Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 11:41 pm Post subject: SUNS -at- LAKERS - 1/17 - Thoughts and :-(( Ratings
Not Impressed by the Suns... The Lakers played a ridiculously bad game for three quarters, yet they trailed by single digits in the fourth quarter. Call me not impressed by the Suns win, despite them snapping our 7-game win streak, 106-98.
I don't think I recall seeing as many unforced errors and out of sync play by the Lakers since the beginning of the season. If you think about it, that seems to be the Lakers situation in trying to regroup without Bynum. It's like they are starting over again and need to find their rhythm.
Without Bynum, this was a very similar Laker team to last year against the Suns. Kobe, Farmar and LO looked like your impact players. Fish had a Smush-like game. Farmar's elevation into that list of impact players against the Suns is a difference. Keep an eye on that if we face them again down the line when it matters.
Luke and Kwame were hideous in this game, actually playing worse than they have against the Suns. Kwame got boo's like he was Kobe in Denver or Philly whenever he touched the ball. And this was at Staples! Just too much ugly, inept play. The Suns shot 52 percent to the Lakers 38 percent. We had 21 turnovers, which they turned into 30 points. Defensively, we had just 1 block to their 11. I still can't believe we didn't lose by 30.
The Lakers got a tough stretch of games to try to figure this out.
Kobe -- -- Wearing the mic tonight and we got to hear him both pumping up LO and telling him to "stay awake." He also told Luke to take his time in the post. I don't want to hear what he had to say to Kwame... Kobe may have throttled back his offense a little too much for stretches in this game. Or, it could be we were struggling so much to get into sync that it affected his balance, as well. Still, he had a late rush and managed to get his points. The Stats: Kobe had 30 points on 10-22 shooting (4-10 from three, 6-8 from the line) to go with 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 2 turnovers in 39 minutes. The Action: He didn't draw iron on a bank where he took some contact. He posted up and was fouled in the paint, he made both FTs. He worked around the perimeter and hit the elbow jumper. He swished a face up jumper from the wing. He missed a three. He missed a wing jumper when the offense stalled out of a timeout. He swiped a pass to Marion and reversed. He got blocked going to the rim, looked like he got hit from behind. He hit a fade in the lane. He passed out of a double team beyond the arc, cut to the hoop, got the ball back and was fouled as he was went to throw down, he made both FTs. He sank a tech FT. Bad pass to start the second quarter, turnover, score the other way. He missed a three. He missed a layup off a hanging attack. He missed a baseline jumper, but Lamar cleaned it up. Great hustle after tipping a loose ball, he tried to save it back in bounds and went flying over the scorer's table. Hot pass from Fish went right off his chest, turnover. He attacked and kicked out to Fish for a three. He missed a heave for three. He had 13 points on 4-12 shooting at the half. He stepped around Bell and dunked. He was fouled on a three attempt, he made only one FT...ouch, don't recall him doing that before. He attacked strong to his right and scored a layup. He drained a three. He missed back-to-back jumpers. He had 21 points off of 7-17 shooting after three. He swished a wing three. He kicked out to Farmar for a three. He drained a tough three at the top of the key. He missed a long three. He drained a three from the wing. He missed a sideline three.
