Laker Losing Streak Reaches Single Digit

it looked like a Blazers site.

Somehow people forget that point when the Lakers are the team shooting more free throws.

Yeah, the Lakers didn’t really take it to the rim until midway through the fourth.

Brandon Roy steps on Andrew’s foot, both he and Andrew fall. Shooting foul for Roy? That should have been a travel, but I think the refs sometimes get wrapped up in the game. Kobe gets swatted in the head on a drive, no call. The refs don’t like Kobe because he bitches so much. This is why I believe most of what Donaghy said was true. Some refs don’t like certain players and they will not make the appropriate calls. Mike Smith calls some of the worst Laker games since Darrell Garretson.

zzzzzzzzzzzz

that I will definitely go undefeated the rest of the month. Book it!

that’s kind of a harsh statement. They played hard last year, they just weren’t ready for that stage.

The Jail Blazers of the early part of this decade was a different story. Its apples and oranges.

and the Lakers win, no one makes this comment. Say that when he scores 62 points on 37 shots and then I will give you props for that statement.

had a lot to do with it

but for #2, Bayless has a knack for getting to the line. Like salmon returning to the spot of their birth, Bayless goes to the line

1. Roy devoured Artest in the playoffs last year. The rest of the team just sucked.
2. Some intentional and silly fouls late in the game, some ref love, and some Bayless recklessly attacking the hoop.

Kobe has bad shooting nights.

But when Kobe is not swishing free throws, and just rolling them in, or outright missing them, he has an issue. He was 2-4 from the line today.

Maybe he should rest, but I know that he won’t.

hes been off
definitely the heavy minutes are taking a toll
problem is when he goes to the bench our offense goes dead
no one really steps up
hopefully we get gasol soon so we dont have to keep him in the game so long…

That is good that you don’t watch Lakers games on a regular basis because then you would know that Kobe would kill anyone for even suggesting that. He hates to be asked about his injuries. Recently, against Sacramento, Phil asked the trainer Vitti, about Kobe right arm because Kobe lost feeling in it. Vitti’s response was that if he told Phil that Kobe was hurt that Kobe would break Vitti’s arm off. My point is that you can’t ask Kobe to rest. It just seems like an urealistic request and it will never happen.

To get Kobe to sit, though.

But I’m sure if Phil sees it necessary, he will use his considerable persuasive abilities to convince Kobe to rest, though I don’t know what kind of success he will have.

And seems to be trying to shoot his way out of it, which hasn’t exactly been a good thing. Honestly, I would do the Pop approach (“HCA be damned. I’d rather my players are 100%” ) and rest him, but our schedule is pretty brutal this month, so without Kobe, we’d lose quite a few. Our backcourt depth is positively nil (Farmar and Brown are mediocre with some good performances thrown in there, Fisher has been pretty terrible, and Vujacic has been near-useless for most games). If Gasol was coming back sooner, I’d definitely be up for resting Kobe, but that’s also up in the air.

If I’m Kupchak, I’m seriously looking at opportunities to spruce up the backcourt depth, as it’s killed the Lakers most of this season. Artest, Odom, and Bynum are probably enough to beat most .500 teams and worse, but anything better than that and it basically becomes a scrap battle, which the Lakers haven’t been particularly adept at.

Rec’d

Rec’d

Im a Blazer fan and I’m still confused how we won. I know people are pointing to the free-throws but I just watched the Game and it seemed like the Lakers took a crazy amount of jump shots.

The LA bench is definitely a problem, but its a completely different team when Pau is playing and Odom comes off the bench.

And whats up with Bynum? At least he is playing (Oden…..ugh) , but man he should have destroyed our front line tonight. If Oden was healthy (a huge IF) he would destroy Juwan Howard or anybody that isnt within 25 pounds or 3 inches of him. It also seems that the Lakers just didnt want to do work in the paint. very odd

I remember you posting that earlier.

but they were getting hammered
so they stopped going into the paint and settled with jumpshots which only made things worse especially in that stretch between the 3rd and 4th quarters…
and yes the blazers and roy picked apart our D
i remember one play we seemingly caught a break on a missed shot but Martell Webster got the rebound and drove in for the layup.
good win for the blazers

Not sure I have an answer really. Aggressive guards have given the Lakers a hard time for a while now.

I’m not going to talk about the calls,doesn’t seem necessary.

I’ve seen the Lakers go from post play to shooting jumpers a few times this season. It usually ends badly.

Per above by Zaig, the actual incidence of fouls called, excluding intentional fouls, was 20-15 or so. The reason the Blazers shot so many times was the Lakers were into penalty early in two separate quarters, so the Blazers were shooting everything.

Were there a couple sketchy calls? Doubtlessly. As is the case in EVERY NBA game. Was it systematic or as huge a deal as the FT discrepancy might indicate at face value? I don’t think so.

Like Dex says, it all depends who you were rooting for, I suppose. But still, this result was not a product of crooked refereeing. Roy and Rex are both crashers and they drove the ball and got fouled a lot in the process, per usual…

Rudy, Rex, Dante Cunningham, and Przybilla and would also require that the Blazers take a bad contract, like Sasha, say.

Something more or less like that, which is enough to make the deal downright unpalatable from the Blazer side…

you can also say that it’s about expectations. Those other “single digit wins” teams are fans of teams who are used to losing. But when your a fan of a team who is used to winning as a fan you tend to nitpick at things that other fans don’t usually care about. In other words, I’m spoiled and I want the Lakers to win and if they loose I am extra hard on them.

Thank you. On the basis of your sound arguments, SS&R has decided to stop mentioning Pau Gasol’s injury. Your input is valuable and appreciated.

Even when the Lakers win a title fans still consider them overrated and doubting that they will get past the second round is just wishful thinking. Unless of course they have injuries.