62 Lakers vs. Suns

Oh, there are a plethora of reasons there was no blog last night. The first being that we're trying to be like Shaq and rest on the least important of the 2 games when there's a back to back. As such we fully napped through the first quarter. The second being that it was probably the most ridiculous game to have witnessed all season and we also turned it off at the 3 minute mark in the fourth because seriously??


A word before the game
Great Scott! Luke Walton is in the starting lineup for some unknown reason. Granted the Suns aren't playing anybody you're used to hearing about on their team, like you know, Shaq, or Raja or Boris, but still! Starting? I guess our vote of confidence for Mr. Money Shot the other night worked. Got it.

Starting Lineup
KB24, 0.4, Andrew Bynum, Pau Pow, The Best Player On The Team


1st Quarter
Mother of god, was that a blocked shot? Tonight is going to be a night of miracles. Mark those words.

11:04 Um, uh, Luke Walton on the assist to Bynum.

10:46 Apparently in Phoenix rookies aren't allowed to comb their hair pre-game. Or either Robin Lopez doesn't know how to comb his hair.

9:36 Kobe tries for 3, Luke tries for 3. Total, 0.

7:56 Phoenix plans to lose this game. That much is evident.

3:35 Pau goes to the bench and Lamar comes in. Are those long johns Lamar? For the record we know they're matching knee braces but.

3:02 LUKE WALTON ON THE BREAK AWAY.

2:37 In a sad turn of events Lamar goes on a fast break and well... misses it kinda like we've come to expect at this point.

Thank Christmas! Finally a sideline interview with a celebrity that a) we care about and 2) is relevant to basketball. Hello part-owner and ex-player Magic Johnson.

1:29 This is possibly the latest the second unit has come into the game in a while.

Ok, so, we're gonna go ahead and stop making fun of Walton, because maybe that Stacy was onto something. Maybe Luuuuuuuuuke is not that terrible of a player after all. And maybe it's a good sign that PB&J can take the player off the end of the bench and put him in the starting lineup just because and have him be productive. It's just like the old days huh Lukie? (But this puts a serious damper on our hate fest.)

29-25 Los Angeles, which is good because we dislike Phoenix

2nd Quarter
11:37 Jordan misses a 3 or whatever - we're a little down on his play lately, can you tell? - but Lamar rebounds it which is solid until Trevor misses possibly the one shot he was never meant to miss ever. Mmmkay.

9:31 Sasha seems to have come to the game awake, setting himself up basically for his favorite shot. But instead of camping he brought it all the way in passed it out and then ran to his mark. What a long haired beauty.

8:43 And again, Sasha with the assist this time.

8:18 Never shall we ever say anything about Jordan and his play again. Thank you for making a shot. Probably his first this month And getting the extra chance.

Why do Matt Barnes' tattoos look like they might be heavy. Like he has to put in extra work to lift his arms?

6:14 Machine will pump you up!

5:35 Pau makes another free throw and it counts for 2.

We still haven't seen Vladi. Looks like somebody put that baby in the corner.

3:08 Can somebody please tell Amare that the fro faux hawk is out.

To see or not to see Valkyrie. It looks good. It stars Tom Cruise. Read that: Pro, Con.

1:20 Probably only because we're spending time watching him like a hawk tonight but we just noticed that Luke raises his hand a lot on the court. Like "pick me, pick me, pick me!!!".

50.8 Probably only because we're spending time watching him like a hawk tonight but we just noticed that Luke wastes a lot of timeouts because as the best inbounds passer on the team he can't ever seem to inbound the ball. We cringe every time he does this, even if it is the end of the half and the timeout didn't matter anyway. Just sayin, because we're trying to retain some of the hate...

Every time we look at Steve Nash we can only see that bobblehead doll of his. So tragic.

53-48 The Sun continues to set, thank you


Halftime
Nothing here except to note that we hate Windows for always having some sort of malfunction and causing a restart and then sending that angry "your computer was shut down improperly" message. And, to state that one of us got an early tour of the Conga Room across the street from Staples and now we're both kind of jealous of everybody going to opening night tonight. But if you want to try to party with the Lakers we suggest starting there since it's across the street and stuff (oh and Trevor kinda owns it). Pro-ho tip of the week.


