LAKERS vs SUNS (POST-GAME REPORT)

LAKERS 115 - SUNS 110

Both teams came out with a new starting line. Lakers started 3rd string SF Luke Walton(benching Radmonivic who was a DNP tonight) while due to personal problems with Shaq and trades of Boris Diaw and starter SG Raja Bell, Phoenix(only dressing 8 players) went with small forward Matt Barnes at the SG position and started rookie Robin Lopez as their center.

The Lakers started off great, hardly missing shots and putting down the defense. Luke looked good dishing out 4 early assists in the first half(finishing with 8pts, 6asts, & 2stls). Without Shaq in the middle, our two starting 7 footers took full advantage putting up any shot they wanted. When Phoenix started using the Zone Defense early in the 2nd quarter, Sasha “The Machine” Vujacic made them pay with three 3 pointers(who finished with 15 points). Every thing was looking good for us… up until the 3rd quarter when our defense started to falter.

In the 2nd half, Phoenix used our faults to their advantage, pestering the Lakers with plenty of screen and rolls, off-ball screens, and started cutting through the lane constantly. Grant Hill(23pts, 4stls, & 7rebs) and Matt Barnes(25pts & 10rebs) hit us with almost every shot possible outside of the paint. Lakers’ poor defense led to them to take poor forced shots, instead of sticking to what was working best for them in the first half, which was feeding it to our big guys in the paint. Lakers’ problem defending the 3 gave the Suns a lead in the 3rd when Barnes and Barbosa seemed to hit one every time we started to pull away.

It was a purely offensive game with Suns shooting 50% and the Lakers shooting 48%. Able to contain Nash and held him to only 7pts on 2-12 shooting. But no Shaq; equals more touches for Amare who had 21pts and 11rebs. Kobe on another bad shooting night scoring 18pts with 14 of them coming in the 2nd half. Pau with yet another consistent play with 28pts on 11-14 shooting, 5rebs, and 4asts, who only had 4pts in their last meeting with the Suns. Bynum had an easy 17pts on 7-11 shooting, and doubled it up again with 11rebs. I thought he could have put up more points and could have been useful in that 3rd quarter run from the Suns, but for some reason Phil decided to limit his playing time.

I honestly wasn’t satisfied with this win. “Our aggression and intensity is not where it needs to be.” said Defensive coach Kurt Rambis. We’ve let too many teams score above 100 points. If we don’t fix our problem and don’t start playing the whole 48 minutes, then us Laker fans may be looking at an upset come Christmas when we play the Celtics who showed our defensive weakness in last years’ finals.