As Matthew Sekeres captured perfectly in his game story from LA, sometimes you do exactly what you want to do and still get beat. According Matthew, Mitchell’s game plan called for keeping Bryant off the line, and they did that, as well as clogging up the paint for to help with rebounding and limiting the Lakers bigs, and they did that. Obviously there were going to be some open threes and the Lakers converted.
Anyway, here’s what I saw from the couch.
1. When does a coach decide it’s just not a guy’s night? Obviously the leash is a lot longer – nearly infinite – for Chris Bosh and the like than it is for Humphries. But in the early going if I had to guess I’d say it’s not going to be Jose’s night. He’s missed three makeable jumpers and looked a little awkward on each. He just lost his dribble and allowed the Lakers to force a jump ball. I mean it’s way early and Calderon’s got a deservedly long leash, but it will be interesting to see if those early stumbles will pass or if it’s just going to be one of those games. Oops, he just squeezed the ball out of his hands and out of bounds, but he got bailed out by the foul call of the Rad-man.
2. Those Ford ads by Mitchell are inspiring. I’m going to buy one.
3. That’s three turnovers by Bryant, forced by Parker. The last one was a foul, I think. AP looked like he raked Kobe’s arm when Kobe was trying to recover the ball. Kobe’s really mad now. He might try and kill AP, or the refs. The Raps have definitely come to play tonight, to their credit
4. That was an amazing lay-up by Humphries off the lead by pass late in the first quarter from Ford. There aren’t 10 big men in the league fast enough to get ahead of Ford when he’s running the middle of the floor, and he did an tremendous job of handling the pass and gathering himself to make the basket at full speed. Not easy. In fact that last three minutes of the quarter is Hump at his best, lots of tips, a few rebounds, and some action in transition. If he played with that energy and purpose every night he’d play every night.
5. Primoz and T.J. have coordinated their headbands again, both going with the black. The confusion factor this creates is immeasurable. Oh! Humphries, playing point forward, finds Brezec for the dunk and the foul, as Brezec gets his headband knocked off. It looks like he’s going the rest of the way sans head gear.
6. I’m thinking it’s not Jose’s night. He’s 1-of-6 with three turnovers. I’m giving some of his minutes to T.J.
7. Hey, on comes T.J.! And even better Ford is playing and moving as well as he has in weeks. No grimacing and stretching on stopped balls, indicating his side is not bothering him as much as it has been. He’s still playing a little hyper, but he’s much closer to the pace he plays at when he’s at his best and he’s creating chances for others – he got lay-up chance for Joey Graham, of all people – and converting the looks he gets himself. This is pretty key because if the Raps are going to do anything on this trip, Ford and the second unit are going to have to be really good.
8. this seems obvious, but for the record, Kobe Bryant is a stud. This is in reference to the put-back attempt he was fouled on with about four minutes left. He just went over and through AP.
9. Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk……sorry dozed off there; past my bed time.
10. That steal by Ford, and then trying to what? Dunk it over Bryant? Nice block by Kobe, but pretty gutsy effort by Ford --- so much for playing cautiously because of his neck and all. Ford’s lucky though. A lesser player than Bryant wouldn’t have bothered with going for the block and just drilled Ford into the wood. And of course Rasho is there for the follow.
11. Let’s face it; the Raptors weren’t ever really going to win this game. The Lakers just have too many guys ready and willing to make plays down the stretch, Kobe foremost among them. But Ford blew the coverage on the last triple by Fisher. There was no need to help on Bryant when he drove he lane. Rasho was there as was Parker. But with Ford cheating into the paint Fisher was more open than open and had time to set up for the pass out from Bryant and that was pretty much the ball game.
