Here’s to hoping you get a better present than what John Paxson gave Scott Skiles, or what Rick Mahorn did to Rip Hamilton’s car on Sunday …
That’s just cruel — as most of you know, Sunday may have been the coldest we’ve had in metro Detroit this winter, especially with the wind. When I left the Palace and walked to my car that evening, I literally felt like my face was going to fall off.
Also, I totally blanked when picking a video for the Rockets preview — I totally should have went with this instead (which was at least topical to the season, if not quite as impressive as Rasheed and Co).
Fel,
I thought you’d like to know i found the pistons-celtics game finally for bittorrent (d/ling it right now). It was on some chinese site called bitfire.com and once i found the file name and ran it through google i found a whole network of chinese torrent sites but they are a little hard to handle even with the google translation….
Man, that first game was unwatchable…. Miami/Cle? What Hawks/Bobcats too exciting for ya? Jeezus lets hope Kobe/Nash is more entertaining.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Some random thoughts after watching the Christmas Edition of Lakers/Suns:
1) Andrew Bynum is the real deal. Between Kobe’s complaints, Jackson’s quiet insistance that he wasn’t ready and the weird “let’s see if he can learn Kareem’s sky hook” saga its hard to think of Andrew Bynum as anything other than a punch line. When you throw in that he plays on the left coast, and that his front court mate is a SF in disguise even his vastly improved rebounding numbers can be explained away as “not talent”…. and then you see him play. He’s not just a tall athleate, he’s rapidly becoming a heady basketball player. He finds open shots, blocks out well and when he’s supposed to find the rebound it ends up in his hands. The lakers REALLY REALLY got lucky that Jason Kidd thing fell through.
2) Trevor Ariza and Derick Fisher combine to make this Lakers team SIGNIFICANTLY better than the past couple editions. Neither play puts up huge numbers but both clamp down and play better in the 2nd half/4th quarter. This isn’t the kind of team you can just play mistake free basketball vs and wait for them to break down anymore.
3) How the hell do all 5 of Phx’s starters finish under 30 mins in a game they lost by single digits? No offence but this loss falls on coaching…. something less than 14 mins of Brian Skinner was required here.
PG4L: Don’t know if you meant to imply that Ariza is part of the reason why the Lakers are 18-10 or not, cuz he’s not. I realize that you probably didn’t intend for it to be taken that way since you’re a pretty heady fan, but this was only really Ariza’s third game getting significant minutes since being traded to the Lake show. A lot of fans here have been clamoring for Ariza to get a chance, and as an Ariza fan (not to be confused with a Lakers fan, yuck), I’m with them.
I’m fully in your camp in terms of the fact that he’s a major upgrade for them, but Ariza hasn’t consistently been called upon for some reason. Perhaps his first start of the season being in a win over a very good team on national TV will earn him some more consistent run from the Zenmaster.
Well, I was aware it was his first start (they said so a couple times during the broadcast) but I can’t claim to knowing how many/few games he’s played in so far. Mostly I was watching them vs Phx and noting how much BETTER the Lakers looked than the last two series they’ve lost vs the Suns… much of which I attributed to said two gentlemen while watching the game. I really do mean that prior to watching this game I’ve thought of the Lakers as a team that if you WAIT long enough, will make huge mistakes and spiral out of control. Even when they were up 3-1 on Phoenix two years ago you NEVER got the sense the Suns were that worried… sooner or later the Lakers would give it away. Now they look like at least a legit playoff squad imho…Its not really anything different except HAVING some role players who are more likely to make the stop/play than to completely screw it up and start the spiral downward.
Yeah, I feel what you’re saying. Derek Fisher has been a huge pickup for them this season even if he came back under less than favorable personal circumstances. The weird thing about the way Phil is crafting the rotation though is that at the beginning of this month Ariza was getting DNP-CDs so a guy like Vlad Radmanovic could start and get like 30 minutes of burn. I think this is a good change in philosophy to switch to Ariza.
As you’ve also noted PG4L, Bynum is a lot better this year than last. Apparently Bynum has been taking his “West Coast Baby Eater” vitamins cuz um, dude is averaging a double-double.
There’s definitely a middle seed (3, 4, 5, at absolute worst 6) squad in the Lakers, but I don’t know that they can compete with San Antonio and Dallas yet. I’m really not even confident that they’ll finish the season higher than 4 or 5 seed and get past the second (or even first?) round.
And finally, Merry Christmas to everyone here at DBB (it’s still 8pm here in LA)! And in reference to the original subject of this post, Rick Mahorn will always be my favorite Piston and one of the funniest SOBs I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.
Spot on, PG4L. Get Ariza a shooting coach and a Pistons uniform. That dunk on G. Hill literally made me fall off my futon.
Living in LA and not having cable I’ve watched waaay too much Laker basketball.
I’ve been impressed with Bynum from the first time I saw him play. Great hands. Footwork. Especially for a kid who only played 20 games in high school. In my post-playoff fury, I prayed Dumars would trade Sheed for Bynum and Kwame’s expiring contract.
Farmar’s surprisingly good.
Now Kobe finally has someone who can finish at the rim (Ariza, Odom, Bynum) or make a jumper (Fisher and Farmar). Vujacic still blows though, no matter what Laker broadcasters may say.
