That crowd, believe it or not could’ve have been louder, but that crowd was 35% Lakers. The one thing everybody agreed on was the dancing dueloff. If you were at the game, you know what I mean and it looked like the Warrior Girls weren’t too happy about it.

When the ball went in the post in the 3rdQ, that’s when the Laker O clicked. The Lakers never should’ve went away from that, no matter who was on the court. You could almost tell what was going to happen when based on Gasol and Bynum’s positions.
KB did not handle the ball well; see in Sacto if that continues.

The thing that is instructive is the Dubs played hard, much more than if their squad was completely healthy. The Lakers have to match that, simply.

Let’s b honest with ourselves. We’re an eight man team. Nothing more, nothing less. To the naked eye, it seems that we have too much dead weight on our bench, but the reason it looks this way to the average observer is because Phil X has no faith/patience/belief in our reserves. Lets observe, but L.O., Farmar & Shannon will b removed from the equation due to the fact that they receive adequate bench mins:

1. LUKE: He receives a pass because he’s been injured the majority of the season. But even in the small time that he was healthy enough to contribute this season, Phil X rarely used him.

2. SASHA: For the life of me, I can’t figure out what is the issue that Phil X has with this individual. Convinced him to cut his hair b4 the season started because, according to Phil, “he was paying too much attention to his hair last season.” WTF? Basically a wasted season because it seems to me that Phil has personal issues with Sasha. With the injury to Luke, you would expect a more expanded role for Sasha. NO. With our poor perimeter shooting, you would expect Sasha to b given an opportunity. NO. What’s with the short hooks/leash (proof in point: last night’s game)? Can’t b serious.

3. J POWELL: Hard worker. Good mid range jumper & solid rebounder (not only defensively, but offensively as well). This man can ball. He’s not a scrub/bum. Granted, playing behind Pau & L.O., but when situations occur in which Drew or Pau picks up early fouls, instead of entering L.O. immediately, why not Powell. This would keep the actual rotation in effect & L.O. could enter the game @ his usual time (midway through the 1st). Substitution pattern stays entact.

As for Mbenga & Ammo, I can understand Phil for not giving them court time. Mbenga, while active, has a low b-ball IQ, shoots a jumper whenever he touches the ball & is always pumped faked out of his shoes. Ammo is a bum/scrub. Straight up. This will b his last year in the league. Trust me. Jordan needs to get his draft liscense revoked for drafting Ammo & Kwame.

So all n all, we’re not getting production from our bench (besides the aformentioned 3). I believe Sasha & Powell should b receiving more playing time because they can definetly contribute & if for nothing else, to alleviate the amount of mins our starters our playing. And though it might b too late, when Luke is healthy enough to play, he should b given an opportunity to contribute. He’s a better post up player then given credit for, has a high b-ball IQ & knows the triangle inside- out. Then u wonder why @ different points of this season we’ve seen Pau, Kobe & Ron Ron looking fatigued. Well, now u know why.

- Fish made the wrong move on the last play, but it wasn’t outrageously wrong, anticipating going over the screen. He just took his eye off Curry for a split second and Curry just cut back perfectly.

- Curry ran the pick and roll beautifully all night. Just a solid smart player. My favorite of his plays was a stupendous behind-the-back pass in traffic that was the right basketball play — no other pass would have hit the open man. Sadly for him, the man missed the dunk, and Gasol got the alley-oop dunk on the other end.

- The turnovers were the only thing stopping the blowout. But half of them were created by good W swarming defense.

- I watched Fish in warmups. He missed almost all of his 3s. That’s really weird. Most NBA players with any range will hit open 3s in warmups. His stroke is genuinely off right now, it’s not just a game-time pressure thing.

- Coach noted that Kobe didn’t want to go left and tended to lose the ball when he drives left.

- Don’t know why Sasha was pulled so fast on his first run, but Phil gave him a butt whack on his return, which I read as encouragement.

- The whole team was pretty into the huddles, except Ammo.

- I had a great view of the sequence where Maggette got stuffed, stripped, stripped and stuffed under the basket. Lakers D at its best.

- The atmosphere was great when the Ws made their runs. I can’t wait for the day the Ws have a new owner and a team one can feel good about supporting.

http://www.forumblueandgold.com/2010/03/16/around-the-world-wide-web-lakerswarriors-reactions/

When you have quick guards, Curry, Ellis and Watson and a vet coach you know the Lakers won’t cover the spread.

With the slowest point quard in Fisher, Nelson knows you run the court and either get a layup or wide open 3 for someone.

He also knows if you double Kobe you will get turnovers. He is now turning over 6 a game the last 2 weeks.

Lakers would beat this team easier with Rad, Turiaf and Biedrins back. Fast and quick shooters to this Lakers team means “oh boy its a pick-up-game at the park.” Not smart.

Tonight could be the same but Sac is not nearly as fast as GS. Nothing is easy this year for the Lakers.

2 – I, too, did not like how short Sasha’s leash was in this game. If Phil can’t give him some quality burn against the W’s, then against who else? Farmar was nearly non-existent last night, Shannon got pretty big minutes but really didn’t contribute much.

I really hope Phil gives Sasha some minutes now to see what he can provide come playoff time. He is the ONLY player off the bench who has proven to be a dead-eye shooter. He needs to be given at least a chance to return to machine form. We are really going to be in trouble if we can’t get some good perimeter shooting from the bench, or even the starters for that matter.

Please don’t forget we greatly benefited from some of our guys shooting out of their minds beyond the arc in last years postseason…

Lamar shot 32% on 3s during the regular season, but 51.4% during the playoffs, while Ariza shot 31.9% on 3s during the regular season, but 47.6% during the playoffs. That’s a 19.4% and 15.7% increase, respectively. That’s astronomical!! Throw in Fisher’s two huge clutch 3′s in game 4 (?), while he was only 28.4% from beyond the arc in the postseason.

It’s scary how fluky it seems looking back.

Are our guards totally disregarding the coaching instructions; is their court vision that limited; is their fundamental understanding of our offense that poor; or are our coaches saying something to the players that they won’t disclose to the rest of us?

Don Nelson is known for his offense after all, and it worked perfectly. All game, the warriors guards rolled over the top, and on the final play, he got open because he knew the Lakers were looking for it. Fisher went to Maggette quickly because it looked like the same roll was happening.

I really liked watching Steph Curry. He is a good bball player. If he gets a trash talking streak, he may be the next Reggie Miller.

Completely agree that the Lakers succumbed to the warriors playing style. While fun to watch (and you have to admit that was a fun game to watch) it would have been nice to see the discipline of the triangle offense.

But with all that said, the last minute was inexcusable. Even against a 1-2-2 zone, the triangle is still supposed to work. But I didn’t see it executed, which was sad because Pau was working the middle and asking for the ball. But what is it about NBA players trying to prove that they can beat the zone on their own. The turnover by Kobe that led to the Monta Ellis three was inexcusable.

But, we got the win. And as Kobe said, against this team, that is all that mattered. And before we start harping on Fish for not being able to stop Curry, can someone name anyone that could stop Curry?

I totally agree that feeding the big men should have been a priority in a game like this. I found myself yelling at the telly every time Kobe or Shannon decided to swing the ball/dribble away rather than feed Andrew/Pau/Lamar on the block.

I feel like that was partly because Kobe was focused on dueling Monta rather than running the offense at times.

I wholeheartedly agree with the post above that the team should not give up so many points against any team, including the Warriors. The attitude that its fine to coast through some games and not others can’t be helpful in the long run.