The Lakers should be 10-2 at this point, but I guess I can’t complain too much. Glad to see Kobe smiling more. His “intense” stay-in-character face from last year needs to be retired. Pau looks like he never missed a game. Maybe it’s just adrenaline; we’ll see how he does in the next few games.

You know what’s amazing about Artest? We haven’t heard a pip from or about him. Where’s the crying, fighting, complaining about his role, hogging of the ball, taking shots from Kobe and others, dribbling down the clock and jacking up bad shots — all the stuff we were warned about?

Now, if only we could get a truly reliable 3pt shooter. Seems like one shouldn’t be THAT hard to find, but every reputed money 3pt shooter we’ve had never works out. See Rice, Glenn. Of course we expected Rice to do more than shoot 3s. That’s not our current requirement.

He looked like a defeated man before he’d even attempted (and missed) his first shot. None of his usual yappy dog spark.

Also, I’ve noticed Kobe flashing a lot of contented smiles and knowingly relaxed chuckles this year with both teammates and opponents. He seems to have come to a place where he is finding genuine enjoyment in the long, strange trip which is his Lakers career.

Pau Gasol is just seamless. Its like he never missed any time… heck Sasha looks more disorganized to me than any other player in a gold jersey.

Maria, you need to get off my boiii Sasha.

Speaking of Bynum… the last couple games Drew looks like he is playing on tired legs. Of course this is a stage that a lot of players go through at some point in the season. And it makes sense for Andrew who hasn’t played a lot of NBA minutes.

Ron Artest also had a very good game. He shutdown the Bulls leading scorer Deng to the point you didn’t notice he was even on the floor. He also played well offensively off the ball but also playing one on one. It was nice to see Ron start to be more aggressive.

The Lakers title defense officially began tonight with the team at full strength.

One little thing that Gasol didn’t seem to have back yet was his post footwork. It seemed a little awkward on 3 occassions, but he still managed to use his length.

Not too worried about Gasol / KB playing the minutes they did. PJ probably just trying to get Pau back into shape and KB is just playing the way he always does. Does a a 38 min game differ that much from a 33 min game to these great athletes? Probably won’t matter at all. Esp since KB is not expending energy fighting for position in the post anymore. I’d rather they use the extra minutes to build chemistry w/ different units and stay in shape for the playoffs.

Also, I’m pretty sure AB has gotten to a point where he is very confident in himself and the lack of minutes won’t be an issue whatsoever. On a couple occasions this game he did seem lose balance around the basket. And as Darius said he can work on passing out of the post instead of looking for a score. He may have missed a couple rotations. But other than those little things he should remain his dominant self and very confident in his game despite the low minutes. It was a blowout anyway.