Laker Nation

9.9 seconds left in the game and the score is tied. Derek Fisher inbounds the ball to Kobe Bryant, who dribbles at the top of the key and is immediately doubled by Shawn Marion and Jason Terry. With one swift motion, Bryant swings a pass to Fisher and starts walking backwards slowly, so familiar with the results of the next [...]

All of us knew to whom this game meant more. The Clippers knew. The Lakers knew…but couldn’t they at least have faked it?! Most of the effort on the floor tonight was oozing out of the players in red, white and blue. The energy, the determination, the willingness to play the right way, was mostly all Clippers, and maybe there’s [...]

The last time the Cleveland Cavaliers were in town, the Lakers beat them (to a pulp) by 55 points. Tonight, the Lakers decided (consciously, subconsciously – who can tell?) to make the game more challenging, so they played a nearly flawless first half, and then played a flaw-filled second half…until it was time to actually win the game. After such [...]

It goes by quickly, those five minutes of overtime. After 48 minutes of back and forth, the Jazz and the Lakers needed just a few more minutes to award a victor. It opened with Pau Gasol getting stripped on two possessions in a row and the Utah Jazz taking a four-point lead. The Laker big men were having a tough [...]

Derrick Caracter is still recovering from off-season surgery. Josh McRoberts is still nursing a sprained toe. Troy Murphy has the stomach flu. Jason Kapono is at home with his family, enjoying the company of his newborn twin girls. They probably could’ve used Shannon Brown actually, if he weren’t wearing a Suns uniform, because were the Lakers shorthanded? Yes. Did they [...]

Let’s just get one thing over with – Phew! Andrew Bynum survived a Memphis Grizzlies game in January! Okay, now about tonight’s game… The Lakers are 10 games into the season, and tonight’s game has been their best collective effort yet. Led by Kobe Bryant, five Lakers scored in double figures, three had double-doubles and, despite the monstrosity under the [...]

Kobe Bryant looked over his shoulder, his left hand dribbling and his right hand pointing and seemingly directing. Pau Gasol took notice, took the direction and caught a pass from Bryant as he cut to the basket. Score! As they ran back on defense, Bryant pointed his right index and middle fingers at his eyes, mouthing something we can’t hear [...]

It was only the end of the THIRD quarter, but Jamal Crawford’s might-as-well-have-been-at-halfcourt three was the dagger. A dagger with 12 more minutes left in the game – that’s life at the Rose Garden for the Lakers. They were down by just 10 manageable points going into the fourth, but it might as well have been 20 or 30 because, [...]

There it was – that huge child-like smile that comes from having done well on a test at school. In many ways, “child-like” has been a fitting term for Andrew Bynum the last few seasons; having thrown a few tantrums on the court after not getting fouls called in his favor, bullying smaller kids when things aren’t going his way [...]

4 points – that’s all Kobe Bryant needed to reach his 28,000th point milestone. Two baskets, four free throws, one basket and two free throws – the permutations to get those four points are quick and finite, yet it took two quarters and two minutes of the third for Bryant to get there. It’s true – the 15-year veteran has [...]

Derek Fisher received the ball late in the fourth quarter, with the shot clock down to the last few seconds. He threw up a long, and contested three but hit nothing but backboard and rim. The ball bounced back and who should race after it but Denver’s young point guard, Ty Lawson and the Lakers’ resident senior, Derek Fisher. With [...]

Steve Blake passed inside to Metta World Peace. MWP tried to muscle up a shot and was fouled. He kissed his biceps and headed to the Laker bench where Coach Mike Brown was waiting, calling out for Blake as MWP approached. Brown addressed MWP while pointing at Blake, “Did you tell him, ‘Thank you?’” he asked the new Laker sixth [...]

They were due. Completely and utterly due. After the sweep in the second round, the two losses to the new and vastly improved Clippers in the preseason, and the two losses to open this season, the Lakers were in need of a win; and not just any win. They needed a convincing, quarter by quarter, end to end, everybody-in type [...]

Kobe Bryant subbed out of the game with 22.5 left in the fourth quarter and the Lakers heading for their second straight loss of this season. Bryant sat on the bench and stared blankly at the floor before him. 29 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 steals, he must have been thinking, and it still wasn’t enough. And he [...]