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Ah, that was better. We got a game that turned into a brutal slugfest, which only worked to the advantage of the established team, the one that has braved fights far more intense than this one, and wasn't going to be fazed by an up and coming Clippers team, even one headed by a competitive maven like Chris Paul. The Lakers got into the Clippers' heads and turned their energy against them, brilliantly done by Metta World Peace, who did his best Scottie Pippen impression -- sans the efficient scoring -- on the court and played one of his best games of the year. Under this veneer of Lakers toughness, however, was a simple and undeniable fact: they shot better. Those painfully wide open shots? Downed. Those opportunities that will make or break the team come April? In the net. We can talk about offense balance, Kobe taking up too many possessions, other players being passive, and so forth, but the bottom line is that people have to make shots to space the floor, and for once this season, the Lakers obliged. With that in mind, let's move forward into this week's risers and fallers.

Beast

• Andrew Goudelock -- Small surprise then that the best shooter of the bunch gets this spot, no? Goudelock finally put together the game we expected out of a player who more than deserved the moniker "Jimmer-lite" for his play at the College of Charleston, and whose range was so ridiculously long Kobe Bryant would be envious. Before this, Goudelock had been tentative, never a great sign for a rookie, and seemingly unwilling to embrace that simple role the team drafted him for: put the round ball in the net and get his team three points. He is simply too good a shooter -- and we mean too good a shooter, look at this clip -- to be doing something like that. And while his role certainly isn't that of the go-to guy at Charleston, it at least served him to be looking for his shot, and that was what he did against the Clippers. He was decisive off the dribble, showing a nice floater that could be a nice part of his game if defenders chase him off the line, and he showed an excellent complement to Kobe Bryant and the other starters due to the inevitable attention they demanded on the floor. Quite simply, if he keeps this up, he will definitely get minutes, and life will only get easier for Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum, and Pau Gasol if suddenly lanes are open to them due to a sweet-shooting guard on the perimeter.

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Starring: The Lakers Fire is back. Ever since last season, we've seen a lack of mental toughness. Big leads lost. Meltdowns. Losses against terrible teams. Just a general lack of fight. Now, thanks to our JV squad, it's back:

Gasol pushed Reggie Evans to create more leverage on the box-out. Gasol then tossed him to the ground. That prompted Clippers forward Solomon Jones to push Gasol from behind, resulting in a near skirmish.

Lakers and Clippers teammates stormed to halfcourt to prevent a skirmish. Before thing settled down, however, Clippers center DeAndre Jordan and World Peace exchanged words and pushes before officials intervened.

The Lakers got a boost from old-school Ron Artest. If you were watching the game, his glare was downright intimidating. World Peace definitely brought the crazy against the Clippers. Even Kobe was impressed:

When it was over, Bryant was so proud to say: "There's a couple [expletives] in this league you don't mess with - and Metta is one of them."

Now that he knows that's what the Lakers want from him, he'll bring it every night:

"I got bored with defense because it was so easy for me to stop people over the years," World Peace said after Thursday's practice. "I just got bored with it."

Have the Lakers turned over a new leaf? Is Pau ready to bring Black Swan out on a permanent basis? Have the Clippers brought out the best in the Lakers?

Much more after the jump...

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In many ways, Pau Gasol is out of place as an NBA player. He's been blessed with the pre-requisite gifts of length, agility, and athleticism in varying degrees, but his mentality is different than 90% of the players who don an NBA uniform. The normal NBA player is aggressive by nature. Pau Gasol is not. The normal NBA player is typically masculine, with huge biceps and tree trunks for legs that allow the player to absorb contact and fly through the air. Pau Gasol is wispy by comparison.

The normal NBA player does much of what he does by instinct. Pau Gasol does not. Pau Gasol is a thinker, not a doer. That's not to say he doesn't do anything. Doers think and thinkers do. It's a matter of priority, and Pau Gasol's first priority is always to have his actions well thought out. This is why so many of Pau Gasol's opportunities with the basketball wind up the same. He'll catch the ball, turn and face his defender, and wait. He's thinking, analyzing the court, trying to determine which of the vast array of moves in his arsenal would be most appropriate for the situation. Many times, the most appropriate outcome is to move the ball elsewhere, and Pau Gasol is true to his analytical nature every single time.

There is another byproduct of Pau Gasol's thinking mentality, one that occasionally makes him a hard man to root for. Because he plays the game with his mind, and not with his instincts, Pau Gasol often plays without much emotion. In many ways, he's like a basketball computer. You can see other players play with tremendous effort in certain situations, but Gasol's effort never waxes, never wanes. When he gets beaten defensively, he doesn't show disappointment. When his teammates ignore him, he doesn't make a fuss. He's simply there, doing his job, all the time, never adjusting his effort or his usage, even if the Lakers might need him to.

