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Lakers-Portland: One win down only 81 to go.
Posted by: SPQR on Oct 29, 2008 - 02:09 AM
lakers-blog
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The long waited curtain rose on the premier of the 2008 season tonight and the results were promising.
It is obvious that Phil is drilling this team for the title this year. His emphasis on defense and conditioning in camp this year, his implimentation of more two-a-days, his decision to move Lamar to the bench mob and his desire to run and play intense defense all point to him molding this team to more resemble the championship Bull squads. The changes he has made show he obviously feels this young team is now ready to take that last step and he is putting his foot on the gas.
The Lakers were impressive in that it was a victory and great performance for an ensemble cast, led of course by the games leading man: Kobe Bryant.
The two most impressive things were this teams commitment to running and playing hard defense.
Phil's old Bulls, while masters of the triangle would run at any given chance. This Laker team, like that Chicago one has the altheticism and youth to do the same. It is desirable to do so for the obvious reasons that it demoralized the oppenent and leads to the highest possible shot percentages. This team as constituted cannot run enough. It has the horses to be a devestating fast break team.
The more important aspect of tonighs win was the presence of a excellent and sustained defensive presence. The importance of that to this 2008 Lakers team is an immutable fact: If we play great defence, then this team will win the NBA championship. If we don't, we can lose the NBA championship.
The Lakers showed aggression, good switching and even effective countering to the pick an roll, a weak spot in all of Phil's previous Laker teams. This type of defense has to sustained all year. To play it for a stretch in games, or even for a few games or weeks of games is not enough. Defense has to be so ingrained it is actually muscle memory-just reaction and effort, no thinking or resting. The Lakers actually had been been playing fairly decent defense at the time of Drews injury last year but slowly got into bad habits as the year progressed, till by the end of the year they were giving up layups and open shots like a Hershey company executive handing out chocolates to his neighbors kids on Halloween. The Lakers cannot repeat last years path and need to continually work on and improve what they showed tonight on the defensive end.
Kobe showed that a trip to the finals and an Olympic gold has not doused or dimmed his fires. After the hard foul by Pryzbilla he took it to the Blazers as only Kobe can. As a Blazer fan it must have so very disheartening to be outplayed by a complete team, then having to watch Kobe work his physical magic like some cherry on top a big mountain of whipped cream.
For the Great Man there are no accidents on the basketball court-everything is personal. It's part of what makes him the force of nature that he is. He has the will and skill to mete out retribution as he sees fit when he feels his sensibilities have been challenged or insulted. It's always awesome to watch no matter how many times weve seen it.
Besides Kobe's punitive efforts, no Laker stood out with a monster game, and that was good news. This team is truly an esemble cast making great music. To blow a team out without having to rely on transendent play by your stars is the ultimate compliment to that teams power and versitiity. This team should be able to control and dominate many games this year with just such a group effort. And its always nice to know that in a pinch you have such players as The Great Man, Lamar, Pau and Drew who can come up with killer stretches if the need arrives.
Nice to see Trevor get off to a good start after his injury last year. This guy will bring so much to us this year and if his off season work on his jumper works out as well as it did tonight he's going to get tons of PT. This also means Luke Walton, sitting behind Vlad and Trevor will find PT equally hard to fine. I can't honestly say this scenario bothers me.
The much anticipated match of Drew and Oden never materialized. Drew looked tentative and reticent for much of the game. This is to be expected since he missed most of last year and was no doubt both nervous and unsure of how to meld into the flow of the game. I don't expect this to last very long. He showed last year once he had few good games under his belt his confidence and play soared through the roof.
Oden was never a factor and left the game with a foot injury never to return. It's hard to put any judgement on a player who missed his whole rookie year and barely played tonight. I have to admit if I were a Portland fan I would now be a little concerned with his penchant for injuries. His hand at Ohio State, the knee last year and now the foot on opening night. Thats alot of injuries for such a young man. When it was learned he had inconclusive x rays and would not be returning I could not help but think of the fragile, easily bone shattered Samuel L Jackson character in the movie 'Unbreakable' when he told Bruce Willis, "It was the kids who told me who I am-they called me Mr. Glass." And I am not referring to Oden's ability to rebound when I paraphrase that quote.
I hope the guy does not turn into another Bill Walton. That would be a shame.
Good start on all levels for the 2008 Purplengold and worth the long wait for the curtain to rise.
Bring on the Clips...
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