3rd Quarter
7:11 It's nice to watch everyone in Gold stand around and watch the Suns playing.

6:26 Ok, on first look Amare fell to the floor like a dumbass. Totally fake like he's auditioning for daytime soaps. But on second look, that for sure was Derek Fisher (president of the players association we feel like mentioning) straight up pushing him to the floor. Classic. Maybe it was just the way he fell down that made it fake looking?

5:whatever Oh snap! Luke Walton throws it down!!

Unfortunately we weren't paying attention to how it's down to a 1 point lead for the Purple and Gold. WTF?

2:28 Good grief. Our hearts can't take much more of this.

1:22 That's the kind of shit we're talking about! Trevor slams it home and then takes flight into the Laker Girls. Gets up, manages to catch up to the play but then gets slammed to the ground again on the other end. No whistles.

82-81 Uh, just barely though


4th Quarter
9:11 Get there Lamar!

7:19 Jordan gets the ball taken away from him. Expect him to do something ridiculous on the way back down the court.

5:26 It's so nice to see Kobe missing shot after shot after shot af...

4:58 Trevor puts the ball on top of the rim. Is there a column for "almost"?

3:58 Hot damn Andrew Bynum (needs a nickname)!

3:14 Not sure if we've seen Phil this upset all season.

1:36 Since the Tacos are obviously goners, we just want to state that the Lakeshow had better win this game tonight.

1:20 Nice save by Kobe too bad nobody wants to capitalize.

39.9 Machine camp. Machine shoot! It's money!!

29.3 Holy shit in a diaper this is Sasha's first trip to the charity stripe this year?

Jesus please make this game stop... we're gonna be here all night long =(

115-110 Lakers sometime past midnight or some such

Final Comments
Player of the Night: Luke Walton because we feel bad for making fun of him while he was at home and because he managed to not completely suck while kicking Vladi out of his job completely. Also because we may never have the opportunity to vote for him again this season. You never know with PB&J.

64 Lakers vs. Bucks

Okay, we're fully admitting to watching the replay of this game on FSPT at midnight, the first time around the entire group of people watching the game together spent 3 quarters ripping on a certain player on the team who was at home with an illness (we're not even sure why we were making fun of him). We won't name any names, but suffice to say it was hilarious. So, we're watching the terribleness of this game again and letting you know about it.

A word before the game
Our favorite ex UCLA player who is really only our faves because his name is fun to say, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, otherwise known as The Prince, is ready for action. The other Luke aka Mr. Money Shot is out with some respiratory issues. I told you everyone was rippin on him... we'd be failing you by not sharing at least some of it.


1st Quarter
Sun Yue in his uniform tonight, and had we not seen this game already we'd bet money on whether he'd see any PT tonight. And we'd have lost all of that money sadly.

11:04 Kobe always yells at his free throw balls to "get up!"

10:47 Sasha's been issued a gag order? We can only imagine why that headband is keeping his mouth shut tonight.

Since nobody is bothering to really score any points we thought it'd be a great time to point out how the Bucks have probably the nastiest looking uniforms in the league. Even in December they aren't fun to look at.

9:31 The first non free throw points of the game have finally been scored, elminating our thoughts of this being a basketless game.

8:36 Everyone does everything right with that steal and half court pass to the break away player. Everyone that is, except the break away player. Radman attempts to murder Malik Allen instead. Good times.

6:36 Richard is on his second foul. Lets keep an eye on this shall we? Especially since Milwaukee still only has 5 points.

You gotta love when the team forgets to inbound the ball. Do they not want the possession?

3:49 Derek Fisher manages to make a shot in the paint and as such, Coachy McCoacherson (Skiles) manages to take a T for his team. Just the game interruption everyone was hoping for huh?

Stu Lantz mentions Trevor being a crowd favorite. Everyone is a crowd favorite in Lakertown... well, unless your name is Smush or Kwame... but other than that!