Lamar -- -- Glad to see Lamar didn't forget how to take it to the Suns. He killed them on the offensive glass...13 of his 19 boards on that end. Wow. Granted, several of those came off his own misses (which also makes his shot total a little deceptive since it didn't require him that many offensive sets to get his 20 shots). Good effort, great job imposing his size on the Suns and playing more to his strengths in this game. The Stats: Lamar scored 19 points on 7-20 shooting (0-1 from three, 5-6 from the line) to go with 19 boards, 5 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 2 turnovers and just 2 fouls in 45 minutes. The Action: He scored a layup out on the break. Nice attack and he threw it up high to Kwame, who then blew the layup (that would have been a Bynum alley-oop throwdown). Nice attack down the middle but he blew the finish, the penetration at least allowed Kwame to clean it up. He took an offensive board from behind two Suns and scored the layup. He was rejected badly on a wild attempt. He missed working in the post. He missed an open three wide right, then got dunked on in transition. He tipped in a Kobe miss. He attacked strong, missed, went after it again, grabbed it and scored...good effort. Out on the break, he drew FTs when Fisher found him, he made both. He drew a foul on another attack and made one FT. He posted up, drew the D and hit Kwame with an interior pass for a layup. He drew a charge on the other end. Good first half, scoring 11 points on 4-10 shooting to go with 7 boards (4 offensive). He attacked from the top of the key and scored a layup to his left. Nice bounce pass to Kwame and it drew FTs. Great effort off Kwame's missed FT to get it and throw it off a Sun, he then missed a fade on the inbounds. Nice feed to Kwame and he missed the easy dunk. He missed a hook, Kobe kept it alive, Lamar got it back and scored. He missed a 20-footer. He tapped an offensive board to himself and it led to three FTs for Kobe. He got stripped getting ready to throw down, looked like a foul with no call. He kicked out to Sasha in transition for a three. All alone under the hoop, he allowed the D to catch up and missed a layup and a putback. Nice D taking a charge on Amare, who picked up his fifth foul to start the fourth. He posted up Marion, took the pass over the D and dunked to cut the lead to 8. He poked a ball from Skinner to Farmar for a score. He missed a layup, got it back and was hammered, he made both FTs.
DFish -- -- Fish must have been told to take over that Smush Parker role. He played cruddy. No other way to put it. Not like his first match up against Nash, for sure. The Stats: He scored 3 points on 1-6 shooting to go with 1 assist and 3 turnovers in 25 minutes. The Action: He missed an open elbow jumper. He missed a layup and the Suns scored easily on the other end. He missed a pull-up jumper. He hit Lamar trailing the break for FTs. He sank a three on a kickout from Kobe. He was called for a couple of offensive fouls. He missed a forced three. He missed a runner in the lane.
Luke -- -- Off the top of my head, I don't recall Luke playing a worse game than that this season. Maybe I've blocked something out as a defensive mechanism, but I don't think so. That was hoorrrribbble, as his dad might say. Some absurdly bad possessions in the post, only topped by Kwame's poor game. The Stats: He didn't score on 0-4 shooting to go wtih 2 rebounds, 1 assists, 2 steals (that was good) and 2 turnovers in 21 minutes. The Action: He threw the first pass of the game out of bounds trying to hit Lamar who stopped in his tracks...that was an omen. He was rejected under the hoop and it led to a layup the other way. Pathetic attempt in the post and he bricked badly. Kobe told Luke to take his time in the post. He bricked off the glass badly on a drive. He got stripped in the post. He tried to post up, got swatted and stripped again. Yeesh.
Kwame -- -- I'm not sure anything needs to be said about this game. Kwame had 7 turnovers and the Lakers felt everyone of those. The boo's he was receiving at home remind one of the bad memories from his days on the Wizards. Just an awful, awful game...and we kept giving him the ball to see if he could make it worse. And he did! The Stats: He scored 8 points on 3-8 shooting (missed some easy ones), he had 6 boards, 7 turnovers and 5 fouls in 25 minutes. The Action: He missed a baseline jumper. He choked a layup he could have dunked when he got a great setup by LO. Aggressive crash on the boards, he pulled it down and scored the layup. He sat after picking up a weak offensive foul. He scored an up and under with his left around Amare. He scored a layup off an interior feed from Lamar. He erased a hoop by Lamar that looked like it was going to fall when he tried to dunk it back in. He drew a foul trying to tip in an oop from Kobe, he made one FT. He had 7 points on 3-6 shooting to go with 5 boards. He dropped a return pass from LO for a turnover. He drew FTs taking an interior feed down the middle of the lane and trying to dunk on Amare, he made one. He traveled trying to attack. He back-rimmed a dunk attempt that LO set him up for and heard boo's. He fumbled a post up attempt away on the next possession with the crowd still getting on him. He got tapped on a face up and attack, missing the layup and hearing it again. He then threw a pass away trying to get it to Luke.
