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With Cleveland victory, Lakers are now offically number 1
Posted by: SPQR on Feb 08, 2009 - 06:48 PM
lakers-blog
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Coming on the heels of Boston win, the Lakers made their indisputable claim to being the best team in basketball by ending the Cavaliers 23 home game winning streak.
No fan of any team can rationalize it, no media pundit can equivocate on it, the Lakers are now the best team in the NBA and must be considered prohibitive favorites to bring back number 15 to Los Angeles this summer.
A few thoughts on the game, three things stick out to me:
We won it much like the game in LA. Once again our bigs down low dominated the action. The Cavs just have no answer whether it be Lamar, Pau or Drew.
We also broke down a defense that has created havoc with the rest of the league. They can't seem to find a formula to really get us out of our offense or slow us down. The same defense that successfully stymies other teams can gain no purchase on this Lakers team.
The last thing is stopping Lebron. The Lakers have found a formula to get Lebron out his comfort zone and slow him down. He seems tenative and unsure on how to attack what we do to him, much like Kobe did against Boston last year.
And just as with Boston last year, it seems unlikly, indeed impossible for them to come up enough answers to beat us in a seven game series. This does not bode well for them and makes one extremely confident if indeed it is Cleveland we face in the finals.
On a day when Kobes face told the story of phyiscal conditioning I want to single out Trevor Ariza, Pau Gasol and most especially Lamar Odom for their determined efforts in bring us from behind against the best home team in basketball for the win and sending them and the league an explict message. Lamar was just amazing. The player we all want him to be. He has stepped up in Drews absence, as has Pau and thats the thing that makes winners and champions. 28 and 17 was just too much hemorraging down low for Cleveland to deal with. He seemed to make every big shot and get every crucial rebound.
With this win the Lakers fate, unlike last year, is theirs to decide. With no boogie man waiting in the finals there is no fear, no reason to doubt. This team just needs to go for that ring, come out after the all star break with fire and determination, extend their play through the second half of the year, the playoffs and bring it on home.
The only thing that can stop this team is themselves or the injury god.
One last thought. Though it is hard to quibble on such a great day and this is not a complaint, it is something on my mind. Watching Lamar's performance as a starter, it still makes me think of what a Drew, Pau and Lamar front line would do and could achieve. Yes, conventional wisdom says it may not work but only a short time ago did not conventional wisdom also say we had to have Vlad as a starter to create the proper space for them as well? When you deal with such mulit-talented, accomplished and exceptional players as Pau, Lamar and Drew, sometimes conventional wisdom is not so conventional or so wise. I would like to see them fail together first, before I take that conventional wisdom for granted as we were expected to with the Vlad spacing theory.
I may be wrong on this, but I have a feeling that those three are smart enough, good enough passers and scorers to learn to co- exist and thrive together if given the chance to play together for any meaningful stretch of games. The big three playing together remains an elusive and seductive chimera for me. Possibilities unknown and potentialities untried, just the allure of something exotic and unstoppable.
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Re: With Cleveland victory, Lakers are now offically number 1
by JonathanDavid_24 on Feb 11, 2009 - 12:06 PM
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I love this post Randy :)
props, Repped :)
check your vote stats, I left a nice comment ;) jeje
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