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

2 games over 0.500 first time all season

in the 8th seed

Good team win. It was relatively low scoring and not always pretty, but at least we were playing to hold the lead all game and not fight to get it back. Kobe and Dwight look a ton better together right now, getting good production off the bench still, and we beat a good team in Chicago pretty easily. Also climbed 2 games over .500 for the first time this entire season. When we were 7 or 8 games under (forget which) I never thought it would happen. At that time I said if we go 10 games under we're done, but thankfully that's exactly when they said 'enough' and slowly started climbing back.

Tough 3-game road trip coming up with the Magic PISSED at Dwight so you know they'll play as if it was Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Then we have ATL on the 2nd night of the back to back and Indiana after a 1-day rest. If we can win 2 out of 3 I'll be content.

DON"T LOOK BACK!!!

Started from the bottom now we here!

^^^

Please delete that....now.

borri wrote:^^^

Please delete that....now.

its talking about his hairline

DarthRekal wrote:

borri wrote:^^^

Please delete that....now.

its talking about his hairline

Hahaha. LOL. That went WAY over my head.

Good one then. Haha. Keep it.

borri wrote:

DarthRekal wrote:

borri wrote:^^^

Please delete that....now.

its talking about his hairline

Hahaha. LOL. That went WAY over my head.

Good one then. Haha. Keep it.

Way over your head like LeBron's hairline????

^^^

LOL. I am talking complete bald over my head! I was initially pretty peeved at the pic!

Only Miami, Denver, & Memphis are better than us in the last 10 games.

8-2

lakersyunowin wrote:2 games over 0.500 first time all season

in the 8th seed

^^ This all the way!

We might end up as high as the 6 seed. It's certainly possible. I love the way Dwight & Kobe are playing together right now. Nash is shooting lights out. This could be the start of something...

We finally beat a really good team in a decisive manner.

Now we're officially in the 8th seed. Never look back.

dwighthowardsdad wrote:We might end up as high as the 6 seed. It's certainly possible. I love the way Dwight & Kobe are playing together right now. Nash is shooting lights out. This could be the start of something...

I never thought we'd take 6th seed, but holy cow are we in striking distance or what.

I just wish our defense was good enough to beat the likes of Miami and OKC on the road. Always hoping to get better...

dj vitus wrote:

dwighthowardsdad wrote:We might end up as high as the 6 seed. It's certainly possible. I love the way Dwight & Kobe are playing together right now. Nash is shooting lights out. This could be the start of something...

I never thought we'd take 6th seed, but holy cow are we in striking distance or what.

I just wish our defense was good enough to beat the likes of Miami and OKC on the road. Always hoping to get better...

I didn't even realize this... As of right now we're just 1 game back of Houston (we play them the last game of the year) and we're 2 games back of Golden State (we play them twice more this season).

If all those two teams win the same number of games as us moving forward and we win all 3 match-ups with those teams, we'll have the 6th seed. (and Utah keeps losing of course).

A seed in which we could very well end up with the Clippers in the first round. That'd be a FANTASTIC series to watch. The ratings would be through the roof.

As long as we avoid the 8 seed it'll be optimal as we'll avoid OKC until the conference finals.

did it without pau. imagine him coming off the bench to backup dwight instead of staggering clark and jamison's minutes. hope it doesnt messing the grove/confidence/chemistry/rotation too much with his eventual return.

i think he'll be valuable in the playoffs just hope we have some games to get everything jelling with him in the lineup before that.

He's not like a lot of superstars that come back and kind of mess with the flow. I think it'll take 2 games or so, but really the only people he'll effect right away are Clark and maybe Jamison. And we would like to limit their minutes anyway, Clark especially.

I think it'll be nice having a scoring option in with our 2nd unit. We usually take a hit whenever Kobe and Dwight sit from the game.

I agree. Pau is not that type of player. He can finally play center, that's where he works best, we get some backup 3 minutes from Clark and Jamison at the 4, instead of Clark getting eaten alive by stronger PFs and Jamison giving his best (but still pointless) Center impersonation. Pau can provide much needed scoring. He wanted to play the 5, he wanted the ball and to play in the post. Well, that's exactly what's going to happen in this new 9-man rotation.

karacha wrote:I agree. Pau is not that type of player. He can finally play center, that's where he works best, we get some backup 3 minutes from Clark and Jamison at the 4, instead of Clark getting eaten alive by stronger PFs and Jamison giving his best (but still pointless) Center impersonation. Pau can provide much needed scoring. He wanted to play the 5, he wanted the ball and to play in the post. Well, that's exactly what's going to happen in this new 9-man rotation.

Exactly.

It shouldn't take a whole lot more than 2-3 games to get used to that. Dwight usually is the one doing it at the start of the 2nd and 4th and that should be Gasol's job now.

He should run with Blake/Meeks/Clark/Jamison and the ball should start with him down low.

Ras Algethi wrote:As long as we avoid the 8 seed it'll be optimal as we'll avoid OKC until the conference finals.

I'd like to think so, but i think OKC will overtake SAS for the #1 seed, especially with frenchie out.