Laker Nation

"If we're going down,” Phoenix Suns head coach Alvin Gentry told his team at halftime, “we gotta go down fighting."

Phil Jackson said it best when he uttered his first words during Monday’s post-game podium address, “This was a surprise for us.”

It has been a long three days without a Laker game; so long that we fans have subjected ourselves to cheering for (gulp) the Boston Celtics. In our defense, there were reasons for this momentary lapse in judgment...

"People made Kobe mad. People owe him an apology,” Deron Williams said from his post-game podium visit. “I heard Chuck (Charles Barkley) say he was getting old, and he wouldn't be able to do the same things he could do… and he pretty much did them."...

Cold-blooded. Clutch. Closer. These are the three C’s that make up Kobe Bryant, but in the grand scheme that is the NBA Playoffs, Bryant rarely goes after the kill alone. Always lurking behind the deadly Mamba is one bulldog named Derek Fisher...

“I’m not even thinking of the pain,” Andrew Bynum said to Craig Sager during a half-time interview. “During the game, he never complains,” Phil Jackson said of his young center. “Andrew’s a trooper,” Lamar Odom praised. “I was so pleased,” Pau Gasol gushed of his fellow 7 footer’s performance...

“I got three 7-footers standing back there,” Utah Jazz forward CJ Miles says. He also added, “So it’s like three trees standing in the middle of the lane.”...

“They’re stallions,” Kobe Bryant said of the Lakers’ first round opponents. “They broke us in that [one] game, just from their speed... and they forced us to play hard on every possession.”...

The starters sat on the bench in the fourth quarter. The reserves combined for 32 points and 8 assists. The Lakers shot 54%. Kobe Bryant only scored 13 points on 4-9 and the Lakers still won the game. What do the items on the list have in common? We can’t remember the last time they occurred!

Bandwagon fans exist in every sport… EVERY sport. Whether you became a “die-hard” Celtics fan in 2008, or a “die-hard” Yankees fan last season, or yes, even a “die-hard” Lakers fan last year...

The Oklahoma City Thunder didn’t so much take this game away from the Lakers as much as the Lakers handed it to them, wrapped in confidence and tied with a pretty purple and gold bow. “We’ll take the next two games, “ the Lakers said. “You can have this one.” Being the opportunists that they are, the Thunder replied, “Don’t mind if we do.”

It was an early indication of things to come. First, there was the long two over the outstretched arms of Thabo Sefolosha. Then it was a putback after a Derek Fisher miss...

Kobe Bryant drove into the lane, hopped high above the crowd in the paint and heaved the ball with both hands to an open Derek Fisher for three -- SWISH! Running backwards in transition, Derek turned his head over his right shoulder and pointed at Kobe. Their eyes still locked, Kobe lowered his head and pointed right back.

The last time the Sacramento Kings visited Staples Center, they had played their hearts out against the defending champions; and only until the last few seconds of the game did those same hearts turn cold, frozen by the buzzer-beating game winner off the hands of the cold-blooded, Kobe Bryant...