<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>EL SEGUNDO -- The Lakers have reached a pleasant plateau as the calendar year nears its end, and they are careful not too look far behind or ahead. Tuesday's victory against Phoenix was a statement that the club can compete with the top tier in the Western Conference, but the Lakers continued to downplay their 18-10 record. Instead, they have the challenge of not reading too much into their early success with building confidence. "We all understand how far we have to go," Derek Fisher said. "We don't look at our record as who we are today. "We look the things we still have to improve on, and our coaches make sure they keep us off-balance in a sense in terms of making sure we're working hard every day and not feeling as though we already have the answers." We're disappointed in a sense that we're 18-10. We feel like we could be four or five games above that." The Lakers started last season 18-10 and reached 27-13 before they stumbled to 42-40 after a litany of injuries and off-the-court incidents such as Vladimir Radmanovic's snowboarding accident and Smush Parker's dissension. Coach Phil Jackson took a page from his players and remains cautious. "This game is such a humbling experience," he said. "Any time you're not prepared, you're going to have your lunch taken away from you. You just can't do that in this game because there's just too many good teams." Jackson did acknowledge that his team is "playing the kind of ball that is comparable to where we were last year." He pointed to his team's passing and the stability of point guard Fisher. The Lakers are 15-3 when they have more assists than their opponent. The latest test comes tonight against Utah and point guard Deron Williams, who had a career-high 35 points against the Lakers on Nov.30. Kobe Bryant continued to say it wasn't difficult to put the start in perspective. "It's easy for us," Bryant said. "It's December. It's not something that (equates to) we won a title. It's nothing to be too excited about."</div> Source: OC Register
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yournewchef @ Dec 28 2007, 03:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>It's good they appear to be humble, kinda like w hat the Packers did this year.</div> Yeah Kobe and Fisher are doing a good job of keeping the younger guys humble. They know first hand what it takes to win a title and I'm sure both know this team still has a lot of work to do before they can reach that pinnacle. I don't think some of the guys on the team are in the physical shape you need to be in to make it to the Finals. There's a few players who can't recover fast enough and their production goes from solid to zero the following game.
