Laker Nation

Turnovers, air balls and runs – oh my! What a sloppy, sloppy game this started out to be. The Sixers started 0-10 in the first quarter, and then started 0-7 in the second quarter. The Lakers led 12-4 to begin the game, then continuously turned the ball over and got behind by three points after the first 12 minutes. Kobe [...]

Everything back to normal already?! Well, not quite but it’s pretty darn close. They look like the Lakers who started the season 13-2; seamless in all aspects of the game, showing little to no mercy. Pau Gasol looks like an MVP again, Kobe Bryant is shooting over 50% and Lamar Odom…well, he’s been good all season but what a difference [...]

…He’s been here for years. Andrew Bynum, that is. Only it feels like he’s gone all the time. In his first game back since recovering and then rehabilitating from arthroscopic knee surgery, Bynum watched from the sidelines, and at the 6:09 mark in the first quarter, he entered the game for the first time this season, marking the moment with [...]

They don’t like to make it easy on themselves, do they? The Lakers, after losing in Chicago and coming into Newark to face the lowly 7-game losing streak New Jersey Nets, could’ve played with a lot more conviction than they have been lately. Maybe being these were the New Jersey Nets, however, they figured they could come in, play with [...]

What could be worse than the Bulls scoring just 12 points in the first quarter? How about the Lakers scoring just 10 in the second? After an inspiring 12 minutes of lock-down defense and ball movement galore, the Lakers shot just 4-15 and committed seven turnovers in the second quarter. They just absolutely kill you, don’t they? The visitors seemed [...]

John Ireland was interviewing Derek Fisher after the game as an excited group of teammates lingered behind him. Assistant coach, Brian Shaw, stood in the background with the biggest smile on his face and his arms in the air. Steve Blake, on his way off the court, couldn’t help but stop to place a hand on either side of Fisher’s [...]

This game could have ended in the third quarter. The starters could have been resting comfortably on the bench, with ice wrapped around their knees, cheering on the reserves as they dove in for the final kill in the last 12 minutes of play. Alas, three starters subbed out late in that third quarter and suddenly, that 19-point lead turned [...]

All streaks must come to an end…and thank goodness for that! That four-game skid couldn’t come to a quicker halt and frankly it doesn’t matter that it came at the expense of the hapless, defenseless Sacramento Kings. A win is a win, friends, and tonight the Lakers got it right from beginning to end and after the way they’ve begun [...]

I know what you’re thinking, fellow Laker fans… [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] Where to begin the recap? Should we start with the monster game of Lamar Odom (25 points on 11-16, 11 rebounds)? How about the 12-point lead the Lakers lost in the last two minutes of the second quarter? Maybe we should talk about the efficient and hustle-filled evening of [...]

112-118 loss at Denver. 116-121 loss versus Phoenix. 96-102 loss at Utah. 92-95 loss versus Indiana. 96-98 loss at Memphis. Five losses with an average point margin of 4.4 and a scoring average of 102.4. One could look at these Lakers losses thus far and claim that a) They’ve never been blown out and b) They’ve still managed to score [...]

It was an all-too-familiar scene, and we’ve witnessed it in the last two games – the Lakers unable to get anything going offensively so it turns into a whole lot of Kobe Bryant and very little of everyone else. When that has to happen, the end result is not always a favorable one for the Lakers and tonight was no [...]

The shot clocks at Energy Solutions Arena weren’t the only things broken in this game. Number one in the league from 3PT, the Lakers shot just 4-15 from behind the arc tonight, scored 33 points on 68% shooting in the first quarter but got outscored 29-17 in the second and shot just 42% for the game. The Laker bench couldn’t [...]

Enough with the double-digit blowouts. Enough with the perfect games. Enough with the starters sitting out the fourth quarter. If Laker fans and NBA analysts were waiting for the Lakers to be truly tested, tonight was definitely the night. The young Chicago Bulls, led by future All-Star point guard Derrick Rose (30 points, eight assists), and coached by former Celtics [...]

Kobe Bryant didn’t make a move to the other side of the court. He merely toss an underhanded pass to Lamar Odom who was already halfway to the Laker basket – dunk. Odom grabbed a rebound, threw a cross-court pass to Steve Blake, who passed it to a running Shannon Brown – layup. A few minutes later, Luke Walton grabbed [...]