23.0 Kobe fucking around gambling on the shot clockand ruining the entire posession.

24-16 Lakers in the boringest quarter this season


2nd Quarter
10:42 "Trevor Ariza blows the easy one." Understatement of the year.

10:30 Jordan takes the fast break but doesn't bother making sure it goes in. Mmmkay?

10:16 Jordan takes the fast break but doesn't bother making sure it goes in. The fuck Jordan?

9:51 Someone obviously put the floor together wrong at Staples, forcing Ariza to step out of bounds with the ball in his hands.

9:22 R. Jeff with his 3rd in 6 minutes of play. More good times.

9:12 Andrew Bynum just went for a swim. Even on the second viewing of this game we have no idea why he was on the floor like that.

8:11 There's Jordan Farmar again. Who put out his fire. Seriously? Is he sad that his best friend aka the best player on the Lakers this season is at home with an illness? Is that preventing him from performing? That's probably what's wrong with Richard Jefferson as well. $10 says the two of them are auditioning for each other as "Luke's best best friend". As far as we can tell neither of them are winning.

Oooh looky! Another celebrity interview we don't really care about. Couldn't they have at least gotten Matt Kemp a seat in the venue. He's sitting somewhere near a tunnel or some such. He's bff with Trevor in case you missed his entirely too long and irrelevant interview.

So one of the fun features of the replay on Prime Ticket is that the skip portions of the game - which is usually fine but we think they may have skipped something that was important but don't worry the score is still ridiculously low.

1:32 Radman tries to block a shot he knows he can't block. He doesn't block it for the record and he gives an And 1 to the Bucks just for shits and giggles.

43-31 Lakers in a slightly more entertaining quarter or something


Halftime
It's quite strange watching a game when you already know the outcome. What is the point of getting all worked up over it? Ok, not this game but we watched the Derek Fisher 0.4 game right before this and well... it was hard to breathe watching the 48433937928 time outs that were taken right before that shot was put up on accident by Derek who ran straight to the locker room. And whats the deal with running off the court when you make the Hail Mary shot anyway? And while we're 'what's the deal'ing... what's the deal with the Chinese having their last names first? We're talking to you Sun Yue and Yi Jianlin (sp?).


3rd Quarter
11:50 Kobe slams it home on the first play of the quarter. That'll wake the crowd up.

9:36 Can we please get Andrew Bogut a technical free throw so he can high five himself? That's pretty much the best video clip we've ever seen out of the NBA.

9:11 Richard Jefferson still sucking... don't worry.

8:39 Told ya... 4 fouls for The Jeff. That should keep him rested for his dedication ceremony tomorrow at Arizona. We're not real fans of the entire state of Arizona - though we're just noticing how much that's almost Ariza - sorry anyone in Arizona, except for the people who made us dislike it.

Knowing that in his post game interview Derek is more than a little bit excited about taking his wife out on a date; Does a player play better when he knows he's gettin' lucky later in the night? Derek J. Fisher has been on fire all night long.

Due to time constraints (lack of planning) we rejoin the game with 1:25 left in the 3rd. So again, we missed some of the great plays, if by great we mean terrible. And someone bleeding to death, but no matter how diligently he checked himself it wasn't Pau... So terrible was the play that the score at the end of the quarter looks like:

74-54 Still the Lakers probably because (as we were just shown) they have something like 20 more free throws than the Bucks


4th Quarter
Can they hold onto this lead? A good friend of mine (S) once said, "If my past is any sign of my future, you should be warned before I let you inside." So according to that the answer is probably and most likely no. Don't believe all the crap your friends tell you.

11:40 Trevor steals the ball but fails to do anything about it on the other end. And so it begins.

11:00 Trevor can't really deal with other people having the ball and just sticks his arm up and takes it for his own. Jordan goes chasing it down the court, which is odd because nobody else is even bothering with it. We vote that if nobody is going to care about the ball running away, it shouldn't matter if it goes out of bounds, just let the team with the steal have it. Oh yeah and then Andrew got some free throws out of all of that or whatever.

8:57 According to Stu Jordan just had a great change of direction. That direction change was: standing up - laying flat on his face. Nice.

