The Optimistic Thread! (TRD's FREEDOM THREAD!)

puffyusaf#2 wrote:Optimism is that we beat OKC by 7 and it is on the back of monster 20/20 game by Dwight.

I am not mad about the loss but D12 you let me down bro...let me down.

the didn't give up. got it to 6. didnt get a lot of calls and had some bad ones on them but they didnt give up. dwight has to be more efficient, nash started bad but finished strong. mwp shot well too.

we knew wed lose but at least they fought back

Utah's next games: @ CLE @ CHI @ NY (back2back from CHI)
Lakers next games: @ NO (back2back from OKC) vs TOR vs CHI

Playoffs by end of the week? Hopefully

Hey that was a loss pretty much all of us accounted for and despite the score we put up a really nice fight. If it wasn't for Nash and Metta missing shots and making bad decisions down the stretch, we could have won that game. Down by 6 (or 4 or something) and Nash misses a 3 that turns into points for OKC. Metta's moronic lay up attempt...

But in the end that's all okay.

Win tonight and get back on track.

GoldenKnight wrote:Utah's next games: @ CLE @ CHI @ NY (back2back from CHI)
Lakers next games: @ NO (back2back from OKC) vs TOR vs CHI

Playoffs by end of the week? Hopefully

Utah also has @OKC after a home game against DET.

I was optimistic that all the Kobe haters would come from under a rock and overrun LD if we lost. Sadly we lost and they crawled out.

What I took from the OKC loss and the Denver loss is that we can't run like them but we can control them and play our game. OKC pulled away at the very end when we were in desperation mode but outside of that we controled the second half. The beat us in the 2nd quarter. Now, are they the better team at the moment? Sure. Are they invincible? No. The Lakers have to play with the energy and fire from tip. Having Nash and Dwigth start 1-12 was huge. We almost recovered but didn't. Just like the Denver loss the measure of the team will be how we bounce back tonight.

When though we turned the ball over 17 times at one point, we were only down 6 by then.

When we executed in the half court, we were slowly chipping away at the lead. We forced the right players to make plays like Perkins and we were hitting our free throws.

Every time we got close however, we would give up a layup or open shot. The defensive intensity, communication, and rotation all need to be there consistently. That's where we're going to win games like these.

You could tell we don't like playing loud road games. The energy and confidence just gets sucked out of us.

Otherwise, we're not a bad team. Even with all the turnovers and miscommunication on D, we're pretty effective at putting up points and staying close.

It's interesting that vs OKC this year's team seems like a reverse of last year's team that was able to slow them down but not score efficiently at the end of the game. Anyway I still have hope that once Pau gets back and the team is (hopefully) mostly healthy we can make some noise in the playoffs. Despite everything that says the opposite I still feel like we can bring it together (but I might be delusional).

dj vitus wrote:You could tell we don't like playing loud road games. The energy and confidence just gets sucked out of us.

We don't have the Zen we used to.

Utah lost.. There's that at least.

what a comeback.. 33-9 in the 4th quarter

We live to die another day...

That defense... I just... where did that come from? If we could play that hard most of the time we could be in any game. I still can't see us getting out of the 1st round if we make the playoffs, but at least we still have a chance to make them winning games like this we NEED. And coming back down that much gives a team confidence that they are never out of a game.

I know everyone is jumping on the OP of the "Kiss the Season Goodbye" thread, but I was thinking the same thing as we were getting torched by the Hornets...

However, this could prove to be a sea changing Win.... Way to hang in there Lakers.

Oh, & Kobe is unfreakinbelievable.

I thought the game was over as well LakerFanIam, because being down 25 on the road, this particular team has given no evidence that it can overcome that. But, it's the Lakers, I've seen miracles, I remember the Shaq/Kobe Dallas comeback, the Bobcats comeback this season, and of course I would never turn the game off until it's officially over, because with the Lakers you just NEVER know

I'm sure we all thought it was over (the game at least), but at least we didn't come here before the game was over.

It ain't over until the fat lady sings or the whistle sounds.

Great to see effort....but really hard to ignore that its against the low flying Pelicans.

But there's no mistaking that this was a trap game...so it was going to be a hard game to win regardless...but going down 20...ah, I'll just take that last part to the WMC thread.

Great game. Utah lost, too. If Kobe & Dwight can continue to play like this, we are going to the playoffs. If a healthy Pau comes back, we might just have a chance to make some noise in the PO's.

We played defense......only for a quarter and against a team thats not only weak offensively but also has a tendency to choke away leads, but still. We played defense.

Reach for the moon and you'll fall among the stars, eh Doc?

It was my nerd optimism coming out, so I had to post that.

It's better than the sourpusses who were barely optimistic in here.

I'll throw in some more optimism then, I'm freakin happy after this win. Yeah, we should have won, yeah the Hornets suck, but seeing our guys fight and fight and fight, play defense, make the right offensive plays, high fiving, showing passion and celebrating like a team, loved it. There's been so little to just be happy about this season watching Laker games, and if this was a loss my mood the rests of the night would have been crap, but to go from down as down can be to elated, that was fun as hell.