You might spend a great deal of time watching Pau Gasol and think he lacks the fire that drives the greatest of players. You would be wrong. Pau Gasol has the fire. It doesn't burn hot like we see with Kobe Bryant, doesn't rise and fall like we see with Andrew Bynum, but it's there, eternally hidden below the veneer of his thinking man's persona.

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In the Lakers' gritty win last night against the Clippers, we saw glimpses of what this team is capable of producing night in and night out. Strong defense, a balanced and efficient offense coupled with emotion and a slight touch of crazy, the World Peace-led Lakers took it to their city rival in what is surely the Lakers' most exciting game of the young season.

Pau Gasol backed his comments about more touches with a solid effort, dazzling with footwork and passing. He looked like the Pau of old, choosing when to spot up and shoot or when to drive at his man. The contribution from rookie Goudelock sparked mini-runs and infused the crowd and team with much needed energy. Andrew Bynum contributed key blocks down the stretch, and even made 4 FTs in a row. Kobe played the type of Kobe game that instills fear into teams, moreso than his 40pt bursts. His passing, rebounding and all around control of the game were solid, and he would have scored more points were it not for a couple misses on "normal Kobe shots." Not bad for an old guy, who still tops as the top earner in the NBA while the Lakers rank as the most valuable franchise in the NBA.

All in all, a solid team effort when the Lakers, and their fans, really needed W. Up next, two off days before a trip up to Milwaukee to take on the Bucks.

↓ Much more after the jump ↓

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It's been a trying season to date for the Los Angeles Lakers. First, there was the whole lockout thing was followed by the CP3 fiasco, then the Lamar Odom fiasco, then a sub-par start to the season has brought us to the present day, where the Lakers' credentials as championship contender, a playoff team, even their stature as the favored team in their own city, are all being called into question. We've seen the Lakers go through a few different stages; barely getting by without Andrew Bynum, basking in Bynum's dominant return to the game, struggling to find a rhythm, staring in awe at the scoring prowess of Kobe Bryant, and back to being a team which has a king, a queen and a rook, but no pawns. Through those different movements, the Lakers have been happy, frustrated, resigned, shell shocked and awestruck.

Tonight, for the first time, they were angry. Angry at the basketball gods for depriving them all of their shooting touch. Angry at themselves for failing to perform to their own standards. Angry at the league for tinkering with their off-season plans. Angry at the pundits for writing them off so quickly. Angry with each other for failing to utilize the team's greatest strengths. And angry with tonight's opponents, the Los Angeles Clippers: for being the benefactors of their misfortune at the start of the season, for beating them the past few times the two teams have met, for trying to claim the city of Los Angeles as their own, and for trying to intimidate, through bully tactics, a team that has been through so much fire as to find the very concept of intimidation laughable. The Lakers channeled that anger, and came ready for a war.

And boy did they have one hell of a general. Kobe Bryant's obviously the commander in chief of this particular unit, but tonight, the spearhead was the ineptly named Metta World Peace, who spent the night creating chaos and bedlam and driving straight through the heart of enemy lines.

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The Los Angeles Lakers picked up a much needed win, downing the Los Angeles Clippers by the final score of 96-91. Though the victory was of great importance to the Lakers, they were hardly the only winners on the night, as anybody watching this game was treated to a vastly entertaining game of basketball. The game, and especially the 2nd half, had a little bit of everything; Big shots, highlight reel dunks, skirmishes, technical fouls, an ejection. The story of the game was the contributions of two players from the Lakers much maligned bench unit, and its tough to tell which one was more unbelievable. In the first half, Andrew Goudelock scored more points (14) than he had all season long to date (10). But that paled in comparison to the second half, which was dominated by the emotion and effort of Metta World Peace. MWP didn't light up the score board (though his one made basket on the night was a three willed in by the wings of Lady Justice), but he dominated the game in a variety of other ways, picking up steals, getting in people's faces, and, most importantly, playing a huge role as playmaker down the stretch. MWP finished with an oddball line of 3 points, 5 boards, a team high 7 assists, 2 steals, a block, and a +20 effort for his time spent on the court.

The Big Three all played well for the Lakers, with Pau Gasol looking aggressive in going for 23 points and 10 boards, Andrew Bynum chipped in with 19 and 6 and 4 blocks (including a vital effort in the final minute to prevent an easy Deandre Jordan dunk) and Kobe Bryant chimed in with a measured performance that saw him (shock!) not try to take over every possession down the stretch. They outlasted a strong night from Blake Griffin (26 and 9), though Blake wasn't supported with much help from the rest of his squad.

In the end, this was a win for the Lakers, and for basketball. We've discussed the reasons why Lakers-Clippers isn't quite a yet a rivalry, but it sure as hell qualifies as a derby (pronounced DAR-BEE, for reasons known only to the British). That's what they call a soccer match between two local teams, because you can always guarantee that both teams will play hard, and tensions are likely to get escalated. It's become very clear that the Clippers are trying to seize the mantle of Los Angeles from the Lakers in every single game they play against each other, and the Lakers showed tonight there's still plenty of strength left in that ironclad grip.

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