8:53 Over and back! Good job Lakeshow.

Stu doesn't mind telling us that Mr. Jefferson has like 3 points. Remember that foul count is at 4 and minutes played is somewhere around 9. Remember when Richard Jefferson was somebody important in the game of basketb... okay perhaps "important" was going a bit far, lets say "relevant", or "contributory"? Yeah, one of those.

7:41 Josh Powell sighting!

7:15 And now Chrissie is up!

The consensus here is that The Five Million Dollar Gatorade Man is at home choking on his respiratory thinking about how he could have had some serious PT tonight.

6:00 Remarkably we're at the half way point of the quarter and the Lakers still have a sizeable lead. Say what?

Someone also pointed out that Kobe probably makes enough money to get his faded prison markings touched up. Probably, but who knows his finances, ink may not be in the budget at the moment.

5:14 OH SHIT Y'ALL! Sun Yue makes his NBA debut taking over for Jordy. Hold onto your panties ladies.

4:48 Sasha picks up a "pass" off of the floor and misses the wide open basket just for fun we guess.

4:33 Sun giving Fouly McFoulerson - Richard Jefferson - a run for his money with his second foul already.

4:01 And another! Damn, Jefferson can't even have the foul record from the game. What a waste.

Can we get a chant for 2 on the way home already?

3:02 Trevor gets a flagrant foul which is hilarious, just ask him. Though he did apologize so you know there's the softer side of basketball for you. We like it.

2:04 Sasha bricks another so that Sun can give it a try and he repeats that sentiment so that Josh Powell can finally throw it in although we're pretty sure that Aleksander guy from Milwaukee is the one who actually threw it down. Shhhhhh.

1:35 Yue makes those first points of his career here which brings the crowd to full throat where they stay until he makes 2 more points a few seconds later. Get some!

29.4 Chris Mihm stuffs it in because who knows when he'll have that chance again. And with that the game is over with.

Boston sucks and all that

105-92 Lakeshow baby


Final Comments
Somewhere in there we missed the Purple and Golds getting not 1 but 2 delay of game violations, and you know what that means... in this game it actually meant nothing but a minor annoyance at having to watch the Bucks shoot an extra free throw, but seriously? If this were a serious game it'd mean giving away yet another point for failing to get your act together. Seriously.


Player of the Night: Sun Yue for being hella productive in just 5 minutes. Not that we really believe his numbers would duplicate if his minutes did but it's nice to pretend isn't it?

Assist of the Night: Luke Walton aka Mr. Money Shot, aka The Best Player on the Team, aka The $5 Million Dollar Gatorade Man for assisting Sun Yue in getting some PT.

Worst Outfits Ever: Laker Girls in the final quarter. Whatever those weird Grease-esque shorts with the glitter belts and the "nude" tights - even though some of us obviously think we're African-American - are supposed to look like, we're pretty sure it didn't translate from paper correctly. Lets stop giving the Laker Girls new outfits and feed the homeless or something?

66 Lakers vs. 76ers

We have a good feeling that last night was just what the doctor ordered. But what is a Sixer? We can devise that a Laker is one who is of or works with the Lake, but how do we classify a Sixer or a Seventy-Sixer?

A word before the game
Not a lot to say about this game. The Lakers know what they need to do to get the win. It's not so much that they lost last night (it was gonna happen eventually) but it's how they lost - by refusing to play defense - and who they lost to. Yeah, the Pacers dropped the Celtics this year as well, but um, they're still not very good. Right.

1st Quarter
9:47 Last night taught us little to nothing apparently since protecting the paint doesn't seem to be a priority tonight. Maybe it's not?

5:17 Samuel Dalembert
nothing about him we just like his name.

4:38 Radman's got a hot hand tonight. Let's keep that note handy.

3:45 Welcome Trevor Ariza - it's magic time.

3:06 The first play of his time on the court Trevor takes the ball from the 6ers, unfortunately Pau et al blow the layup at the other end. But it leaves us wondering, do people not read the book on Ariza before he shows up or is he just that good at taking the ball when he wants it?

