After a disappointing loss to the ailing Hornets, the Lakers must rebound tonight (pun intended) and crush this Atlanta team early on. The Lakers cannot allow Atlanta to stick around in this game and keep the score close. They have too, much talent and an explosive scorer in Joe Johnson. Lamar Odom's embarrassing play in the Hornets game needs to be used as a motivational tool to get him 110% focused for the duration of the game. Odom has been sensational, but he has to learn to keep his emotions under control when calls aren't going his way. Arguing with the refs gets Odom off his game and he ends up with a T or commits some careless turnovers. In the last game the Lakers were killed on the offensive glass. The Hawks aren't a great rebounding team, but they have scrappy players in the post and the Lakers have to box out and limit Atlanta to one and done. Kobe Bryant cannot get caught up in trying to out play Joe Johnson. JJ has the green light on offense, and we all know Kobe does not like to get shown up, especially at Staples. We don't Kobe coming into this game with the attitude of "I'm going to one up JJ everytime he shoots." The Lakers need to get back to pounding the ball in the post and taking advantage of an undersize Hawks team. I want a blow out tonight so the team feels confident heading into the Sunday showdown against the Spurs.
Huge game tonight in my opinion. We're coming off an embarrasing loss to an injury riddled New Orleans Hornets team who was mired in a 5 game losing streak in which we pathetically helped them snap. We need to show a lot more intensity tonight against the Hawks. We can't be giving up the easy layups we were the other night against the Hornets and we HAVE to keep them off the boards. We have a much bigger team than them and should have no problems controlling the boards, as long as Lamar and the rest of the bigs come out with an intensity they lacked the other night. We also have to, at the very least, contain Joe Johnson. He's the x-factor for that team, and if we can shut him down and make others shoot the ball, we have a great opportunity of winning. Also, we need to keep an eye on Tyronn Lue tonight when he's in the game. He's been absolutely on fire this season, and if he gets hot early the way he has been all year, he can absolutely torch us off the bench. We need to keep him contained as much as possible and not let him get on a roll. If we can contain JJ and shut down Lue, as well as taking advantage of our size down on the blocks, this game should be an easy W for us tonight, key word there of course, is should.
<div class="quote_poster">Brian Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">Apparently we will be without Laker Great Kobe Bryant for tonight</div> awww....
Good let that ankle heal. the Lakers are more than able to beat the hawks without kobe. Just hope that AI doesnt get traded to ATL in 10 minutes, fly to the game to get a quick physical then plays.
Lakers win!!! They shot .557 39-70 FG's, .421 8-19 3pt FG's, .800 20-25 FT's. Outrebounded the hawks 42-35 Shared the ball better 29 - 16 all without kobe... i hope this could carry over against the spurs and kobe would find a way to fit in to this momentum
I knew the Lakers could beat the Hawks without Kobe, we have the depth this year at every position to make up for Kobe or Odom being out or having an off night. Luke, Mo, and Jordan all had career highs in the game, and the Lakers won the rebounding battle 42-35, while holding Atlanta to just .434 field goal %. We did have a lot of turnovers again, and PJax needs to figure out something to fix this problem. A lot of the turnovers are unforced, dribbling off the foot, lazy passes, passing to the fans instead of teammate. These things drive me nuts to watch, I can only imagine how crazy it makes the coaching staff. Lakers need to play a clean game if they want to beat the elite teams in the West like the Spurs and Mavs. Those teams will take full advantage of all your turnovers.
