up his fifth foul for some baseline contact on AI.  That brings LO back into the game, with a backcourt of Farmar and Sasha.

6:20 - During the timeout, LO works out and stretches his knee.  It looked like he maybe hyperextended it or something during the previous possession.  Hopefully, it's nothing serious.  We'll try to find out later, but it's something to keep an eye on.

5:29 - Back in the game and back at the line.  Kobe wins a pair at the stripe courtesy of a foul by Smith (who checked himself with about a split second's worth of good grace befire his over the top reaction might have earned him a T from Joey Crawford).  Both go down.

4:30 - Kobe's at the line agains thanks to Smith, but not before picking up a double T with K-Mart.  I'm not positive why the technicals were called, but I'm guessing it had to do with some talking after Martin got away with some contact against Kobe that could have honestly gone either whistled or with the no call.  Kobe fired a bricked jumper soon afterwards and likely wasn't happy.

2:58 - I can't say I'm pleased with the result, but Melo knifing through 3 or 4 Laker defenders and Englishing the ball into the bucket. 

2:10 - AI gets a pair of quick T's and an early shower.  Remember what I said about this team being a touch on the combustable side?  Kind of what I was talking about.

53.7 - I can see why none of the Nuggets managed to recover and challenge that alley oop from Luke to LO.  I couldn't see where the heck it was even heading for a few seconds.  It looked like Walton threw it up to nobody in particular. 

the clock winds on a 128-114 win over the Nuggets.  Much to be happy about.  Aside from the outcome itself, fans should be very pleased that the Lakers managed to retain possession of this game during  among the worst playoff performances of Kobe's career.  Yeah, he got 32, but those points required 26 attempts, many of which were terrible shots.  Throw in one assist on a night where his teammates were hitting shots, and it's clear Kobe didn't spend enough time looking for the supporting cast.  Nonetheless, they provided support and plenty.  Pau Gasol ended up playoff win draught in ginormous fashion, putting up a 35/16/8 tally to go along with a trio of blocks.  LO was good for 17/14/6 and Luke Walton added 16 off the bench.  The best news?  You can figure Kobe ain't having too many more games like this one, so there could be even better sailing on the horizon.  More to come later.  Thanks for dropping by.