Built Ford Tough

He ran it again, and, whattayaknow, it didn't work again. Although this time Griffin said [expletive] it and went to the basket.

Terrible execution from the Clippers out of the timeout. Turnover and now the Lakers will ice the game at the line.

Ballsy pass by Kobe when you consider how many poor passes he has thrown in the 2nd half that have led to turnovers. Nice finish by Bynum and an even bigger block on the other end.

Boneheaded move from Griffin. He steps back to make his shot a three and ends up stepping out of bounds. Costly mistake. Why is he even trying to take a step back three anyways? Has he even made a three this season? How many has he made in his career?

Now Metta blocks CP3's shot out of bounds and stands over him. Guy is going nuts in the last 4 minutes. He has done a little bit of everything.

Bad foul by Fisher. Should have just let Jordan finish it and not fouled. There was no way he was preventing that dunk from DJ.

METTA!!!!!!!!!!!! Dude is going nuts out there. Huge three and a sick pass to Bynum.

Followed up by a mean mug that would put Kendrick Perkins to shame.

Bynum passes out of the post after the double and it leads to a Kobe three (after Artest swing it). Play has only been there basically every time he has touched the ball this game.

Now McRoberts and Evans get a double T and then McRoberts ends up getting tossed. I honestly don't even know what Reggie did, or if he even did anything, but McRoberts just lost it. Knowing Reggie, he probably started fiddling with McRoberts balls or something. Game is getting extremely chippy right now. I love it.

Reggie Evans slips the pick, catches the bounce pass, spins off McRoberts and sinks a hook shot from 5 feet away. I think he showed more skill in that one play than he did in his entire tenure with the Raptors. And Mo Williams almost ruined Goudelock on the fast break. Goudelock is extremely lucky that he was able to get his one foot under him on that play because otherwise Williams would've ended up throwing him right to the ground and it would've been a very hard landing for Goudelock. Could have been bad. Flagrant 1 on Mo.

Rough 3rd quarter for Kobe. 2 points (might be 4, not sure), 6 turnovers and 1 technical. EDIT: Add to that Pau only scoring 3 points in the quarter and you have to think the Lakers dodged a bullet by seeing the Clippers lead only increase by 1. From 2 points at the half to 3 at the end of the 3rd.

And the lakers pick up the defensive intensity with a Bynum block, a Gasol block and Kobe chasing Billups off of the three point line forcing a missed jumper. They managed to cut the lead to 4 off of their solid defense. Artest follows that up by sitting on Blake Griffin's shoulders while battling for a loose ball. Jordan comes flying in like a tough guy and once the pile seperates, Griffin starts yapping. Typical pseudo tough guy act from him. Best part of that whole thing was Kobe and Chauncey chilling in the background trying not to laugh at the whole thing.

Lakers open up the 2nd half with the same lethargic, passive defense that got them down double digits at the start of the 1st half. Clipper lead goes from 2 to 9 and the three shots the Clipps have made have been two easy finishes from a foot from the rim from Jordan and a wide open three from Butler.

Ok, its 94-65 right now. Can the Kings please just let Jimmer bomb away for the entire 4th? Please?

The game was something like 39-30 for Denver at one point. It is now 72-43 for Denver with 10 minutes left in the third.

Goudelock. 10 points for him, by the way. I knew he could shoot the ball but I had no idea he those floaters in his repertoire. Kind of shocked me when he hit the first one but I wrote it off as a fluke. When he hit the 2nd one I was even more surprised, haha. His defenes is awful, though. Lost Williams on basically every scren set on him. The Lakers really need to get Kobe the ball in the post, though. He always has either Paul, Billups, Foye or Williams on him but they've only managed to actually get him the ball in the post on 3 times. 2 times it led to an open three and the third resulted in an illegal defense. Do whatever you can to run your offense through him in the post because good things will happen. Pau has played great to start as well. Really nice job of exploiting Evans on defense, who has no chance in hell of guarding him.

I think Bargnani would be a great fit next to him. He would create more space for Wall inside, is absolutely deadly in pick and pop situations (and more than capable in PnR's as well) can create his own offense and is a nice passer for his size. Having a presence like Bargs to open up driving lanes, cutting lanes and drawing out opposing big men would do wonders for his poor finishing ability as he wouldn't have to worry about both big men contesting his shot. If McGee ever gets his shit in order, he would do a nice job of masking Bargnani's shortcomings on help defense and on the glass as well. Then use your draft pick this year on a guy like Jeremy Lamb or Bradley Beal to be that all around shooting guard and you are suddenly looking at a pretty solid complimentary starting 5 of: McGee Bargnani Vesely (playing the Kirilenko role, assuming he develops into that as expected) Lamb/Beal Wall Bring guys like Young off the bench for instant offense, ship Blatche to Taiwan, Singleton as a defensive stopper corner and pocket shooter and Booker as the hustle big and you have a decent team. Not great, but definitely a step in the right direction. Of course, this is assuming that you could get Bargnani for free and not have to give anything up for him, which isn't possible, but lets ignore that for this hypothetical situation.

Lakers pick up the defensive intensity and get a few stops, which fueled their offense by opening up some transition looks and creating mismatches. Tie the game up at 23 after a Goudelock 3 off of a nice no-look, cross court pass from McRoberts.

Clippers triple team Bynum and he still goes up with the shot instead of passing it out to either one of the open perimeter players. Brutal. He did end up scoring on the offensive rebound so at least he did get two points, but still a terrible play.

Butler starts off the game 4/4 for 11 points and the Clippers jump out to an early 13-4 lead.

And Noah turns it over trying to find Boozer on the baseline. Granger at the line and he will likely ice it with 2 freebies.

You know Boozer's defense sucks when they bring in Scalabrine for an offense/defense substitution.

Noah with two straight hustle plays to keep the ball alive on the offensive glass and both end up in the basket. One was from a Boozer tip and the other was a Noah dunk after a nice feed from Brewer.

And Daye travels on the potential game tying three. It had no shot at going in anyways. He probably should've made one more pass as Jerebko looked to be open but Daye was shooting the ball well all night long and had 28 points, so you just knew he was going to be looking to jack it up.