After getting home from work at about 5:45 Tuesday night, I kicked off my shoes, flipped on the ol‘ dvr and fired up the then half over Laker game against the Cleveland Cavaliers to watch from the opening tip. Ahh, no commercials, no long timeouts, no watching the diminutive, yet on point Mike Trudell‘s extended post halftime soliloquy, just Laker ball.
Obviously any Laker fan following this year‘s team could have reminded me that “Laker Ball“ is mainly comprised of comically high turnover totals, inconsistent effort, stagnant (though not abhorrently unproductive) offense, and of course their trademark defense that would make Brian Cook blush. Well, to be perfectly honest, tonight I didn’t feel like wallowing in frustration and going through the constant bouts of “well if they get it down to X amount of points with Y amount of time left, we’re right in this thing”, knowing full well that I continue to fudge the numbers as the W slips out of reach. Nope, tonight, With about 2 minutes left in the second quarter and a double digit deficit already towering over the Lakers in their Tuesday night road loss to the Cavs in their home yellows(?), I decided that I had had enough and was going to save myself the misery of the normally allotted 2ish hours of hot steaming piles of week old diapers basketball. I hit pause, opened up my laptop and checked the final score to confirm what I already knew.
After masochistically letting the score bore into my retinas for a few seconds, I closed my computer, sat back and thought, Mike D’Antoni said it best, the Lakers just aren’t very good right now. I’m not sure I’ve ever been more frustrated, confused and annoyed by any team I’ve ever been a fan of (Cowboy fan here, so that’s saying something). And as if it’s not bad enough that the Lakers mock us for attempting to mentally impose our narrative of, “this is where they come together on the road and turn this thing around!” by simply losing, they have to do it in such utterly predictable fashion. The 18(!) turnovers, the abysmal marksmanship from the stripe, and let’s not forget the routine airing of “All-Star for a Night!” hosted by your Los Angeles Lakers in which they travel the country, allowing the disenfranchised, the downtrodden, or the up and comers to go out and have a night to remember for the home town fans. Hello Alonzo Gee doubling his career scoring average ( or CJ Miles more than tripling his). Oh Hey there Kyrie Irving coming back after missing almost a month and promptly going bananas on the Lakers laughably thin stable of point guards.
Laker games have become so predictably malodorous that I barely feel like watching, I really can’t stand the stink.
But still, it will be cool when they win the chip in June.
Sigh