Ariza -- -- Not much of a game from Ariza. We did have a couple possessions for him trying to work the post against a smaller man. He scored on one of those. We might see more of that next time we play the Suns. He also did well on the offensive glass. Defensively, he didn't do much. The Stats: He scored just 2 points on 1-5 shooting (0-2 from three) to go with 6 boards (4 offensive), 2 assists, 1 steal and 1 foul. The Action: Great rotation on multiple defenders, then he challenge on Bell to get a miss. He gave up an And-1 to Marion in the paint. He skied for the offense board, but got stripped, we still got the ball back. He gave up an oop to end the first half, ouch. He posted up Barbosa and scored a layup. He got tapped on a three. Nice entry feed to Lamar over the top of the D for a dunk.
Turiaf -- -- I'm not sure whether the crowd was cheering for Ronny entering the game or cheering for Kwame leaving the game. Ronny played well enough. We weren't coughing up possessions and blowing easy ones with him in there for sure. The Suns aren't a huge team, so we probably could have played Ronny more than we did. Phil did go to a Turiaf/Kwame lineup for one brief stretch of the game when LO got his only rest. Glad to see Ronny not get into foul trouble as our thin lineup at this point can't handle it. The Stats: He scored 9 points on 4-7 shooting (1-3 from the line) to go with 4 boards, 2 turnovers and 2 fouls in 26 minutes. The Action: He swished a long wing jumper on his first attempt. He drew a tech on Bell as Farmar made a three at the end of the quarter while Ronny was battling under the hoop. He tried to backdoor to Kobe, but Kobe never went and the ball sailed out of bounds. He got blocked on a jumper. He posted up Skinner, overpowered him and banked in the And-1, he missed the FT. In for Kwame and he quickly banged down a wing jumper. He drew FTs away from the ball in transition, he seems to be ticking off the Suns, he made one FT. Good D on Barbosa, switching and forcing the airball. He got blocked going up to finish. He hit a little fade getting into the lane.
Farmar -- -- At the end of this game, you could see who was balling and who wasn't. Farmar, Kobe and LO stood out. Kobe and Farmar just looked like they were refusing to go down without a fight. Props to Farmar. He should have played more with Fish struggling. Second game in a row Phil should have had him out there more. At least this time, he was there to the finish. Great effort. He's one of the reasons we didn't get completely smoked. (Need to hit those freebies, Farmar.) The Stats: He scored 16 points on 6-12 shooting (3-7 from three, 1-2 from the line) to go with 4 assists, 4 steals and 3 boards in 23 minutes. The Action: He pushed up the break at the end of the quarter, pumpfaked a man out of the way, then swished the wing three with 0.8 left. He attacked to his left with speed and drew FTs, he made one. He missed a runner in the lane. He traveled trying to put on the breaks in the lane. He missed a three. He swiped a pass. Horrible pass from the corner right to the Suns in the middle of the floor, not sure what he was looking at with that one. He missed a three. He attacked to his left and scored a layup. He slipped a screen and took the return pass for a layup. Huge three in transition next time down to cut the lead to 9. He missed a long jumper out of a timeout. He missed on a drive. He drained a three on a kickout from Kobe. He scored a layup when LO poked a ball loose. He missed a three from the top of the key.
Crittenton -- -- Brief stint from Javaris. Sasha came back in the second half when Crit might normally come in. Not sure what Sasha's status is, but Crit's minutes may be cut for a while. The Stats: He scored 1 points on 0-2 shooting, 1-2 from the line and 1 turnover in just 3 minutes. The Action: Nice attack in the lane but he got tapped on the shot. He dribbled through a crowd and drew FTs on skinner, he made one. He threw a pass away when he thought Ronny was cutting with him.
