What a comeback by the Lakers

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bocabull

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Down 25 they rally behind Kobe to win.

This was the night they made the playoffs. The league is better for it. Nobody wants them in the first round a month from now.
 
bocabull said:
Down 25 they rally behind Kobe to win.

This was the night they made the playoffs. The league is better for it. Nobody wants them in the first round a month from now.
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So Kobe scores 42 and Howard finally plays some defense and they come back on the 2nd worst teams in the NBA. If they're so scary how'd they get down by 25?

:woot :woot :woot :woot
 
bocabull said:
This was the night they made the playoffs. The league is better for it. Nobody wants them in the first round a month from now.
Click to expand...

Before last year's playoffs:

The historical rule of thumb for first-round series is very important: If you don't have home-court advantage and you didn't at least split your season series, you can pretty much forget about advancing. In the last 53 instances of this, the home-court team is 51-2.

The two exceptions this century were in bizarre circumstances: In 2009, an injury-riddled (and basically coach-less) Denver team lost to a Utah team that finished with the same record and a superior point differential, and a San Antonio team that had a major point differential advantage (plus-5.1 to plus-2.7) but finished five games worse than Dallas knocked off the Mavs.
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link

That stat is now 55-3, as the Bulls lost to Philly after Rose went down.

Why do I mention this? Because the Lakers are 0-2 versus the Spurs (with one game remaining), 1-3 versus the Thunder, and 0-3 versus the Clippers (with one game remaining), meaning they've already lost the season series to every potential first round opponent. There's also nothing you can glean from those games to foreshadow a Laker upset. It's probably not a coincidence that the Lakers are 1-8 against teams featuring Parker, Westbrook, and CP3 at PG. As long as those teams are healthy, none of them should be that scared of the Lakers.
 
SoonerBounce13 said:
I would be happy to get to the finals again.
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That's amazing. My teams haven't been in a final/World Series since 1985 and a conference title game since the early 90's and I want a championship so badly it kills me. Your team got there only last year and you'd be fine with losing again?
 
KCRuf/Nek said:
That's amazing. My teams haven't been in a final/World Series since 1985 and a conference title game since the early 90's and I want a championship so badly it kills me. Your team got there only last year and you'd be fine with losing again?
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Yes.

Would I love a championship? Yes. But realistically, with this team and lusting harden, I think finals again would be great
 
playmakr said:
Kobe has to start being mentioned in the MVP race.
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I was thinking that last night watching kobe make not 1, not 2, but 3 from downtown last night while being double teamed in the final minute to force OT.

Kobe has forced his teammates, especially Howard, to step it up and leave it all on the floor. The way he is playing right now there is nothing anybody can say except that they need to give the same type of effort he is.

Smash is absolutely right in his analysis, but does anybody really want to chance it vs the Lakers over facing the Jazz? You just get a strange feeling that the Lakers could be on to something special. The rule of thumb in the NFL forever was home field advantage and a first round bye is what it took to make the Super Bowl and 3 years in a row the "hot team" has burst that bubble. Just like the Rockets did in their second title back in the 90s.
 
playmakr said:
Kobe has to start being mentioned in the MVP race.
Click to expand...


That guy is going crazy!!!!!! I don't remember seeing him so exhausted like he was after the game last night. Diving for loose balls, dunking over 7 footers, etc. Looks like he has found the fountain of youth this season.

IF D-12 and the other guys would compete at the level Kobe is competing, the Lakers could surprise someone in the 1st round or 2, if they make the playoffs......
 
bocabull said:
Smash is absolutely right in his analysis, but does anybody really want to chance it vs the Lakers over facing the Jazz? You just get a strange feeling that the Lakers could be on to something special. The rule of thumb in the NFL forever was home field advantage and a first round bye is what it took to make the Super Bowl and 3 years in a row the "hot team" has burst that bubble. Just like the Rockets did in their second title back in the 90s.
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I would agree that the Lakers are more dangerous than the Jazz, but even since turning it around, they're not beating top teams. I give them a lot of credit for beating some solid East playoff teams, but I think there is still a big gap between the top five teams in the West and the Lakers, who may very well be the sixth best in the conference.

