The Lakers are up, 35-24, at the end of the first quarter. Big deal, you say? Normally, you would be right. But then there’s this little tidbit, courtesy of one the Houston reporters who covers the Rockets:

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Lakers fans are chanting “M-V-P” as Kobe Bryant goes to the line. Uh, NO. That was so last season. At the moment, the MVP is LeBron James. As it should be. The LeBron James whose Cavaliers are 8-0 in the playoffs. Not the Kobe Bryant whose team is 2-2 with Houston in the second round […]

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Lakers fans seem to be nervous. Which is understandable. The team couldn’t hold leads in the Utah series and is tied 2-2 with Houston in the second round, including that hideous blowout defeat in Game 4 on Sunday. Which leads me to wonder … do their ticket-buying fans treat them as they always do — […]

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Final score: Houston 99, Lakers 87. And it wasn’t that close. Not even. Not when the Lakers trailed by as many as 29 points in the second half. At first, I was thinking of titling this “Rockets Embarrass Lakers.” But that wouldn’t be quite right. The Lakers embarrassed themselves. It was far more about them […]

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Anyone who has paid the slightest attention to the 2008-09 Lakers knows they generally are no better than they have to be. There is a lack of mental toughness in this crew, Kobe Bryant aside, and if they believe that an assignment ahead of them can be accomplished despite some coasting … well, they’re going […]

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Yes. “Destructive.” That’s the word I settled on. After considering “awful” … “horrible” … “distracting” …”uncoachable” … “deranged” … and a couple that failed the definition I set in the headline — “train wreck” and “loose cannon” and “disaster waiting to happen.” Ron Artest fascinates me, in a negative, very NBA sort of way.  He […]

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This is the game story I filed for the North County Times web site, late Thursday. Yes, it’s old, but I didn’t get around to it on Thursday, and I may want to go back and read it myself, someday. Also, I actually wrote a separate entry on the game for this blog, early Thursday […]

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Everyone knows the NBA has certain teams it prefers to advance in the playoffs. We all know that. So, do you really believe the league is going to allow the Houston Rockets to eliminate the Los Angeles Lakers? Sure, tens of millions of Chinese love Yao Ming, but last time we checked it was American […]

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The Lakers generally have some Hollywood celebrity who has a little time on his or her hands come out and perform the national anthem. Apparently, all those people were booked up, and the Lakers Band did it. Anyway, they did the version … that the USC band does before football games. Which makes sense. Because […]

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More about this later. But Phil Jackson will start Lamar Odom and bring 7-footer Andrew Bynum off the bench. Bynum got in quick foul trouble in Game 1, and Odom seemed to struggle coming into the game cold. Phil Jackson believes Bynum is important to his team’s chances, and has been sort of force-feeding him […]

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