All eyes on Portland: Jackson (and yes, there is a "rain" comment): [video=youtube;CM_Z89LUy_8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM_Z89LUy_8[/video] Fisher: [video=youtube;W34tUVkoZVA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W34tUVkoZVA[/video]
Fans: http://forums.lakersground.net/viewtopic.php?t=102351 and http://forums.lakersground.net/viewtopic.php?t=102195
silly Laker fans and their reverse woofing...We're talking about the Blazers potentially having this lineup tomorrow; At SG: Roy and nobody At PG: Bayless and an unproven Mills At SF: thankfully more consistent but overall still inconsistent Webster and a rookie in Cunningham. At PF: Hopefully a healthy Lamarcus and Juwan (if he doesn't start. if he does start, Pendergraph) At C: Pendergraph and Juwan. Barring Roy going off for like 70, and LaMarcus going off for 30, and Webster scoring 25, I just don't see how this won't be a Harlem Globetrotters vs the Washington Generals type game. We're just too underhanded, and even though they bust their ass (mostly), that's asking a whole lot.
I assume this game is on ESPN, since it's on a Friday night. I think Phil Jackson is going to try to send a message to us, the way he sent a message to you, Rudy, with Ariza. He's going to try to blow us out.
Why do we have to scorer 125+ to beat the Lakers? Whatever happened to defense? Remember, they only get to have 5 players on the court at once. Same as us.
If Phil Jackson followed the same game plan that the Clippers did to Roy (double teaming) in LA we are skrewed and we will lose this game.
The game that started our 8 game home winning streak against them: http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200504200POR.html What a fun box score. Sasha 0 for 8 (Kobe had zero help on that roster). Telfair with promising numbers. A breakout game for a young Outlaw. Ha with 13 points on 6 of 7 shooting. It always kills me that I missed this game. What kind of shots was Ha getting? Was Telfair creating easy dunks for him? Was he hitting hook shots?
Ha had two offensive rebound putbacks, one dunk assisted by Ruben, one dunk and a hook shot assisted by Richie Frahm, and a dunk assisted by Telfair. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playbyplay?gameId=250420022
[video=youtube;Icx24z58jPU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icx24z58jPU[/video] If you can ignore the crappy music to this referring to Ha as "the world's greatest" and the crappy quality of the video, there were some highlights of Ha's shots in that Laker game in this video: 1:09 Ha layup 1:41- Jumper, dunk and dunk 2:23 Telfair behind the back to Ha (highlight of that season) 2:43 Ha left-handed hook to clinch the game
That's an excellent question. I've been wondering that for a couple games now myself. What did happen to our defense? Dare I suggest that it disappeared when Steve Blake went out?
Pardon my all-caps response, but... WE DID NOT LOSE TO THE CLIPPERS BECAUSE OF OFFENSIVE IMPOTENCE! WE LOST BECAUSE WE COULD NOT STOP THEM! I'm sorry--when we score 95 points on 77 shots with 50%+ FG%, then it's not an offensive issue.
Other teams have realized Portland is very small now and have started to attack the rim with their size. The Clippers and Grizz both have offensively talented big men Portland simply couldn't handle. My guess is that Portland sees a whole lot of Bynum in the post. Unless of course Kobe wants to be the hero. Then who the hell knows what happens.