Sasha -- -- If Sasha drains maybe one more of those jumpers and doesn't give up a couple easy hoops, I might have brought out the dancing tomato for him. Borderline call on this important issue. Anyway... Down by 19 and Phil brought in Sasha for the first time in a long time since he'd been sidelined with the back spasms. To start the fourth he caught fire on a one-man rally that brought the Lakers back into striking distance. Nice spurt of energy and shooting from Sasha, but we had dug too deep a hole. The Stats: He scored 10 points on 4-9 shooting (2-5 from three) to go with 2 boards, 1 assist, 1 steal and 2 fouls in 15 minutes. The Action: He drained a sideline three on a kickout from Lamar. He curled into the lane, attacked and scored a layup. Lamar posted up, kicked out to Sasha and he drained a three from the top of the key. He kept a board alive and it led to a Farmar score. He missed a three and a wing jumper and our rally stalled. He missed a three. Bad angle on D and he gave up an easy layup to Barbosa. He pushed out a break and missed a layup, but LO got the board. He hit a leaner in the lane out of a timeout. He missed a long attempt at a three.
Phil -- -- Ugly game. You could certainly see it coming. You could see Lamar stepping up from the beginning, but Kwame sunk us. And he was give too much of an opportunity to do it. Should have been a mercy kill in there from Phil... The Lakers trailed 8-2 after 3 minutes and took a timeout... They trailed 19-8 by the next timeout midway through the first quarter. The crowd was getting upset at the poor execution... The Lakers cut it to 27-24 with an 8-0 run to end the quarter when the second unit came in to run with Kobe and Lamar... Phil went with a Kwame/Turiaf lineup to start the second quarter while LO got a rest... The Lakers went 1-12 in the first 6 minutes of the second quarter, trailing 43-28... The Lakers trailed 56-43 at the half. It shouldn't have been that close. The Suns shot 62 percent to the Lakers 32 percent. Thankfully, we had 12 offensive boards to the Suns 4. The Lakers shot 11-16 from the line... Phil hated the ball movement and said the team was playing way too soft defensively... Kwame and Luke were horrible in the third, getting boo'd. Just a number of turnovers and general limp play in the post and the Suns capitalized. The Lakers trailed 79-61 after three quarters. Phil then brought in Sasha and we went on a run... Out of a timeout, we went to Lamar in the post as he was fronted by Marion and LO dunked. Looked like we made sure to get LO down on the block in that possession... The second unit cut the lead down and Phil brought back in Kobe midway through the fourth trailing by 11... Some late threes and we chipped at the lead, but the hole was too big to climb out of...
Game Flow -- LINK -- Kwame had the -17 and Sasha had the +9 to lead the Lakers. Farmar and Sasha had a combined 22 points in the fourth.
Joined: 24 Jun 2003 Posts: 3006 Location: Arcadia, CA
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 11:54 pm Post subject:
I'd trade Kwame for a bag of chips. _________________ In regards to a certain fan wanting to cut his wrists:
Orestes: "Guess that's one way to find out if you really bleed purple & gold."
How many layups did Kwame miss in the 3rd quarter? I can count at least two-a dunk and (surprise-surprise) a little flip layup. There had to be more. He makes a couple of those and the Lakers aren't gunning from 3 land at the end of the game. Instead Kobe's going to the basket, or shooting 18 footers. _________________ MTFBWYA
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Kwame brown...i think he deserved more.
This is the last straw kwame...you cannot hide your sucking anymore behind andrew's shadow. Ask for a buyout!!
Only my opinion but we can be a better team with lamar at center...i think he can do it. We'll be like phx back when diam was at center. I just want kwame out so bad
Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 12898 Location: Los Angeles
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:06 am Post subject:
Getting these guys to play aggressive is like pulling teeth...with no drugs. That first quarter was a disgrace. Nobody wanted the rock. Kobe had to pretty much grind his offense to a halt before other dudes started trying to shoot. _________________ So glad we gave you your flowers while you were here, Kobe.