The difference between NFL and NBA postseasons is that single-game elimination playoffs have a lot more randomness. A number of teams could knock off the Heat in a one-game series, but no one wins a seven-game series without a superior team or at least a favorable matchup (i.e. Warriors-Mavs in 2007).

The 1995 Rockets are a good example of darkhorse, but in hindsight, they shouldn't have been as big of a surprise as they were at the time. First of all, they were coming off a championship, and defending champions often go through a post-title lull before ramping it up, which you can often see by huge dropoffs in defensive efficiency (i.e. the Lakers going from 1st in 2000 to 21st in 2001), especially when they know they have enough offense to keep them afloat. The Rockets went from 2nd in defensive efficiency in 1994 to 12th in 1995. They also had a lot of turbulence in the regular season, from key injuries (and Olajuwon getting anemia in the middle of the year) to Vernon Maxwell's incidents, and the biggest thing of all: trading Thorpe for Drexel. Even though that trade ultimately paid off, that team didn't gel before the playoffs. The big thing for that team was that when Olajuwon played his "A" game, he was the most dominant player in the league on both ends of the floor. Also, the Rockets switched to a smaller lineup in the middle of the playoffs, and they shot and made threes like crazy (as a young Penny fan, Nick Anderson's missed free throws hurt, but Jet's three to take it into OT was a bigger gut punch in the moment).

The Lakers are similar to that team in that they've had a lot of turbulence that's prevented them from developing the right chemistry, but they don't have anyone that can dominate like Olajuwon did, they can't crank it up defensively (even during their recent streak, they've been as bad as they've been all year), they don't have the offensive firepower to outgun the top teams in the West, and Gasol's return may be more disruptive than helpful as D'Antoni never figured out how to play Gasol and Howard together. They really need a healthy Dwight and a perimeter stopper or two to make some noise next year.
 
Smash Williams said:
I would agree that the Lakers are more dangerous than the Jazz, but even since turning it around, they're not beating top teams. I give them a lot of credit for beating some solid East playoff teams, but I think there is still a big gap between the top five teams in the West and the Lakers, who may very well be the sixth best in the conference.

The difference between NFL and NBA postseasons is that single-game elimination playoffs have a lot more randomness. A number of teams could knock off the Heat in a one-game series, but no one wins a seven-game series without a superior team or at least a favorable matchup (i.e. Warriors-Mavs in 2007).

The 1995 Rockets are a good example of darkhorse, but in hindsight, they shouldn't have been as big of a surprise as they were at the time. First of all, they were coming off a championship, and defending champions often go through a post-title lull before ramping it up, which you can often see by huge dropoffs in defensive efficiency (i.e. the Lakers going from 1st in 2000 to 21st in 2001), especially when they know they have enough offense to keep them afloat. The Rockets went from 2nd in defensive efficiency in 1994 to 12th in 1995. They also had a lot of turbulence in the regular season, from key injuries (and Olajuwon getting anemia in the middle of the year) to Vernon Maxwell's incidents, and the biggest thing of all: trading Thorpe for Drexel. Even though that trade ultimately paid off, that team didn't gel before the playoffs. The big thing for that team was that when Olajuwon played his "A" game, he was the most dominant player in the league on both ends of the floor. Also, the Rockets switched to a smaller lineup in the middle of the playoffs, and they shot and made threes like crazy (as a young Penny fan, Nick Anderson's missed free throws hurt, but Jet's three to take it into OT was a bigger gut punch in the moment).

The Lakers are similar to that team in that they've had a lot of turbulence that's prevented them from developing the right chemistry, but they don't have anyone that can dominate like Olajuwon did, they can't crank it up defensively (even during their recent streak, they've been as bad as they've been all year), they don't have the offensive firepower to outgun the top teams in the West, and Gasol's return may be more disruptive than helpful as D'Antoni never figured out how to play Gasol and Howard together. They really need a healthy Dwight and a perimeter stopper or two to make some noise next year.
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I was also going to say it's hard to compare other sports like the NFL to basketball. In a 7 game series, the best team almost always wins. The Lakers are likely going to be the 6th seed playing Memphis in the first round. I give them a fighters chance against them, and they match up fairly well with them, but I don't think they have any realistic chance of beating the Thunder or Spurs in 2nd round even if they did advance.

But, that takes away nothing from Kobe. The guy is playing as well as anytime in his career.
 
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