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Los Angeles Lakers vs Memphis Grizzlies
The Pyramid starts filling up about half-way through the L. Smith & Associates versus Hoosier Daddy game. Every time the announcer said “Hoosier Daddy”, it sounded like “who’s your daddy” so that made a couple heads turn but I’m sure that was intentional.
It was great hanging out with BDG, hZm, grego and emplay, as well as a couple guys from LG. I took notes for the first quarter, here’s the highlights:
The starters for the Lakers were Andrew Bynum, Marcus Douthit, Devin Green, Von Wafer and Jordan Farmer. Bynum received a loud ovation, but Farmer received the loudest reaction from the crowd.
10:20 Von Wafer has a break-away dunk, when he went up for the dunk you could hear the whole crowd take a collective breath to see what high-flying maneuver he was going to do, expecting a windmill dunk at the very least. He just softly put it in, and the crowd groaned a little as if to say, “That’s it?” He did give a couple sweet dunks during the shoot-around though.
7:17 Andrew Bynum comes out of the game. I was really surprised to see him sitting so early, he didn’t play for the rest of the 1st quarter and only the first 5 minutes (or so) of the 2nd quarter.
4:55 Michael Fey fumbled receiving a pass, the ball was on the floor so he just reached over lazily to pick it up but Alexander Johnson (from the Grizzlies) showed more hussle and dove for it, refs called for a jump ball. Johnson won the tip.
At this point the score is 12-14 in favor of Memphis.
4:18 Nick Horvath went to the line to shoot free-throws. He almost shot the first one when the refs stopped him and told him he wasn’t the one who was fouled, it was supposed to be Fey shooting the free-throws. Fey made 1 of 2.
2:03 The score is now 18-26 in favor of Memphis, that was not a pretty 3 minutes of play.
End of the 1st quarter – Laker fans were already preparing to revolt as the last shot by Memphis should have been a block by Bynum but was called a goaltend and the score given to the Grizzlies. Score was 19-32, Lakers down.
I didn’t take notes for the rest of the game so here are my individual observations:
Andrew Bynum – is definitely bigger in both height and muscle. He seemed a little slow and not quite ready but it’s only the first day. How he shoots free-throws has a definitely affect on his game. When he missed his free-throws, he wasn’t as quick running up the court, seemed a little discouraged. When he made his free-throws, he had more bounce in his step, played with more hussle and showed more confidence. This is something he’s going to need to work on, having confidence and playing hard whether or not his shot is falling. Finished with 12 points, 5 boards and 6 fouls.
Marcus Douthit – he’s good, but never quite good enough. Had some good rebounds but got beat defensively (especially in transition). Had one sweet play near the end of the game where he stole the inbounds pass, threw a pass behind his back to Jordan Farmer who passed it to Bynum for a slam dunk. Had 14 points and 7 rebounds.
Jordan Farmer – it was a completely different team out there when he wasn’t on the floor. He has good on-court leadership and good court-vision. Needs to work on his jumper but I think this was a very solid pick-up by the Lakers. He was the high-scorer for the Lakers with 17 points and added 3 assists, 2 steals and one block.
Michael Fey – the other guy from UCLA
Nick Horvath - not much to note except he needs to learn that you only shoot free-throws when you’re the one that was fouled. He did add 7 points and 3 assists.
Danilo Pinnock – what a surprise this guy was! He didn’t seem to have as much of the first-game jitters that some of the other guys had, he just went out and played. He hit 6 of 9, making both his 3-point attempts, and had some sweet moves. He finished as the second leading scorer for the Lakers with 16 points, 5 turnovers, a steal and an assist.
Marcus Slaughter – didn’t score, but gave a very nice post-game interview (coming soon).
Von Wafer – is a warm-up fan favorite, but doesn’t know what to do when the game starts. He showed off some high-flying dunks during the shoot around, but even his one dunk during the game was mundane. He had 2 points on 1 of 6 shooting, 2 fouls, 2 turnovers and 1 assist.
End of the game
Lakers blew it. After being behind through the whole game, being down by as many as 16 points, they had come back and even taken a 2-point lead with less than a minute to go. A series of errors, turnovers, fouls and a terrible last shot, and the Lakers lost 87-89.
Post-game
Phil Jackson must have shared some of his Zen-master wisdom with Von Wafer and Devin Green, apparently they have a post-game routine that takes 30-60 minutes so they were the last ones out of the locker room. In fact, they even took down the media area and most of the other media members had left by the time they came out. We asked Wafer first about it, we almost forgot to ask Green but then went back to ask him while Wafer stood behind him laughing.
Post-game interviews coming …
Here are the pictures:
Andrew Bynum and his knee socks
Coach Brian Shaw
The crowd
Jordan Farmar received a louder ovation during the starting line-up than any other player, including Bynum
Jordan Farmar
Mitch Kupchak was in attendance
Farmar shooting free-throws
I don't know who this is but it was a good shot so I took it
Lakers bench
Getting ready to in-bound the ball
Farmar
Notice the time on the clock, this was one of the free-throws at the end of the game
Kurt Rambis answers questions
Marcus Slaughter
During the interview with Slaughter, he was asked how his legs are holding up. He lifted his shorts to show off his knees, which were both wrapped in ice.
Jason Hart from the Kings, it surprised us to see him on The Panthers, which played right after the Laker game ended
Jason Hart again
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