GT: Orlando Magic @ Staples Center

Not that this would have been possible, but god how happy I would be if we had a Chauncey Billups at the point...you know? Someone who knows what he is doing on D.

 

I'm not gonna just jump off the championship wagon because of one loss.

Again, no team in the west will challenge us. It's the east I am worried about. Boston is still dangerous, and they're still capable of beating anybody when they're focused. We've shown we do not match up well with Orlando because we don't bother to guard the three point line, and say what you want about Cleveland, but when was the last time we beat them?

At the end of the day the championship goes through the east. If we can't beat any of the "big three" then it's pointless. Like I said in another thread, I actually think Boston is our best matchup.

 

Thanks but It doesnt take a psychic to figure out that the Lakers are playing like crap right now (even in a Win) compared to Cleveland and Orlando...

Some people simply don't want to realize that...

 

No doubt man, but I don't care if we lose to the Cavs or not, I'm not sweating just yet.

 

I know I'm new. But hey, time to cause some trouble:

ORLANDO MAGIC > LOS ANGELES LAKERS

 

Bynum has seven boards the last three games. :O Just a little bit of a slump unfortunately.

 

I don't understand it either.

Phil lets Fisher do whatever he wants, I don't even think he yells or benches him, EVER.

He continues to play Fisher big minutes night in and night out. Fish continues to suck every night, he's already injured himself, and he's not getting any younger. By the time postseason starts, if he continues this trend, he'll be absolutely burned out.

No Fish most likely means more Farmar (when he returns) which isn't a positive either.

I can't believe how shitty our point guards are. It's fucking embarrassing.

 

I know, I stated that earlier. With the amount of height we have on this team, it's amazing to me how horrible we are at grabbing boards. Bynum looked great early on with his offense, but honestly I'd rather him just focus on grabbing the boards, BOXING OUT, and playing defense. In the ideal situation (what we all envisioned at the beginning of the season), Bynum is our main defensive presence and plays the Tyson Chandler role. Pau is the second offensive weapon and does all the scoring. Unfortunately none of that has happened lately. Bynum is still a good anchor for the most part, but his rebounding has really slipped. And Pau? What the fuck happened to him. I'm not gonna call him out entirely because for the majority of the season, he was our most consistent player. But he hasn't been doing shit recently, he looks like a fucking pussy. I had more confidence in Lamar tonight than I did Pau, and so did Phil. He was benched in the fourth quarter.

This team has to get it together.

 

So, reasons why we lost:

- Stupid turnovers. Specifically the 3rd quarter. We had at least 5 turnovers that quarter that led to probably 12 or so easy hoops for the the Magic.

- We couldn't rebound to save our fucking lives. When we have a pair of seven footers in the starting lineup and Kobe fucking Bryant leads our team in rebounding, something is wrong with that. We got outrebounded 54-40 and gave up 15 offensive boards. Pathetic.

- Our defense was putrid in the 2nd half. Jameer Nelson absolutely torched us in the 4th. Why we kept leaving him open just boggles my mind. As a whole, we gave up 65 second half points after holding them to 44 points on 40% shooting in the first half. Absolutely pathetic.

- 4th quarter FTs. Lamar missed a few and Kobe bricked one. Those came back to haunt us.

I'm sure there's more reasons why we lost...but I think these are the biggies.

So to recap, our defense in the 2nd half sucked, we played sloppy, missed too many 4th quarter FTs, couldn't get a rebound to save our lives, and no one wanted to guard Jameer Nelson, who kicked our asses in the 4th quarter.

 

Andrew used to jump for those rebounds. Now he just likes to tippy toe everything. The effort isn't consistent, I mean, look at how high Kobe gets on his rebounds, I mean we all know Andrew can jump, how come we don't see more of those hops? Seems like he only gets up for the alley-oops and dunks.

 

Is Andrew still a bit banged up? Just wondering.

 

Have fun saying that now, but when we're in the Finals and you're at home crying after your playoff loss...well...

 

Doubt it.

If he is, he certainly didn't show it tonight because offensively he was fine.

I'm just pissed at how this team gets outrebounded. With the amount of size we have, that should NEVER happen. A couple of times is understandable, but when it seems like teams are outrebounding us and getting second chance opportunities all the time, that is completely, utterly unacceptable.

 

So my question is this: why in the FUCK is Ariza not on the court to end games? He's our 2nd best defender (at worst), and instead of having him out there, we have Fisher, who can't stay in front of his man to save his life. I know Fish has hit some big shots in his career, but at least make the defense/offense switch and keep Fish off the court on defense.

 

Kobe has 13 boards in 1 game

Bynum has 13 boards in 4 games

Step. Up.