As for the other game, any lingering fears I had that the Heat would pull it together for the playoffs is gone.
Add them to the Bulls, Pacers and Nets as Eastern Conference has-beens and never-wases.
LawyerBoy, I see you fought the good fight at that stupid “Perkinsisabeast” site or whatever…
these boston fans are out of control. I guess what will happen next is Detroit will beat them at the Palace, and the Celtics fans will say “but at least we still have the best record”… it’ll kind of sound like the naive Bulls’ fans thinking they could beat the Pistons last year in the playoffs after winning 3-1 in the season series.
I just got back from my folks’ house, where the internet is just a distant rumor. Gotta say it: watching Pistons games without DBB in front of me on my laptop just isn’t as good. Merry Christmas to y’all; you’re the best fans in basketball, and this site is still at the top o’ the blog-o-heap.
I agree with Rob G! I’ve been at the in-laws, keeping busy with presents and meals and all that good stuff, so this is the first chance I’ve had to check up on DBB. Happy holidays everyone!
And about Derek Fisher: seeing him in a Lakers uniform always makes me nervous. I remember when they were winning their championships and weekend games ALWAYS involved the Lakers, Fisher was always hitting big shots when it mattered most. The Lakers could have been down by 55 points, but all of a sudden Fisher would come in and hit 19 3-pointers in a row to give them the lead with 30 seconds left in the game. It was almost formulaic.
By the way, did y’all figure out the Webber situation while I was gone? (I kid, I kid!)
Boney: Those dudes are nuts over at perkisabeast, but it’s old news to me really. I got a little (ha, more like a lot) testy and it showed. But seriously, they’re trying to rep KENDRICK PERKINS which should be a red flag in and of itself that these guys aren’t credible b-ball fans. Over here we can have reasonable disagreements, but repping Perkins is just ridiculous. The major claim to the argument is that he does things that don’t show up in stat sheets. That’s a good add-on for a guy with decent stats already (think Ben Wallace with us), but when you say that about a guy whose stats are a joke, you got nothing. Anything they say about Perkins, you can basically substitute his name for Mark Madsen’s, and it applies perfectly. That ain’t good. I’m sure we’ll be hearing from them again next month, and I kinda look forward to it since Boston is apparently our only real challenge in the East this year.
Rob G: According to Yahoo! rumors via the Detroit News, we won’t have to worry about Webber:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/rumors/post/Webber-likely-bound-for-Miami?urn=nba,59060
The title’s a little misleading as it should say “Likely bound for Miami if making an NBA return”, but yeah, he’s probably not going to end up on our squad, and at the end of the day it’s kind of irrelevant. This team is 20-7, it’s not like the 03-04 team that ended December at 19-13 and needed a spark come the trade deadline.
This team has it all, and if we’re talking about adding Webber (still, ha like three weeks ongoing) outside of an injury to the core, it’s picking nits.
McCosky wrote some interesting notes yesterday:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071225/OPINION03/712250360/1339/SPORTS0102
I think the most interesting note was the last bit on Flip Murray. Maybe underneath all that annoying playmaker stuff he does he’s got the Pistons’ spirit after all. In the guy’s defense (sacrilege, I know), he’s kind of had an unfair situation in terms of being good enough to be a 7th-8th man on most NBA teams and he’s the 13th on ours. We’ve talked about that karma concept Joe is always talking about and it looks like Joe and Flip are building themselves both some good karma with this situation.
Happy Holiday’s everyone. Santa definately delivered what I wanted, a 20-7 record (60 win pace). Factor in all the injuries the first 15 games or so and the record is truly nice. Can’t wait to see more of Stuckey though. I wonder if Joe D. has something up his sleeve or does he really intend to use the center we got for Nazr (who’s name escapes me)as our 4th Big man? If Stuckey, Afflalo and Maximus can continue to show growth, and God forbid Amir finally gets on the radar as well, I’m starting to believe we can take it this year. Considering where we are now and how much growth we may see out of our young guys by seasons end, we are looking damn good fellas. The fact that we can have guys go through slumps or poor offensive outings, even 2 or 3 guys at time, but still gut out a win with our defense says a lot. We’ve had a few games where Tay, Hayes, and either Dice or Sheed will have offensively bad nights and we still may win. A testament to our depth and balance. Can’t wait to play the Spurs to see how we match up this year.
Ohad - Glad you were able to find the game. Google is taking over like SkyNet.
I agree with PG4L, I definitely think the Lakers are for real. I also feel that the Suns will never win anything with 1 PF/C, 3 SFs, and 1 great PG. They won’t be able to beat the Lakers… let alone the Spurs, Pistons, or Celtics… mostly because of defense. Their offense is nice, but not good enough to counter their defensive deficiencies when games need to be grinded out. I don’t know how to “fix” the Suns, but I’d suggest getting rid of this type of lineup and get another PF/C to start alongside Stoudemire. I know Gasol isn’t much for defense, but he’s got to be better than allowing yourself to be oversized at every position. Eddy Curry Maybe?
Shawn Marion for Zach Randolph straight-up I think would help both the Knicks and the Suns. Knicks would start Eddy Curry, David Lee, Marion, Crawford, and Marbury. Suns would start Stoudemire, Randolph, Diaw/Hill, Bell, and Nash.