Uh oh, Lakers Locker, same as yesterday 31 20 5

During a story about Radman's eye we are treated to images of Sasha fixing his hair, where's Sally Hershberger when you need her?

1:37 The extra pass always works. Always. Especially if it's from a turnover created by The Trev.

3.9 Pau waited patiently and nonchalantly swatted the ball away. It was so lazy it was fun to watch.

31-25 Lakers


2nd Quarter
10:14 We vote if you get a 3 second call on you because your teammate (we're talking to you Lamar Odom) is too much of a pansy to shoot the ball and pretends to but then passes instead... you should be allowed to smack them in the face at the next time out.

8:49 Jordan Farmar came to play. That's good.

Just as a note, that commercial where everyone is eating imaginary food. IT'S GETTING REALLY OLD CARLS JR!

6:39 Who said Andrew Bynum couldn't run? Or fly? Or dunk?

6:23 Its weird hearing Elton Brand's name in this game.

Speaking of Elton Brand, he took off on a fast break all alone except for Bynum was on his tail. He purposefully slows down waiting for the foul to come and give him a 3 pointer. Near hysteria erupted here when Andrew completely stopped and Elton was confused. Hysterical.

4:51 Did we just see a 3rd consecutive turn over for the Lakers? For reals?

The Forum Blue unis make Pau Gasol look like Powder.

And if Stu Lantz says the word "dividends" one more time... we're muting him.

39.0 Thank god people are making their free throws tonight! Was that so much to ask?

61-51 Lakers still


Halftime
We booked S a ticket to Indiana (her future home). It's now official!


3rd Quarter
9:30 We just rejoined the game and see everyone on the floor. No clue why, but it's funny.

7:20 The Sixers are in this game, because the Lakers, typically, don't know how to hold on to a lead or anything like that.

4:40 Out of the clusterfuck Andrew ends up with the free throws, Pau checks for blood, Stu states the obvious.

Wow, sometimes it's really difficult to pay attention to the games. It's unexplainable but this entire quarter just slipped away from us.
*Correction, apparently it's not unexplainable... twitter is to blame.

2:00 Kobe chases down the ball, picks it up, studies the hoop, remembers that he forgot to turn off the coffee pot in his hotel room, bites off a hangnail, surveys the crowd then shoots the ball. Nobody felt like coming down to defend that either.

85-69 Lakers


4th Quarter
Trevor Ariza just might be our newest Personal Jesus... maybe.

8:40 Are you serious with that call? No, it's not serious. Losing control of the ball while jumping into someone who is standing still cannot possibly constitute a foul in your favor. What are we watching Pop Warner?

7:45 There's Trevor on the floor after offense. What is this phenomenon?

5:01 Get up Derek Fisher! =(

3:39 Fish tries to take us all to school but then misses the shot. That's not how its supposed to work.

2:34 Kobe always makes the circus shots, the impossible shots, it's the easy ones he misses, so lets stop marveling at this nonsense?

This one is in the bag. Everyone already knew that the Lakers were fired up from their disaster last night and weren't going to let this one slip away right? Lets stick around for the final score...

112-102 or is it 114-102? We're apparently not too sure.

Final Comments
We knew this was going to go down this way. No sense pretending we didn't. Kobe's at "home", and he's finally not getting 100% boos from the crowd, which is why he gets to be
Player of the Night... he's been pretty spectacular, we gotta admit.

67 Lakers vs Pacers

K is missing in action. Actually she's um, well... it's a secret. S has the flu, but... since she'll be moving to the midwestern fright better known as Indiana, this is a great opportunity to size up the new team people expect her to like (hint: shes loyal to the Lakeshow)

A word before the game
It's a little strange watching at 4 pm. Don't get me wrong, it's much better than the stupid tape delay nonsense but it's still weird. Also in the weird/fun category is how KCAL's feed is static-y. It's not just here either, I checked with the neighbor. Good times. Here goes the first of the "first extended roadtrip". These people should really try touring with musicians before they start talking about extended roadtrips. Make it or break it Lakers, make it or break it.


1st Quarter
Stu wants the Lakers to do body shots. I can get behind that.

