THUNDER -at- LAKERS - 2/10 - Thoughts and :-)) Ratings

[Klone_dd]

Kind of a cruise control win. The schedule makers did the Lakers a favor by having OK at Staples after a 6 game roadie (then again, scheduling @ Utah the following night is tough).

[StuLantz#1]

Good win, but I'm also a little concerned about Gasol's minutes. It does seem like we need him in there that long from a competitive standpoint though, which didn't seem to be the case last year. Assuming Bynum even comes back, we're looking at two more months of this. It hurts that unlike Powell, Mihm isn't really serviceable, plus the fact Gasol's really our only post player. He didn't have much of a post game, but he was a good enough passer we could throw down to Turiaf a lot before to set up plays.

Overall the team has been functioning well together lately, and despite the fact he's been a part of that, I keep waiting for the day they start exploiting Walton. Not like they don't leave him open now, though come playoff time teams will start cheating him on a lot more than they did Rad in their Laker-centric defensive schemes. On the defensive end it's interesting that we've done so well against so many top notch SFs lately. I'm not ready to give him that much credit as a man defender, but he's picked his spots well on team defense up to this point.