Postcards From LA, Vol. 9: One Lakers Fan Tracks His Team Through the NBA Playoffs
May 15, 2008
As long as the Los Angeles Lakers survive through the 2008 NBA playoffs, Empty the Bench’s West Coast correspondent Christopher Thell will be submitting a local fan’s take on his beloved Lakers’ postseason trials, tribulations and successes. In this edition: an ugly day and game, but all’s well that ends well.
“The absurdity or monstrosity of ordinary life will be familiar phenomena to any thinking person who has survived beyond the age of 30.”
Wednesday was a long day.
I had to arrive early to work for an exceedingly pedantic and tedious five hour meeting on, to loosely paraphrase, how to stuff 5 lbs. of shit into 4 lbs. sacks.
Then, over lunch, for reasons I’ll save for a different medium, I was forced to break-up with the woman I was seeing.
After those good times, I had a three-hour dentist appointment.
Of course, arduous as my day was, you have to keep things in perspective.
If I didn’t have a job, I’d really be screwed – you have to keep the wolf from the door.
And you have to have your teeth.
Women? They come and go – particularly LA women. On to the next one.
But a Lakers’ loss at home in Game 5 to Utah?
Now that would have been hard to recover from.
It was difficult to watch – in fact, my dental appointment went smoother, but The Purple and Gold found a way to secure a 111-104 victory over the Jazz.
And that’s what serious title contenders do: win the ugly ones you absolutely have to have.
But the script wasn’t what you would have expected. If someone told me before the game that the reigning MVP would only take 10 shots, none in the 4th quarter, I would have said that’s surely a Lakers’ defeat.
How Los Angeles managed to ramble on while The Dude took ‘er easy…
Deron Williams (27 points, 10 assists) was once again spectacular for Utah, keeping his team in the game with clutch shot after clutch shot. But Kobe Bryant’s teammates had his back, so to speak. Both Lamar Odom (22 points, 11 rebounds) and Paul Gasol (21 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists and 4 blocks) had huge nights and seemed to play with an extra bounce in their step and chip on their shoulder.
The Jazz, who never led, came as close as 103-102 on a Mehmet Okur (13 points, 13 rebounds) put-back off a rare Deron Williams’ miss with 59 seconds to play. But two Pau Gasol baskets, the second coming on a dunk after he snared a clutch rebound in traffic, made it 107-102 with 20 seconds to go, and the game was over.
Despite being obviously limited by his sore back, Bryant was a warrior, and still found a way to notch 26 points, 6 rebounds, and 7 assists.
There was also a Vladimir Radmanovic sighting. The Rad Man tallied 15 points on the night, 10 in the first half, helping the Lakers establish a 7 point lead at the end of 2 quarters 61-54.
That offset an atrocious night by the Lakers other 3-point specialist, Sasha Vujacic, who shot 1-11 from the field (including 1-8 from beyond the arc), missing numerous chances to put the Jazz away in the 4th quarter. To top off his night, Sasha managed to get slapped with a technical foul for excessive trash talking to Kyle Korver (who wins that fight by the way – and, key question – do they just bite and scratch each other, or is their actual hair pulling, too?) with 2:43 left and the Lakers clinging to a 5 point advantage. After Korver made the free throw to make it 101-97 Phil Jackson looked like he wanted to kill Vujacic. There were probably a few of his teammates who felt the same way, along with all of Lakerdom.
Curiously enough, the team that has taken a double digit lead in the first half has won every game in this series – neither team able to mount a successful comeback or notch a victory on their opponent’s floor.
Will that change Friday night in Salt Lake City?
Unfortunately, as much as I would love to reverse my prediction from Volume 4, the Lakers will need all 7 games to vanquish these pesky Jazz.
But this was the dagger game, the game they had to have. And like my day, it wasn’t pretty, but all’s well that ends well.
More Postcards From LA:
Postcards From LA, Vol. 5
Postcards From LA, Vol. 6
Tags: Postcards from LA, Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers, Deron Williams, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom
1 Comment »Posted by ETB Contributor on May. 15, 2008 at 10:35 am in NBA