Getting these guys to play aggressive is like pulling teeth...with no drugs. That first quarter was a disgrace. Nobody wanted the rock. Kobe had to pretty much grind his offense to a halt before other dudes started trying to shoot.
Phil needs to be quicker in pulling Luke, Fisher and Odom if they are being passive with their shots. Farmar, Sasha and Turiaf are rarely passive. _________________ MTFBWYA
thanks, DB
without bynum, this team finds itself again in the middle of a "clash of civilizations"... it's liberalism or communism, kobes free enterprise or equal opportunities system... it's evident that kobe can't try to win every game by himself, but on the other side i think that in order to play the equal opportunities game you need players with some character... with so insecure players, every time they find themselves with the ball in their hands it's a nightmare...
thanks, DB
without bynum, this team finds itself again in the middle of a "clash of civilizations"... it's liberalism or communism, kobes free enterprise or equal opportunities system... it's evident that kobe can't try to win every game by himself, but on the other side i think that in order to play the equal opportunities game you need players with some character... with so insecure players, every time they find themselves with the ball in their hands it's a nightmare...
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:16 am Post subject: Lamar Odom
I thought he played a good game. He was aggresive, he was killing on the backboards (19 tonight) and he made some nice passes to Kwame, but we all know what happened
Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 12898 Location: Los Angeles
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:17 am Post subject:
mike_dee23 wrote:
hoopschick29 wrote:
Getting these guys to play aggressive is like pulling teeth...with no drugs. That first quarter was a disgrace. Nobody wanted the rock. Kobe had to pretty much grind his offense to a halt before other dudes started trying to shoot.
Phil needs to be quicker in pulling Luke, Fisher and Odom if they are being passive with their shots. Farmar, Sasha and Turiaf are rarely passive.
Sure he can yank them, but these are our starters, our skilled players. We just came off of 3 days of everybody talking about Kobe's 44 shots. One would THINK that they would have it in their heads from jump, 'I'm gonna be active, aggressive, looking for my shot.' But they come out playing the same old way!! Kobe had to literally REFUSE to shoot in order for these guys to try and pick it up. They enjoy standing around and watching Kobe do all the work. _________________ So glad we gave you your flowers while you were here, Kobe.
Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 3732 Location: The other side
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:18 am Post subject:
Good news and bad news...
We lost... But Suns tried very hard. Do you realise that they played only with 7-man lineup! It was like if they were in the play-offs already.
Lakers played really bad, but lost with only 6 points... Are we getting so much better or are Suns so bad that in our bad night we only lose by so little?
Kwame, Luke, Lamar, Trevor combined for 0 made jumpshots. Fish made just one....
I agree, LO was the least of the Lakers' worries tonight, one of his better efforts this season even if statistically he has had much better shooting nights. Impact and heart were all there. Kwame Brown, on the other hand, might as well have played for the Suns.
Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 12898 Location: Los Angeles
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:19 am Post subject:
s_habe wrote:
Good news and bad news...
We lost... But Suns tried very hard. Do you realise that they played only with 7-man lineup! It was like if they were in the play-offs already.
Lakers played really bad, but lost with only 6 points... Are we getting so much better or are Suns so bad that in our bad night we only lose by so little?
Kwame, Luke, Lamar, Trevor combined for 0 made jumpshots. Fish made just one....
The game wasn't as close as the score indicated. We played 3 bad quarters and 1 good one. That's gonna net a loss a vast majority of the time. _________________ So glad we gave you your flowers while you were here, Kobe.
^ that's the thing, I don't know how many people really think Luke is better than Ariza or Fisher is better than Farmar. I think our reserves are better than our starters. I like Farmar off the bench because Fisher is usually reliable, but on nights he's not, he should get the hook quickly.
