<div align="center">@ <font color="purple">The Los Angeles Lakers (28-25)</font> @ <font color="purple">The Toronto Raptors (23-32)</font> Time: 10:00 AM Pacific Place: Air Canada Center TV: KCAL, Telemundo</div> <div align="center"><font size="5"><font color="purple">Lakers' Head Coach</font></font> <font color="purple">Frank Hamblen</font></div> <div align="center"><font size="5"><font color="purple"> Lakers' Projected Starting Lineup</font></div></font> <div align="center"> <font color="purple">(Chucky Atkins, Kobe Bryant, Caron Butler, Lamar Odom, Chris Mihm) </font></div> <div align="center"><font size="5"><font color="purple">Raptors' Head Coach</font></font> <font color="purple">Sam Mitchell</font></div> <div align="center"><font size="5"><font color="purple">raptos' Projected Starting Lineup</font></font> <font color="purple">(Rafer Alston, Jalen Rose, Mo Peterson, Chris Bosh, Rafael Araujo)</font> </div> <div align="center"><font size="5">Bench Factors</font> (<font color="purple">Jumaine Jones</font>,<font color="purple">Donyell Marshall</font>) </div> <div align="center"><font size="5">Key Matchup</font> (<font color="purple">Kobe Bryant</font>, <font color="purple">Jalen Rose</font>) <font color="purple">Kobe Bryant:</font> 27.5 ppg, 6.6 apg, and 6.1 rpg <font color="purple">Jalen Rose:</font>16.9 ppg, 2.3 apg, and 3.4 rpg</div> <font size="5">Keys to the Game</font> <font color="purple">Los Angeles:</font> <ul> [*]Get Back on D- Detroit really exposed the Lakers on this. The Lakers would score a basket, and before you know it Detroit would be down at the other end scoring on an uncontested layup. It was disgusting, they can't be lazy again. [*]Recovery Game- This is a recovery game for the Lakers. This should be a win, they need a win after Detroit blew them out of the game in L.A. Come in here and play smart ball, play the game at your own tempo. [*]Lamar- Inconsistency has been attached to his name all year. He hasn't shown up offensively for the last two games and that has really hurt L.A. We need Lamar to come in here and be effective. [/list] <font color="purple">Toronto:</font> <ul> [*]Run- Run! Run! Run! That is what Detroit did and they had excellent results. Toronto needs to open the game running, see if they can catch L.A. sleeping again. [*]Force Kobe to Take Bad Shots- Since Kobe has returned from his injury he has been taking smart shots, shooting about 50%. If they want to win, they need to force him to shoot bad, force him to take bad shots and make bad passes. If Kobe is off, more than likely the Laker team will be off. [*]Put the Nail in the Coffin Early- After a blowout loss to Detroit (a game in which L.A. would of beat almost anyone in the league), Toronto needs to take advantage of the situation. Come into the game fired up and knock down your first 5 shots. [/list] <font size="5"> Prediction</font> L.A. should win this win, they lost to Detroit Friday night, but shot the ball 45% against them. It was their defense that lost them the game. Toronto is not Detroit, so if they can replicate their game against the Pistons and add some defense to that, they will win. L.A. takes it 104-95.
Lakers by all accounts should take this one pretty easily. If im not mistaken, they won pretty easily against the Craptors not long ago. Toronto has suprised some teams on occasion thou. I unbiasedly would choose LA against this team.
We need this win. Wins aint going to come easy. 6-18 against .500+ teams is not great. The Lakers need to win every game they can get right now. Seems Denver is coming on strong
What I hate about these games is that it's soooo early in the morning. It seems everytime the Lakers play @ Toronto, it's on a Sunday and very early in the morning... I'll probably catch the 4th quarter, lol ...
Yea we have the early games on Sunday's, and you guys are also in the West Coast, so for you it's like 10:00 AM. We do it so we can get wins lol, no other team wants to wake up so early, but our guys are used to it, it's all strategy lol
Gah, yea I got up early enough..I can't believe I did...my mom woke me up to tell me she was goin out...anyways..should be a good, exciting game.
Im in Baltimore, MD on the east so it plays at 1pm which is pretty good for me cause im usually up by that time on sundays for the Nascar races. It's 10 minutes after 1 right now and they doing the lineups. **In Game** 21-19 Lakers lead with 5:20 or so to go in the 1st. Both teams shooting well, lakers are allowing too much penatraition down low, Kobe has gotten off to a fast start getting his teamates involved and hitting all but 1 shot.** Lets go lake show lets go!!
Kobe is having another solid game all around....but the lakers bench and theyre Defense is GARBATION!
I missed the game, how did we lose to the Raptors? I noticed Lamar fouled out in only 28 minutes, so I'll take a wild guess and say he was in early foul trouble allowing the Raptors to take a lead on us. How come Mihm only played 11 minutes? And how did Caron only manage to shoot 1-9 when he's matched up with Jalen Rose, one of the worst defenders in the league? Lakers also had 18 turnovers, ugh, and letting the Raptors score 108. The next two games are MUST win for the Lakers. I don't think the Lakers make the playoffs if they lose either game. Denver is playing well right now, and there schedule is a lot easier than the Lakers.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting shapecity:</div><div class="quote_post">I missed the game, how did we lose to the Raptors? I noticed Lamar fouled out in only 28 minutes, so I'll take a wild guess and say he was in early foul trouble allowing the Raptors to take a lead on us. How come Mihm only played 11 minutes? And how did Caron only manage to shoot 1-9 when he's matched up with Jalen Rose, one of the worst defenders in the league? Lakers also had 18 turnovers, ugh, and letting the Raptors score 108. The next two games are MUST win for the Lakers. I don't think the Lakers make the playoffs if they lose either game. Denver is playing well right now, and there schedule is a lot easier than the Lakers.</div> Mihm and Lamar both got in early foul trouble. Kobe shot a stupid 3 with about a minute to go when were were down by 2. That pretty muched sealed the deal. We let them grab a an offensive board when we were down by 2 with about 26 seconds left. They made 2 free throws. Kobe then turned the ball over on the next posession...and then Chucky turned it over.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting shapecity:</div><div class="quote_post">I missed the game, how did we lose to the Raptors? I noticed Lamar fouled out in only 28 minutes, so I'll take a wild guess and say he was in early foul trouble allowing the Raptors to take a lead on us. How come Mihm only played 11 minutes? And how did Caron only manage to shoot 1-9 when he's matched up with Jalen Rose, one of the worst defenders in the league? Lakers also had 18 turnovers, ugh, and letting the Raptors score 108. </div> Both Odom and Mihm got into early foul trouble. Two of Odom's fouls were BS though. One was an obvious blocking foul that they called a charge, and the other was a reach on Atkins that they called on Odom (in the 3rd quarter, his 4th foul) ... Raptors went 7-7 from beyond the arc in the 2nd quarter. Yes, 7-7 ....The lakers came back at the end, and took a 4 point lead with a few minutes to go, but the Raps kept running that pick-n-roll with Skip and Rose, and Atkins and Jumaine Jones couldln't play it properly. Mihm was in foul trouble all night long, but I don't understand why he wasn't in the game at the end. The Raps got a huge rebound at the end that sealed the game becasuse Grant is just plain too short ...
You can't ever think a game against the Raptors at home is a easy win, the Raptors are like an eilte team at home, but one of the worst on the road, but at home, the Raptors don't lose too much.
