The Lakers took the court tonight to face off against Chris Paul and the New Orleans Hornets.  The Hornets had won 3 of the last 5 at Staples (two of which I went to and left severely disappointed!), so this was no opponent for the Lakers to take lightly.  Once again, the team was without two starting big men- would another huge offensive night from Kobe be needed to propel the Lakers to victory?  Read on to find out…

First Quarter: LAL 27  NOR 17

The Lakers started the first quarter with great defensive energy and Kobe attacking on both ends of the floor.  The Hornets won the tip and right off the bat Kobe got a great one on one steal off Devin Brown and went in for the dunk.  It’s obvious that Kobe is trying to take over the games early without his two biggest offensive weapons on the court, and who can blame him?  I must say that even without Pau and Andrew, Mbenga has proven to be a competent backup center.   I’m not a huge fan of his… “shot selection,” but he’s definitely providing solid defense and above average rebounding.  The Hornets were never really able to get anything going offensively and the Lakers closed the quarter strong, finishing with a ten point lead.

1st Quarter Highlights/Notes:

• Kobe, Kobe, Kobe: I will say I’ve seen Kobe go through spurts of playing down in the post, but this is something I believe we will see all season. Kobe has been an assassin on the midpost, hitting every conceivable shot from all sides of the paint.
• Mbenga Offense: The shots he’s forcing up make me wonder if anyone has ever told him, “Hey don’t shoot that.”

Second Quarter: LAL 28  NOR 25

The bench+Lamar/Ron was inserted to start the second.   I was anxious to see how they would come out after their first real effort of the season. Suffice to say, they started quite strong and continued a 13-2 run midway through the quarter.  The defense was aggressive with Ron Ron leading the way and the offense was run with good shots taken. This is a great sign and I hope that the second unit will be able to build upon these games. Eventually, the Lakers defense let up and the Hornets were able to hang 25 on them this quarter.   If the energy and hustle from the first was there (along with some easy misses contributed by the Hornets), it could have been a 20+ point lead.

2nd Quarter Highlights/Notes:

• Kobe: He finished the have with 26 points on 10-17 shooting (I believe).  This is ridiculous!  He’s barely working on offense- his post position is incredible.  Once he’s got the ball in that mid-post there is nothing the defender can do right now.  He should average 40 a game if this keeps up.
• Quarter Ending Three:   The Lakers got the rebound on a miss with 8 seconds left and pushed the ball up-court.  Kobe hit Ron and with 2 seconds left, Ron swung the ball to Fisher in the corner.  Fish hit the three and the Lakers went into the locker room up 13.  Great play, great ball movement.

Third Quarter: LAL 27  NOR 16

The quarter started out sloppy with a careless pass to Kobe, which led to an easy bucket on the other end for the Hornets.  From here on out though, it was all Lakers for the rest of the evening.  The Lakers broke open a huge lead on a 17-3 run and the game was never really in question for the rest of the night. The pace of the game really changed once Derek picked up his fourth foul, and Phil went to Shannon first off the bench. Shannon Brown owned the third with 13 points, 9 coming from behind the arc.  Initially, the Hornets were playing Kobe one on one, leading to the monster first half from Bryant.  In the second half, the Hornets doubled on almost every possession, opening the court for the rest of the Lakers to knock down open jumpers consistently.  A lot of Shannon’s points came off the extra pass from Kobe’s post play, in fact, most of the Lakers third quarter offense came off the extra pass from Kobe in the post.   I wonder if we will see as much of Kobe in the post when the bigs get back.   Considering how effective it’s been, I think it would be a CRIME to go away from it now.

The starters were able to build a nice 22 point lead, and with 2 minutes and change in the third, Phil went to the bench.  Since Andrew has been out, Phil has consistently gone  with Ron Ron leading the second unit- is this something we’ll continue to see once we’re healthy? I think Ron has done a great job with the bench, really locking down on D and being a distributor on offense (7 dimes tonight).   One surprise from the bench tonight was the shooting of Luke, who finished with 11 points on 4-7 shooting from the field.

3rd Quarter Highlights/Notes:

• Fisher’s Jumper: He’s not taking a lot of shots, but its good to see him hitting the ones he takes (3-5 from the field tonight)
• DJ Mbenga Block: He had a ridiculous highlight block on David West. I’m uploading it to YouTube in case you missed it.

Fourth Quarter: LAL 22 NOR 30

Kobe got some run to start the fourth, but because of the constant doubles never really got any good looks at the hoop.   Phil got him out after a few minutes and ran the rest of the quarter with the reserves+Mbenga.  Overall, this was a great effort from the bench.  While in the game, they extended or held onto the lead, played strong defense and ran the offense quite well.  Most of the fourth was complete garbage time with the teams exchanging hoops until the final buzzer sounded.

Closing Thoughts

Another great win for the Lakers, which helped them keep pace with the fast start of the Phoenix Suns.  Who saw that coming?  Anyways, a little push from a division rival might help keep the Lakers sharp throughout this long 82 game regular season.  With three days off, expect to see one of the Lakers big’s back in the lineup versus the Suns Thursday, their first big game since the Mavs embarrassed them last week.

Final Score: LAL 104 NOR 88
Official Box Score

Game Hightlights

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