I've lost complete faith in Luke the last two nights. Not only do I think Ariza should start, but I think Sasha should come in for Ariza moving Kobe to the 3. When Rad gets back, I'd put him in front of Luke as well. He's giving the Lakers absolutely nothing this season. _________________ MTFBWYA
Kwame played so fugly that I felt sorry for him when the Staples crowd booed him every time he touched the ball. Luke played so fugly that I wanted to strangle him. That 3rd Quarter was so utterly embarassing I expect it to be used as the next Southwest Air commercial. **Ping!** Wanna get away?
Totally disjointed effort by all, although I enjoyed the intensity that JoFar, Lamar and Sasha played with. Kobe played well in spurts, but it was like he couldn't figure out what to do -- score? set up teammates? He seemed indecisive to me.
"I thought it was terrible," said Kobe Bryant..."If they want to do that, they can stay home. He's going to be our guy here for two months. He's going to do fine, he's going to play well the next game. Kwame's sensitive. You boo him, it's going to affect him. I told him I've got his back."
"That's tough for anybody. For a guy who wants to play the right way, it's even tougher," said Lamar Odom...
"We all stand behind him, we have faith in him," said Jordan Farmar..."That's just not right. If you're a Laker fan, you should support your team through the good, the bad, the ugly."
This is going to be a tough three game stretch trying to regain our rhythm. No mercy for us it seems. Could anyone give a quick recap of Lamar's interaction with a few of those Suns' players? I just saw him jawing a little bit at one point. Come on Fish, Luke and Kwame learn from this loss and try to help us out in any way possible.
Long-term good news on Bynum:
Quote:
"It's serious because I'm going to miss two months," he said. "At the same time, it's not because it's nothing that's going to affect my future."
Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 12898 Location: Los Angeles
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:30 am Post subject:
Klone_dd wrote:
Kwame played so fugly that I felt sorry for him when the Staples crowd booed him every time he touched the ball. Luke played so fugly that I wanted to strangle him. That 3rd Quarter was so utterly embarassing I expect it to be used as the next Southwest Air commercial. **Ping!** Wanna get away?
Totally disjointed effort by all, although I enjoyed the intensity that JoFar, Lamar and Sasha played with. Kobe played well in spurts, but it was like he couldn't figure out what to do -- score? set up teammates? He seemed indecisive to me.
I think the indecisiveness came from his natural instincts which tell him to try and take over when the team is in trouble. But he also knows that with this particular opponent, that doesn't work. It just doesn't work on Phx. So even though the ship was sinking, he had to try and get some guys going if they were to have a shot.
I still can't get over the fact that even with all the yapping over Kobe's 44 shots, they still came out soft, they still came out passive.
You can't put a fire in someone when there's nothing to burn. _________________ So glad we gave you your flowers while you were here, Kobe.
Phil may need to start tightening his rotation or change it to reward those that are performing well. These players are young and don't have the veteran savvy that only comes from years of experience. Phil should start using his timeouts more to teach these guys what they need to do to win games because there seems to be a snowball effect when they're playing poorly and they don't have the experience to figure things out.
Kwame's horrible 3rd quarter overshadowed how poorly Derek Fisher and Luke Walton played. I agree Fish had a "Smush-like" game and seemed passive. I don't think he ever attacked Nash on offense. Walton going one-on-one against Shawn Marion was ridiculous.
I can't blame the fans for booing Kwame because in that 3rd quarter for what seemed to be an eternity, Kwame was getting the ball almost all the time. It almost seemed like after the fans started booing Kwame, the other Lakers in the game were forcing the ball inside to Kwame to quiet the fans and it just seemed to get worse with Kwame missing shots and turning the ball over.
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-- Wearing the mic tonight and we got to hear him both pumping up LO and telling him to "stay awake." He also told Luke to take his time in the post. I don't want to hear what he had to say to Kwame... Kobe may have throttled back his offense a little too much for stretches in this game. Or, it could be we were struggling so much to get into sync that it affected his balance, as well. Still, he had a late rush and managed to get his points. 
