Real Deal

I think LA would have a better chance against the Spurs, man. Denver is amazing at home, and will have HCA over the Lakers. They are also the fastest team in the NBA. San Antonio gets respect for their regular season play, but as great as they are in the standings, how often has that translated into series victories since their last championship in 2007? Doesn't help that they lost to a #8 when they were the top-ranked seed going in.

Somewhere, I stated that, if the Lakers make the playoffs, they will be pretty dangerous because it only means that they are meshing and on a roll, record-wise. Now, it's starting to look that way, and they are currently 8th. Kobe is playing some of the best basketball of his career, in his 17th season. Dwight is playing better than he has in any other month of the season. Nash is starting to shoot more shots, and learning how to play off of Kobe. 1) San Antonio Spurs 2) Oklahoma City Thunder 3) Memphis Grizzlies 4) Los Angeles Clippers 5) Denver Nuggets 6) Golden State Warriors 7) Houston Rockets 8) Los Angeles Lakers This is the West after the Lakers beat Chicago today. What teams should avoid the Lakers, in any round of the playoffs? FYI - Pau Gasol will be back for the playoffs.

Amir Johnson seems to be so underrated. I'm not saying the guy is a star, but he's pretty efficient and a very good rebounder. Also, he may not be an elite defender, but he protects the rim better than anyone else in Toronto, that's for sure.

Sounds like I missed a crazy game. Ugh...gonna watch it later.

Why is Rudy out?

Lakers are getting better and better...could be a scary team in the playoffs.

Guess it makes a lot of sense because, while Duke isn't incredible on the defensive end, they are very good defending threes. I don't see very many teams go off on them from the perimeter, and they close out well. Sometimes, they step up and defend the perimeter a bit too much, and open up the mid-range and the paint...probably where they lose a lot of games...but I believe they are somewhere in the top 10 in 3PT defense, probably top five.

I expected a much bigger game from both Kansas AND UNC today. Kansas just came in content with winning the Big 12 championship, and acted like they didn't give a shit if they had to share it with K-State...which I absolutely hate. We beat the hell out of Baylor the first meeting, held them to just 44 points. Now, we get crushed? Just dumb.

Kansas wins their 9th consecutive Big 12 championship with K-State losing to Oklahoma State. Now all we need to do is beat Baylor to make the championship ours alone. I think splitting championships is ignorant, by the way. We beat K-State both times this season, and will have the better overall record...but they may get a share of the title if we lose to Baylor? BS. Never understood this.

Straight from Nash's mouth: http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/lakers/post/_/id/36057/steve-nash-more-comfortable-in-new-role

Nash doesn't do shit with the ball in his hands, except for feed our inconsistent shooters, so in no way is it anyone's fault that he can't adjust to this offense that SHOULD be constructed around Kobe and Dwight (and if it wasn't clear as day after what Kobe did last game to get us a win, it sure the hell is after tonight).

Wow man...Kobe.

No idea what I was thinking...I know there won't be a discussion, so I'll go ahead and post what I did over at LN.

For our big second half, coming back after being down by 25... Kobe: 25 points (9-11 FG), 11 assists (18-point 4th quarter, 13 points in 20-0 Laker run) Nash: 0 points (0-1 FG), 0 assists Instead of typing 6-7 paragraphs about how Nash can't play any other way than what he is used to in Phoenix, or how much impact he truly has on this team when Kobe and Howard are rolling...I'll just leave this right here and let you guys discuss.

Two horrible calls down the stretch ruined this game. I rarely complain about referees, you can even do a post search...but those two were killer for the Magic. At one point, I was actually about to laugh...because my dad was so pissed at a game we really shouldn't have cared about, lol. He always gets excited when I go to my parents' place to watch games with him, usually Lakers, Jayhawks, and Thunder games...but he'll watch other big names every now and then, when I'm there.

Bump! Some taunting going on here.

Lakers were actually down just five points midway through the 4th, after being down nearly 20...but then the Thunder just started to focus solely on Bryant, and the rest of the team collapsed. Dwight didn't get one shot in the second half. That's ridiculous. He was 1-7 going into the half. Nash was also 1-7 at halftime, but came out in the third on a mission, disappeared completely in the fourth (one shot). Check this out: game was unofficially over at the four-minute mark, when Ibaka hit a corner three (and I threw the remote). From the start of the fourth, to that point... Artest 3PT shot: missed (11:07)Meeks 3PT shot: missed (10:43)Artest 3PT shot: made (9:23)Blake jumper: missed (8:40)Bryant 3PT shot: missed (8:07)Artest jumper: made (7:52)Bryant layup: made (7:17)Artest 3PT shot: made (6:44)Nash 3PT shot: made (6:14)Artest 3PT shot: missed (5:17)Bryant jumper: missed (4:43)Nash 3PT shot: missed (4:05)Artest layup: missed (3:52) Eight threes in eight minutes. Artest took six of our 13 shot attempts. Kobe and Nash took a combined five, Howard zero. There's nothing wrong with this offense? Just because we score points and are probably still in the top 10 in ORtg doesn't mean we aren't having problems on that end of the court. Ron Artest is NOT a legitimate second scoring option on this team. He takes more shots per game than Nash and Dwight, and nearly as many as Gasol when he was healthy (behind by 0.2 shots per game). How much more crystal-clear does it have to get that this coach of ours is an idiot? D'Antoni wanted to bring in Raja Bell? Of course he did! There's another five or six threes jacked up every night. We cannot defend, and that won't change because we don't have a defensive-minded coach, a horrible defender in Nash, an incredibly-bad bench in regards to total and individual defense, and Ron Artest is declining in that area as well. So, the one thing we SHOULD be able to do, that SHOULD come natural to us...scoring the ball...needs attention. Without Kobe facilitating, we have nothing but a PG, beyond what he was during his MVP seasons, trying to hit shooters in the chest with passes. We have Marcin Gortat down low, a collection of guys who think it's okay to fire airball threes and cause fast breaks, and Kobe turning into Shannon Brown each time Nash has the ball. It's the same Phoenix Suns team that Nash led to a fishing pond back in April 2012. So hard to watch these guys fall to the top eight teams in the West...does it really matter who we play, at this point? If Howard isn't going to P&R with Nash, if Nash is going to feed shooters all game long, if Artest is going to try and facilitate off the dribble OR play video game basketball until his shot is blocked, and if Kobe is going to be the only one on the floor that wants to contribute EVERY SINGLE QUARTER of the game...we are no better than your typical lottery team.

http://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/19o38z/hi_rnba_my_name_is_robert_and_im_an_athletic

Is this college basketball?

I actually believed, at one point, that the Raps would do this for me.

Toronto, don't fail me now. I'm on the bandwagon tonight. And yeah, I hadn't looked at the box score and didn't see most of the game before my first post in here, just heard he had 6-7 points and figured he was launching bricks.

Watching this game, you wouldn't think Steph dropped 54 at MSG the other night.

BARGS BOY! Go Raptors! - Lakers fan

Sorry for not fixing the Youtube bug (for mobile devices). I completely forgot about this, and I've been sick for about a week now (probably longer, feels like a month). Should be good to go now. Let me know if you're still having trouble viewing YT videos.