I had an entire post about the Lakers ready to go at the end of last week, bemoaning their 0-5 start to the season. But, I didn’t get it posted. In the mean time, low and behold, the Lakers go out last night and they have the nerve to win their first game of the season.
1-5, baby.
The first episode of the final season of HBO’s “The Newsroom” aired at 8PM last night, so naturally that took precedent over a winless team, so I missed the first half of the game. When I tuned in, LA was down nine to visiting Charlotte. Then, the Lakers played their best quarter of basketball all season in the third and cruised to a surprisingly easy victory. Carlos Boozer played fairly efficient basketball (which is ironic, because in the post that never was, I devoted some time to making fun of Boozer), and Jeremy Lin played by far his best and most efficient game of the season (21 points, 7 assists, 8-12 shooting). For the Lakers to be both mildly entertaining and mildly competitive, Lin is going to have to play like he played last night more often than not. I haven’t even mentioned Kobe yet, and that’s partly because he had a quiet game by his standards, but he definitely was a spark in that huge 3rd quarter that pushed LA past the Hornets.
There were still flashes of the real Lakers last night. There were defensive breakdowns, horrible offensive possessions that ended in even worse shot attempts. But, they were fun to watch last night. I need that. The team needed that. The fans in LA, I’m sure, needed that. Look, there are going to be more nights that look like the first five games of the season than the way things looked last night. But, is it too much to ask to win slightly, and I mean just slightly more than one time in every five chances? Can I get two?
Kobe went down in the third last night, briefly, after some knee to knee contact in the paint. When he was laying on the ground, I remarked to my buddy Ben that, if Kobe were to go down, 0-82 was a real possibility. Of course I was kidding, but only kind of. Thankfully, Kobe got up, knocked down a couple of free throws, and the Lakers avoided that historic fate.
1-5, baby.
