Los Angeles Lakers @ Phoenix - Game Thread - Friday April 13, 7:30 pm
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PHXSportsFan4
Time for baseball season.
I hope they end up having to face the Mavs in the 1st round. I have tickets for the Mavs 2nd home game in the 1st round and I'd love to see them crack the Fakers.
LOL...which is it? Raja played Kobe well but he still missed his open shots that he usually makes?
The Lakers played really great interior defense with a lot of blocks and surprised even me, holding the Suns under 100, but the Suns were just "off." Funny they are always "off" against the Lakers.
Kobe played like spoiled ass left out in the sun for a week and somehow the depleted Lakers made it a game. Color me shocked. Granted, I thought we'd lose to begin with but with crappy Kobe out there you should have rolled us by 20 at LEAST.
You guys take far too much pleasure in the Lakers losing. I'd be worried you couldn't roll a depleted Laker team with a 20 percent shooting Kobe at home while trying to hold onto the 2 seed. Yikes. Dallas and the Sp*rs are licking their chops.
BTW, Kobe sucking tonight was no news to me...I already thought he would be in poor shape after playing without a rest the previous night...48 minutes with no break. I did not think he'd be THAT bad. A few more made shots and you guys would be whining about how he sucked and still beat you.
BTW x2, the terrible offensive foul call on Amare was a complete makeup for the terrible non-call of the over the back on Diaw the play previous that led to a layup for him. So that's a wash.
elindholm
edited for content
Raja apologizes to Kobe over last year's dirty foul and makes nice with him, and now, Kobe no longer has that killer instinct to stick it to him or the Suns. Kobe can be killed by kindness. Mamba has become a Bruce Banner playing us, and he can't muster the anger to Hulk-out.
e, are you really encouraged by that win...at home? Seriously?? I'm actually pretty happy with the way the game given Kobe's horrific, disgusting performance.
There's no sore loser rant there...I'm shocked you are happy with the game. All season the Lakers have slowed your tempo, and this game they held you to a very low score. Kobe played like a scrub and still it was close.
If I were a Laker, I'd be very encouraged coming away from that game.
The Suns are a better team by far, but they SURE didn't look like it tonight.
And yes, I'm going to call out your fans' homerism that somehow Raja caused Kobe's poor shooting, yet the reason the Suns shot poorly was because they were "off." Whatever. Kobe had some great shots and nothing would fall..six footers, sixteen footers...open looks and clang. Dude was waaaay off. But no, that was all Raja. And the Lakers had a ton of blocks in the paint and lots of steals and good help D, but no...the Suns offensive woes were just them being off. Come on.
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Amare was just as "off" as Bryant was in the sense that I would expect both of them to play a whole lot better in a playoff game than they did tonight, so consider it a wash.
Treesquid PhD
Pardon my Engrish
fixed
Uhm, no. Amare scores at 20 a game, Kobe at 32. Kobe going for 17 and Amare at 15 is nowhere near a wash.
We got beat, but I'll take solace in the fact that I haven't seen Kobe play that poorly in a long, long time and it had nothing to do with defense...not when he was clanking good shots off the rim.
BTW, how the hell did Amare make those two late bank shots...those were ridiculous...I was shocked when the first dropped, but the second one looked like a replay! Weird. Weird in a pissed me off kind of way, but notable nonetheless.
- Raja makes Kobe work. Kobe's legs were obviously heavy tonight. Combine that with help D, and that's what happens.
Too bad the cast can't nut up enough when Kobe is in the game.
- I highly doubt PHX is worried about DAL or SA. The only team they should be worried about is their 1st round opponent... Golden St.
- Yeah, the Suns were off. Part PHX/Part LA. Amare's legs are DEAD. His struggles are causing a trickle-down effect. He seriously needs some rest. He's been going non-stop since last summer... pre-season... all-star game... playing in every game. All the while still coming back from a year off. Kudos to him. He could use a good 7 days to get his body right before the playoffs.
- James Jones gets a chance to start for a 60-win team, and he can't hit a shot. Talk about a blown opportunity. Yes, he plays D... but damn.
- I won't rip on Lamar Odom, simply because I don't know if I could go through what he's going through. That being said... his mind is not there. And, it's hurting his team. When right, the Lakers are a tough cover from all angles.
- I can't wait for the "light-switch" to turn on in a couple weeks. I've been waiting for this moment for a long time. The regular season has been dead to me. I don't want ANY excuses. PHX needs to start kicking the sh** out of teams starting with Game 1 against Golden St.
Newsflash...the Suns are a better team than the Lakers.
If the roles were reversed...if we were the 2 seed and you were on the verge of falling out of the playoffs and we squeaked one out at home against you with your best player a good 15 points off his average and looking terrible, I'd be pretty freaking pissed off at the performance of my team.
That's just me. I wake up in the morning and piss excellence.
Treesquid PhD
Pardon my Engrish
James Jones has been great since they have instituted the leather ball.
