(Maria Sharapova Does Not Approve)
I hate life.
Pau Gasol says: “I’m tall.”
I know this is pretty late, but since nobody really reads these, I’m not too worried about it 
Anywho, this game, as anybody who would be concerned already knows, was what was known as a laugher. There wasn’t much to analyze. Basically The Lakers realized that the Rockets’ center was 6′6″ Chuck Hayes 6′10″ Brian Cook (who, although he’s 6′10,” plays like he’s 4′2″) and that their centers were seven foot Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum. And they played accordingly. They played hard, but not all that hard. It was interesting to note that I think this was the first time all year they didn’t blow a big lead.
After the game, the buzz making the rounds was whether or not the Lakers had finally woken up, or if they are still just playing inconsistently and game 5 happened to be on their good day. By and large, most of the pundits have consigned to the fact that the Lakers are just a real up and down arrogant team and that this game wasn’t really a return to form or anything like that. I tend to agree. This team has maybe the worst case of Piston-itis I’ve seen since……… well, the Pistons. And we all know have that turned out.
Am I worried? Yeah. However, this Laker team is far better than any of the Piston-itis teams. Also, even though their collective arrogance played a huge part in their failure, I felt that their biggest deficiency was a lack of a real center after Ben Wallace left. That and they had no respect for their coach. Neither are problems this Laker team possesses.
The Bill Russell MVP of the Game Award: Kobe. Why? Because he’s Kobe. And he has an adam’s apple the size of my fist. Granted I have a small fist, but still.
The Jerry West MVP of the Losing Team Award: Normally I would just automatically give this award to the Fabulous Battier, but he played really, really not fabulous so I can’t in good conscience give it to him. I’ll give it to Aaron Brooks because he looks lik Chris Rock.
The Dominique Wilkins Highlight of the Game: Sasha’s Block Followed by a Breakaway Dunk. That sequence was what I like to call a Pinnochio moment. A Pinnochio moment is when somebody suddenly grows into a real boy (or in Sasha’s case, a real basketball player.) Sadly, it didn’t last very long as Sasha managed to brick everything else. Still though, it quite a change of pace for Sasha to go 1-7 and his one made basket was a dunk
I’m gonna be real with you, I didn’t really watch much of this game. I was up until six in the morning making waffles (I swear that sounds more weird than it actually was) and woke up during the middle of the second quarter. I watched until around the middle of third quarter when I became completely convinced that the Lakers were not making a comeback. Sadly I was right.
I’ve watched nearly every Laker game over the last three seasons so I know this current squad pretty well and if there is one thing that just blows their minds more than anything else it is undersized centers. I don’t know if it’s a failing on Phil jackson and the coaching staff, Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol, or just the team as a whole, but they just cannot take advantage of size advantages down low. The fact that the Rockets sans Yao Ming was able to be beat the Lakers may have come as a surprise to some, but I expected the Rockets to play better without him. However, I didn’t expect the Lakers to just roll over and die.
No, actually I kind of half expected it. Sigh. These Lakers…….
Fortunately though, the odds of the Lakers rolling over two games in a row is actually pretty rare and the odds of Shane Battier and Aaron Brooks being hotter than July for two games straight is even rarer so I don’t expect a repeat performance for game 4.
The Dominique Wilkins Highlight of the Game: About halfway through the third quarter I turned the TV off and went to Coffee Bean for a latte. That was the highlight of the game for me.
I used to do postgame reports for the very wonderful Lakers’ website The Lakers Nation, but this season I wasn’t asked back to do them which made me very sad (either that or I was supposed to volunteer to do them again and I didn’t. Either way, I’m sure it’s my fault.) I really enjoyed doing them. So today I was like, I’m gonna do post games again.
Unfortunately for me though, I’m retarded and decided to do my hour of running at 6:00 at night, completely forgetting that this game is in Houston. Long story short I missed the first quarter and a half. Epic Fail.
After watching game 2, I basically knew the series was over. A lot of pundits were talking about how it’s going to be a long tough series and a real test for the Lakers and yada, yada, yada…… but what they failed to realize is that the Lakers are just plain beter than the Rockets. Like by a lot. And on top of that, they match up extremely well with them, turning that difference in quality into a yawning chasm. Sure Pau Gasol is really just a giant marshmellow in a man suit, but if there’s one thing Pau can do on defense is stand in front of a giant chinese guy. For all his height and gifts as a basketball player, for some reason if you put a really big marshmellow in front of Yao Ming you stop him cold. Think I’m crazy? Just look at the numbers. Watch the game. Yao + Marshmellow = DEATH! Basic algebra.
And on the much debated subject of toughness, after watching that game I’ve come to the conclusion that the Rockets’ much vaunted toughness is highly overrated. Do they play hard? Absolutely. Do they play physical? Again yes. But tough? I’ve always felt that toughness had less to do with the physical and more with the mental and watching the Rockets bitch and complain over the Lakers’ aggressiveness really exposed them as being very, very not tough. For a comparison, look back at Kobe and the Lakers’ reaction to Raja Bell’s clothesline a few years back. Or to make a more contemporary point, The Celtics’ reaction to Eddie House getting slapped. Pushing someone or hitting someone doesn’t define you as being tough. It’s about what you do AFTER you get pushed or hit that shows how tough you are.
Anways, since this is a postgame for game 3 I should probably, like talk about the game. The Rockets more or less played their game pretty well. I was surprised with Von Wafer’s inneffectiveness though since he has kind of been a Laker killer this season, but ultimately he sucks and has a pretty ridiculous haircut so I probably shouldn’t be too surprised. The Lakers played some crazy intense defense at times, but their old ghost of thinking the game was over before it was actually over did creep up at the end. A lot of people hold a lot concern about that, and to a certain extent that worries me too, but instead of letting that fester in my mind and give me ulcers I’ve just come to accept that as being apart of this team’s identity. Every team has its faults.
The Bill Russell MVP of the Game Award: Kobe He shot 11-28 and took a lot of really bad contested jumpers while wearing a Shane Battier suit. And missed most of them. For any other player he had pretty bad game, but that’s what makes Kobe the greatest player on the planet. Most players have to play well to take over a game and lead his team to victory, but Kobe can play pretty inneffectively and still dominate, and don’t let that 11-28 performance fool you. He DID dominate this game. Kobe Bryant is so bad, but still sooooo good.
The Jerry West MVP of the Losing Team Award: Shane Battier I like to call Shane Battier “The Fabulous Battier” and tonight he earned that nickname. On top of playing some fabulously ferocious defense on Kobe, he also snared eight ravishing rebounds, 7 sexy assists and one scintilating steal.
The Dominique Wilkins Highlight of the Game: Kobe’s 33 Foot Buzzer Beating Three Pointer of Artest I’m not putting this on here because it had some great impact on the game or anything like that (even though it did.) No I’m putting in on here because that had to be just about the flattest shot I had ever seen in my life. Earlier this season Kobe went on record saying that he unashamably steals other players’ moves. Who knew he would steal Brian Cook’s jump shot?