-- Glad to see Lamar didn't forget how to take it to the Suns. He killed them on the offensive glass...13 of his 19 boards on that end. Wow. Granted, several of those came off his own misses (which also makes his shot total a little deceptive since it didn't require him that many offensive sets to get his 20 shots). Good effort, great job imposing his size on the Suns and playing more to his strengths in this game. 
-- Fish must have been told to take over that Smush Parker role. He played cruddy. No other way to put it. Not like his first match up against Nash, for sure. 
-- Off the top of my head, I don't recall Luke playing a worse game than that this season. Maybe I've blocked something out as a defensive mechanism, but I don't think so. That was hoorrrribbble, as his dad might say. Some absurdly bad possessions in the post, only topped by Kwame's poor game. 
-- I'm not sure anything needs to be said about this game. Kwame had 7 turnovers and the Lakers felt everyone of those. The boo's he was receiving at home remind one of the bad memories from his days on the Wizards. Just an awful, awful game...and we kept giving him the ball to see if he could make it worse. And he did! 
-- Not much of a game from Ariza. We did have a couple possessions for him trying to work the post against a smaller man. He scored on one of those. We might see more of that next time we play the Suns. He also did well on the offensive glass. Defensively, he didn't do much. 
-- I'm not sure whether the crowd was cheering for Ronny entering the game or cheering for Kwame leaving the game. Ronny played well enough. We weren't coughing up possessions and blowing easy ones with him in there for sure. The Suns aren't a huge team, so we probably could have played Ronny more than we did. Phil did go to a Turiaf/Kwame lineup for one brief stretch of the game when LO got his only rest. Glad to see Ronny not get into foul trouble as our thin lineup at this point can't handle it. 
-- At the end of this game, you could see who was balling and who wasn't. Farmar, Kobe and LO stood out. Kobe and Farmar just looked like they were refusing to go down without a fight. Props to Farmar. He should have played more with Fish struggling. Second game in a row Phil should have had him out there more. At least this time, he was there to the finish. Great effort. He's one of the reasons we didn't get completely smoked. (Need to hit those freebies, Farmar.) 
-- If Sasha drains maybe one more of those jumpers and doesn't give up a couple easy hoops, I might have brought out the dancing tomato for him. Borderline call on this important issue. Anyway... Down by 19 and Phil brought in Sasha for the first time in a long time since he'd been sidelined with the back spasms. To start the fourth he caught fire on a one-man rally that brought the Lakers back into striking distance. Nice spurt of energy and shooting from Sasha, but we had dug too deep a hole. 
-- Ugly game. You could certainly see it coming. You could see Lamar stepping up from the beginning, but Kwame sunk us. And he was give too much of an opportunity to do it. Should have been a mercy kill in there from Phil... The Lakers trailed 8-2 after 3 minutes and took a timeout... They trailed 19-8 by the next timeout midway through the first quarter. The crowd was getting upset at the poor execution... The Lakers cut it to 27-24 with an 8-0 run to end the quarter when the second unit came in to run with Kobe and Lamar... Phil went with a Kwame/Turiaf lineup to start the second quarter while LO got a rest... The Lakers went 1-12 in the first 6 minutes of the second quarter, trailing 43-28... The Lakers trailed 56-43 at the half. It shouldn't have been that close. The Suns shot 62 percent to the Lakers 32 percent. Thankfully, we had 12 offensive boards to the Suns 4. The Lakers shot 11-16 from the line... Phil hated the ball movement and said the team was playing way too soft defensively... Kwame and Luke were horrible in the third, getting boo'd. Just a number of turnovers and general limp play in the post and the Suns capitalized. The Lakers trailed 79-61 after three quarters. Phil then brought in Sasha and we went on a run... Out of a timeout, we went to Lamar in the post as he was fronted by Marion and LO dunked. Looked like we made sure to get LO down on the block in that possession... The second unit cut the lead down and Phil brought back in Kobe midway through the fourth trailing by 11... Some late threes and we chipped at the lead, but the hole was too big to climb out of...