9:15 Yet another whistle (whistle-palooza?) and we get another stand around and look moment on the court which allows us at home to see just how many empty seats there are at the Fieldhouse. Wtf Indiana... way to show up for your team.

Troy Murphy looks like he might be in his mid 40's. Which is different from Oden looking like he's in his mid 80's, just to be clear.

Is Lil Brother Rush going to a House Party tonight or whats the deal with his haircut?

4:09 Andrew misses the slam dunk sent over from one Mr. Kobe Bryant, which is kind of like the most embarrassing thing to miss.

2:53 Derek Fisher's on the floor. ::shock, awe::

Lakers Locker Time 31 20 5

1:32 Note to Trevor Ariza, walking with the ball is still illegal in the NBA. I know I know... it's just not right... or something.

Sasha might comb his hair to prevent being confused with a mad bomber or similar.

30-28 Lakers


2nd Quarter
11:15 Note to Trevor Ariza, walking with the ball is still illeg... waaaaaait a minute!

8:11 Machine camp, Machine shoot.

5:37 Fisher remains standing, insert real shock and awe.

3:46 Lamar catches a "how in the hell?" pass throws it down then on his next trip down the court off of his own steal, gets 2 free ones. Someones making a case for player of the night aren't they?

Apparently tonight is the Kobe Bryant show. Can we expect another one of his famous "Reach and I'll Teach" seminars?

66-61 Lakers


Halftime = Naptime
I don't know if you know how difficult it is to fight off NyQuil induced sleep.


3rd Quarter
9:15 The trick to blocking a shot is to get the rebound afterward. But I guess letting the other team get it back and then sending them to the charity stripe is sufficient as well.

7:05 Radman gets the look of death from all of his "buddies" on the bench after passing to, I guess, Kobe who was running away from him. Expect Sasha to leave his bodywash in the shower again.

4:09 Trevor finally wakes up and does what he does best, it might be time...

3:14 When are the refs gonna start calling fouls on the rim for moving after Derek Fisher releases his shot? And after Andrew releases his free throws?

2:07 Trevor steals the ball twice in the same possession. Know ye this... he won't be denied the fast break. Granger grabs his leg like it's leftover turkey and throws him to the ground anyway, but impales himself into the stanchion and hurts his baby back.

1:27 Just so everyone knows how that steal away fast break was supposed to go down, Trevor gives us another look at it. Avoiding a murder 1 charge Danny G doesn't run after him.

17.3 Andrew Bynum makes freethrows.

101-86 Lakers on a 17-0 run


4th Quarter
11:37 Jordan treats Indiana to a little Duncan Face.

11:03 Machine camp, Machine shoot.

I just thought about this, but it seems like for the first time this season, Jordan's having a terrible game - well, you know, aside from that one game he had the flu because it was his birthday party after the game. Yeah, aside from that.

8:45 PB&J put the starters back in because the mobsters couldn't handle the lead. The Kobester always wanting to fit in turns it over himself. And then again. Hot stuff!

Wow, if anything more could go in the Pacers favor here it would.

6:08 Pau's been learning that pump fake from Kobe.

5:03 The camera doesn't show it but I'm more than certain that Trevor sat down after that (non) basket.

There's really no need for rebounds, seriously, who needs them? Not the Lakers apparently.

12.8 Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Kobe misses that one shot he absolutely cannot afford to miss and lets the Pacers take the end of the game.

Sometimes it just takes a few drinks to fall in love.

118-117 Um...

Final Comments
Well if that wasn't the game nobody expected them to lose. However, I said this early in the game... this is the game that they needed to lose so they could learn not to fuck around during the first half of the game. Just plain awful. The Pacers aren't even any good. Why don't we let the Clippers or the Thunder come and spank on us?

And by the way, is "lackadaisical" the only word that can be used to describe the ridiculous play in every basketball game in America? Though I am considered by many to be a wordsmith, I don't think I've ever heard anyone use this word in a sentence until I started listening to post game interviews.

Player of the night: Trevor Ariza for his steals that were so awesome.

Ouch!