Treesquid PhD
Pardon my Engrish
Fine, but please don't call me a ***** ho. thanks.
Yes, but Amare shot 33% worse than usual on his field goals and Kobe shot 20% worse...Amare got fouled a lot but he just looked off.
cly2tw
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First, Kobe had mostly only contested shots. Second, Diaw was not "over the back" but rather over the top. That was a clean hustle rebound. And even for 'makeup', it was an unfair one as Kobe fouled Amare at least two times while Amare did not foul him while passing the ball, say at least a 3:1 in favor of Lakers, which is however common for the refs anyway.
Good total post, sly...thanks. To start with, some was Raja, a lot was Kobe on the B2B after playing far too long last night with no rest. Combine it, and you get that crpafest of a game.
Kobe will die this season if by some miracle they made it through the first round, so I hear where you are coming from. And also you are right...it was part PHX, part LA...which is all I was asking for...I sat there impressed with the way the Lakers played D tonight, especially inside, especially since Bynum has been so soft recently and came out a lot tougher, and the first thing I see is "well, we (the suns) were off." That's frustrating to see...
yeah, we can be but we have not been right (lamar and all of them) for months. The team is limping to the playoffs and are so done it isn't even funny. I seriously would rather they lose out and get the incrementally better draft pick. Lamar needs surgery. So does Kwame. So does VladRad. The team is just done...done done done, son. I love Lamar, but he's too lackadasical to play on this team...Sasha is a better fit because he gives a ef, like Turiaf too. They care.
Honestly, you should have kicked the sh** out of the Lakers tonight.
elindholm
edited for content
I watched only the last six minutes. It didn't seem that either team was at their best. You say that all of the Suns' struggles were due to superior Laker defense, while all of the Lakers' struggles were due to fatigue from last night's game. That doesn't have the ring of truth to me, but I'll admit I didn't watch most of it.
The Suns haven't been playing well recently. At least in this game they did some things right, looking at the box score. They won the rebounding battle (narrowly) and, one way or another, shut down the other team's big scoring threats. Obviously I would have preferred to see someone other than Nash shoot well, but you can't have everything.
No, they didn't, and they probably weren't. But they can play a lot better than they did, just like the Lakers can.
Both positions are equally biased. Even during the time I watched, however, I could see that some of Bryant's open looks were when his rhythm before the shot had been messed with, usually by Bell. So even though Bryant had space, he wasn't in his comfort zone as far as the entire process was concerned. Historically, Bryant shoots a lower percentage against Bell than his average, and you can't explain the entire data set by just saying Bryant was "off."
elindholm
edited for content
Or you'd like to, which isn't quite the same thing.
He's been getting blocked by players all year...is it really any worse that before because I didn't notice.
I finally saw the worst call ever in NBA history...
How Amare can be hacked and slapped all over his arms, but then Kobe runs into his elbow and he gets called for the foul is the mystery of the year.
That ref outta be fined for that...just horrible.
How Amare can be hacked and slapped all over his arms, but then Kobe runs into his elbow and he gets called for the foul is the mystery of the year.
That ref outta be fined for that...just horrible.
Actually no...I was more making the comment because the opposite was being said. It's all a combo of a lot of different things, but Kobe's play was just as much a part of his being off and last game than Raja. I actually thought he got a lot better shots than he normally did against Raja, but they just didn't go down. That's just from watching. He was incredibly horrible in the fourth, though...taking really bad shots. For the majority of the game, he had good ones.
If Nash and Kobe had both sat out this game, the Lakers would have won the game going away. Funny that.
That's my point...I am happy knowing how bad we played and we were right there, yet some Suns fans were excited just to beat the Lakers...at this point you have to say we need to DESTROY the Lakers, especially if their best player is 15 under his PPG.
Yes, they are equally biased and the truth lies somewhere in between. Yes, Kobe usually has a tougher time against Bell but even then he doesn't struggle like he did tonight. He was going long stretches..8 shots with nothing and barely iron. Another thing...often when the guy misses he barely misses...he was BRICKING hard tonight...even from short range. Combo him having a bad, bad game, coming off a no-rest 50 point night and facing one of the 3 guys who defends him best and you get what you saw tonight. But again, that is not all Raja...just as it wasn't all the Lakers D holding down the Suns NOR was it the Suns just being "off." Is it not true that one of the things that Suns fans dislike about playing the Lakers is that the tempo is slowed in those Lakers/Suns games? The Suns aren't just "off" those games..their tempo and shot selection is disrupted.
You are such a happy no.
Listen...Kobe fouled the living ef out of Amare, and Amare didn't even touch him on the call....but Diaw definitely fouled Sasha. Over the top doesn't exist when you have an arm on the man boxing you out. It was a terrible no call, that was then made up.
Overall, it was a fairly well called game.
Treesquid PhD
Pardon my Engrish
My piss is so clear you couldn't drink from the tap, but you could definately cook with it.
