If Dwight hadn't lost his mind and committed that stupid Flagrant 2 on Faried, Lakers might have won. What an idiot! I wonder what his thought process was. Lakers crumbled after he was ejected. Their defense just isn't good enough to be a contender. Like I said earlier, they will start consistently beating the weaker teams and will definitely make the playoffs, but one-and-done is likely. It was almost painful watching how easily Lawson got around Nash. He is a worse defender than Chris Duhon. Steve Blake is the normal backup. WB, TP, CP3 and probably Conley would embarrass Nash in a 7-game series. I don't care how many jumpers he drills or PnRs he runs to set up Pau & Dwight.
I respect your opinion. But they didn't get beat by Lawson. Laker's weakness has always, always been Ding up the three and transition defense. In a half court set, you can let PG get a share of pts, but it usually means that their play making is diminished. I can't for one second believe that Howard was once considered better than Yao. The guy does not have any offensive IQ whatsoever. No patience, no agile moves on the block. Good thing for him they only need him for defensive purposes. If the Lakers can trade Gasol for an athletic 4 or two they're set. IMO they'll be dangerous come post season anyway, BUT if they can pull off a trade like that they'll be the fav.
I didn't mean to say Lawson was the only reason they lost tonight, but he ended up with 14 assists and it seemed like a chunk came in the 4th quarter. Nuggets just got too many uncontested shots and much of that was because Lawson was waltzing into the paint without resistance. I wouldn't judge Howard's career by his play so far this season. IMO, you can observe he's not as active and physical on both ends of the floor. Maybe this is the new, post-injury Howard.
It's hard to win in Denver on a back to back. They also won 5 in a row before this loss. No big deal.
I just saw a picture of Dwight-Gasol-Kobe-Nash together.. And I thought to myself: If I'm Dwight, would I want to sign a long-term contract with a team that has so many old players? I mean this core has MAX 2 years together. There are so many teams that have much, much brighter futures.
continued... If Dwight signs in LA (though i do believe they have the best FO in the league, they did benefit from Kobe becoming a force right after having Shaq), I think it'll end up bitting him in the ass.
Bigs shouldn't get killed on the glass, but your perimeter D can't be poor either. LA's perimeter D has been horrible all year.
LA will have all the capsace in the world for a reboot after 2014. I never will discount their ability to obtain star players.
Yeah, it always is the case with Lakers but I hope for once they don't get to reboot and stay in an endless loop of mediocore.:grin:
wtf dwight <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FNY4kTggQro" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Mike Trudell @LakersReporter Lakers annouce that an MRI performed on @paugasol's right foot revealed plantar fasciitis. However, he's probable for Friday's game.
Remember this <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jaJr6_XF1Og" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Lakers center Dwight Howard has been fined $35,000 for his Flagrant Foul Two against Denver's Kenneth Faried last night.</p>— Marc J. Spears (@SpearsNBAYahoo) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpearsNBAYahoo/status/284468540235464704" data-datetime="2012-12-28T01:19:19+00:00">December 28, 2012</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
