Vee’s Spot: Left in Disappointment in LA

The Los Angeles Lakers started the game fairly well against Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Despite the rain outside AND inside of Staples Center, the half started out pretty well. First quarter went better than the second and the Lakers ended the half at 40-49.

Like the recent games, it was made to believe that the 3rd quarter would tell all, however, for this Sunday afternoon game, this wasn’t the case. The 3rd quarter went rather smoothly. Kobe Bryant and his teammates showed up and ended the quarter scoring 31 points over the Cavs 20.

Surprisingly enough, Bryant and Derek Fisher had no 3-point shots, leaving 3-point attempts only to Sasha Vujacic (1-1) and Jordan Farmar (2-2), neither of who were in the game for the final 3-point shot for the tie.

The Lakers were sent to the charity strike 37 times, only to make 24 of those shots. Bryant made only 13-18 of his shots. The Cavs were sent to the line 23 times and made 16 of those shots.

It can be said that the lack of FTs made may have caused issues for the Lakers in the 4th quarter, but there were other problems as well. In the last seconds of the game, after Ronny Turiaf made a layup to bring the Lakers only down by 1, the ball was stolen from the Cavs and Bryant went for a layup knowing there were too many bodies on him. Instead of passing to a team mate, he went for the shot and expected a foul called. The refs weren’t about to throw a bone at Bryant and the ball went the other way. This was crucial for the Lakers and Lebron ended up shooting and getting his foul on the other end of the floor. This left the Lakers down by three. There were issues with the time clock and the officials estimated that about 3 seconds should be taken off, giving the Lakers 10 seconds to score a 3 point shot to tie the game and hopefully win in overtime.

Luke Walton, Lamar Odom, Fisher, Bryant, and Turiaf were on the floor for the last shot. This could have been a huge mistake made by coach Phil Jackson. None of these five players had made a single 3 point shot in the game, yet Farmar and Vujacic were on the bench. Time definitely wasn’t on the Lakers’ side when Walton made an extra pass to Bryant with only a second remaining on the clock. Even if Bryant’s attempt for a 3 went in, it wouldn’t have counted as the Cavs won, again, 98-95.

There were too many mistakes in this game, and almost everyone was to blame, yes, even Bryant and Jackson. Bryant missed too many FTs and Jackson shouldn’t have had that group of 5 on the court for the last shot. We can say what we should or could have done, but at the end of the day, its just another loss to add to our 3-game losing streak. With Andrew Bynum out for approximately another 6 weeks, the Lakers need to get something done to bring back the passion for the game missing from most of their players. They need to learn how to communicate better on the court and also how to trust each other as team mates. What we have this season is a championship team, despite all the injuries. We need to play like a championship team in order to even make it to the playoffs.

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