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oh and tonight they forced the hawks to 5 yes 5 turnovers
and let them shoot 54%
can they turn the switch come playoff time
oh road trip 2-3
oh and tonight they forced the hawks to 5 yes 5 turnovers
and let them shoot 54%
maybe they are coasting since they've locked hca for the western conference
it. Lakers vs. Spurs. First round. Win or lose it'll be a of a series.
they aren't as good as they were for some reason .... got that ring and got fat.
hopefully Bynum gets back soon.
That's the view of some of the experts-that they'll turn it up a notch come playoff time. No doubt they can do that but it's best to be careful not to coast too much 'cause it might not be so easy to raise it to that extreme level.
"We" don't want them because I can tell from the look on the Spurs faces and hear it in their voices when they play/are asked about the Lakers and it's clear: They don't think they can beat them. Duncan basically said as much a few days ago (the question had nothing to do with the Lakers), when he answered (to paraphrase) "we can play with almost anyone in the league". If you don't think you can beat another team, then you can't. You have to have that belief, corny as it may sound.
Then there's this: Even if the Spurs had that belief, their front line matches up terribly with the Lakers front line and this would ultimately do them in. Unless Blair shows he can effectively play against one of the Lakers three bigs and McDyess rediscovers his form from a year ago, there's no chance of the Spurs beating the Lakers.
The Lakers are going to be pushed in the West playoffs a lot more than they have been the past two years. It's clear they're vulnerable, weary (their core is older and has more mileage than people realize, Bryant and Gasol in particular have played a ton since '08), severely lacking in depth and Fisher is just killing them. He did last year too, then played well for a few weeks, made a big shot and people forgot. This year, he looks like '08 Horry, which is to say officially done.
I like this take.
Coasting can really backfire when the playoffs start. The team will come out thinking that they can just turn it on and off and don't really think about the other team flipping a switch as well. It could come to a surprise to them and possibly cost them HCA early or even send them packing after the first round.
Yeah, I don't think they're 'caosting' at the moment. Tonight Pau and Kobe played what, 40+ minutes?
LMAO Lakers
uh, Lakers are 13-8 in their last 21 games............
still brutal but could be better ........
espn said they were 11-10
i want lakers in teh first round, if we are going down i hope the spurs put a few lakers on the injured lists...
Just look at their point differential since All-Star Break. LA Radio says it's pretty bad. There is actually doubt that switching Ariza for Artest was a good move.
I keep saying that them going to the Finals isn't a lock and if the Spurs face them, the LAL guard play outside of KBB Is completely laughable
From Fisher being a turnstile to Farmar wearing a dunce cap to Vujasuck not knowing that he's in the doghouse, where do they go from there? Do they try lack of Ammo-Adam Morrison?
There are issues in LA, I'm telling you...they are vulnerable to teams that have quick and fast attacking guards. If any of the LAL bigs do not show up, and lately that's been the case, they can find themselves fishing much sooner than expected.
Ideally it would be great to pull an upset against them but if they suffer some nagging or major injuries due to playing the spurs that I guess would be a consolation prize. I guess it would be equivalent to when the Kings in '06 ed the spurs over by giving Manu and Parker nagging injuries that slowed them down in the next round against the mavs.
Yes is the obvious answer.
lol nice to dream from time to time... Lakers bench is playing bad but come playoff time and Drew back in the line up and Odom as the 6th man Lakers will be ready 2 go deep in to the playoffs
We match up bad with their front court maybe, but if we get them in the first round, they have no momentum and will be working in a 80% Bynum back into the lineup. We have a better chance at beating them in the first round than we do if we got to the WCF against them as a 6/7 seed.
Teams that have to turn "switches on" are generally unfocused and are mentally ill equipped to win. Its hard to think a team led by Kobe and Phil Jackson just not trying. Their recent slide has more to do with fatigue, injury, Artest not fitting in a well, and some players not having good seasons.
healthy big 4(timmy, tony, manu and rj) and good performance from hill, blair and dice...and maybe mason and bonner stop hittin bricks when they have open looks...then yeah we can beat the lakers.....
The Lakers would ass pound the Spurs in 4-5 games. Tops.
Fresh off a five-game road trip in which they lost three times by an average of nearly 14 points a game, Lakers guard Derek Fisher acknowledged the team's mounting frustration Thursday after practice in El Segundo.
"Of course. Guys are genuinely concerned, frustrated and want to turn it around," he said. "But we're in the NBA. Other teams aren't going to just let you do what you want to do when you want to do it. We have to gain that ability back to enforce our will upon other teams. That's something we haven't been able to do of late."
The Lakers, who won 23 of their first 27 games to start the season and entered the All-Star break with a 41-13 record, are 13-8 since. After winning six straight before the trip, there was hope the team had turned a corner leaving Fisher genuinely surprised.
"By any stretch of the imagination we didn't go into it thinking we were going to lose three games," he said.
However, Fisher dismissed concerns the Lakers were coasting, simply waiting for the playoffs to "flip the switch" and regain championship form.
"We genuinely believe that we're not sitting around waiting to just play better when the playoffs start," he said. "We actually want to play better, but it is a process, and there are times when we've taken a step forward and then got knocked back."
Pau Gasol echoed Fisher's comments, saying the Lakers can't expect to turn things around "in one game, in one play. It's got to be a conscious effort and a lot of work put in every single game."
One step, he said, is to raise the importance of the remaining schedule, starting with Friday's game against the Jazz. "I think we have to face these seven games, most of them at least, as if they are playoff games," he said. "You have to take it as a playoff game, personal, and as hard. Hopefully we'll have that mindset, and it will show."
In the meantime, Fisher emphasized the importance of keeping a level head.
"There's overall frustration that we're not playing the way we'd like to play," he said, "but we're not going to allow it to bubble over and become something that derails us from where we want to go. We know we're aren't doing the things we like to do right now, but we have the opportunity and still want to take the advantage of the opportunity to find a way to play our best basketball at the right time."
I think it is interesting that Kobe leads the team in scoring in almost all of their losses. Take the rest of the players away and let Kobe get his may be the formula. Before they returned to finals contention this was the way most teams played the Lakers.
starters gotta rest some time and when that bench comes in, it's like brutal ....... Sasha had that good solid year which happened to be a contract year and as soon as the ink dried on the contract, he forgot how to shoot ..........
Now he's crying like a - back to being the 11:30 a.m. player he always was.
Actually, other than 07-08, Vujacic never could shoot. That season was the exception to the rule. I think people looked at the name and that one season and thought that he was always a shooter, but in reality he never really was.
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