Lakers Use Superior Size to Sting Hornets
No matter what you heard from your first girlfriend. Size does matter.
Finally the Lake Show took it to the competition from the inside out. Granted, Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol seeing 6’9” Emeka Okafor at the 5 is like Jimmie Johnson seeing a green light.
All night long the Lakers’ length terrorized the undersized Hornets.
For the first time in a long time we saw the MVP Pau instead of the MIA Pau. The Spaniard dropped an efficient 21 on 6 of 8 shooting with 13 boards and 7 dimes as well. Enough with all this talk of Gasol not getting enough touches. When he’s on his game he only needs 10 shots to get his.
Bynum did his thing too. Drew poured in 17 in 31 minutes including some big blocks and being an all around hog in the paint. Despite his inspired play it was Lamar Odom that logged minutes late in this close contest.
LO had another double-double off the bench going for 17 and 13. I guess that sore shoulder isn’t as troublesome as we might have thought.
In spite of all that size the Lakers threw at Monty Williams and his Hornets, it would be up to Kobe Bryant to close this one out.
You can set your alarm to Mamba making history. Tonight, KB24 passed the Big O for 9th on the all-time scoring list just days after cracking the top 10. This was an impressive night for Bryant.
Kobe killed it down the stretch. As the Lakers hit an offensive lull late, Bryant picked up the slack in effective fashion. There will be none of that Phil Jackson rhetoric tonight. The only thing Kobe screwed up were New Orleans’ chances of winning.
Bryant opened the game with a three and that would be his only make from downtown all night. With his long range game off, Kobe took it to the hole refusing to settle for long jumpers. Former Laker Trevor Ariza spent most of his homecoming watching Bryant abuse him off the dribble and finish with those patented fakes, up and under moves and brilliant footwork.
After it was all said and done the Lakers won a hard fought 101-97 battle. Not always pretty but certainly an inspired effort. Finally we’re seeing a little continuity as this marks two straight games filled with focus and defensive commitment. Up next are the high powered New York Knicks who will test the team D for sure. If the Lake Show sticks to this script by again abusing their opponents inside there is no reason for any team to have much of a chance at victory.
One step at a time, though. Things are looking up but we’re still waiting for the real tests to start. Slowly but surely the schedule is ramping up. Hopefully the Lakers are stepping up to the competition instead of stooping down from here out.