Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Official Boxscore
Omri commits the vicious face foul on Kobe's arm. Luckily he was not ejected.
Casspi ( A- ) -- there were two halves to this one for Omri. In the first half he only played one end of the court, contributed some offense but was a dubious presence for us overall, and his lack of defense contributed to us losing Reke for a long stretch of the first half. That was the Omri who can't and won't be the starting SF for us next season. Then he came out of the lockerrom with a new focus, played both sides of the ball while giving a tough scrappy in your face defensive effort on Kobe, and he was the guy we need our starter there to be every night, every half. Canned an early three, but the major problem again for us is that he simply could not guard Kobe, nor could Beno of course, and with 2/3 of our little guys sievelike on defense we had no choice but to throw Reke to the wolves, or wolf as it may be again. Scored enough to keep the half from being a disaster, but got victimized in a bizarre strategic move by Westphal (one of several tonight) at the end of the half when he was left out there for the final 30 seconds of the half in a guardless lineup with he and Donte sharing the backcourt. In quick sequence that resulted in a Kobe three, a bad turnover, and then getting it poked away from behind again by Fisher at the halftime buzzer. Came out in the third with renewed energy as we went on our big run to open this one up as big as 20pts(!), getting out on the break and then getting set up for a little baseline J by Cousins. Canned a big three to make oy 16 in the third and bring out the boobirds in K.A., where they do so love Omri of course. Did have one bizarre brain fart when he cost us a chance to score late in the quarter when he just flat ran off the FT line while Reke was shooting, -- just suddenly decided to leave it and run back up court, which is ilegal -- and with the violation we did not even get the attempt. Tilted this grade over with good feisty play in the 4th, getting in Kobe's face (Kobe scored 10 in the quarter, so he didn't shut him down, but he made everthing hard) and a huge tip at the 2:34 mark to make the lead 7 and put us in great position to hold on.
Look! Its the battle of the magic power bands! So magic that JT shot 0-3 and Odom shot 0-7. Powerful stuff.
Thompson ( D ) -- Jason just has to find a way to be part of these kind of wins if he's got any plans on being the longeterm starter. Was just ineffective in the first half, not on the boards, and showing his lack of touch around the rim again. It was ineffective enough that when Westphal had the revelation that hey, the Lakers start two 7-footers, maybe now would be a good time to trot out our own Daly/Cousins twins towers, JT did not even start the second half. Got spotted in therafter, mostly to protect fouls or when we were uncomfotabel having one of our more ffective bigs chase Odom. Never did do much of anything anywhere. Suppose you could note that neither Gasol nor Odom did much either, but watching the game you would have been hardpressed to point out how that was related to Jason.
Cousins ( A ) -- this was a big game by DeMarcus right from the start. And a big thing too was it was a smart game. While some people complain about the versatility to his game, its value was on full display tonight, as he was able to execute a perfect gameplan again the Lakers frontline. Faced with big but slow Andrew Bynum he began the game just peppering him with jumpshots that he did not want to come out and guard. When Gasol got him for one play he came up wiht a nifty up and under inside. Even threw in a tough tough turnaround rainbow that could hardly be calld a good shot, but went in. And he just lit up Bynum in the early going. In fact really the only man who could slow him tonight was his coach, who iced him for long stretches of this one despite the leagu's leading fouler only getting 1 on the entire night. After returning with Bynum mostly absent was set up again and again down inside in the 2nd, in what just had to again be gameplan, and finished and got three point plays. Was going so well that he may have gotten a little wild/heat checky late in the half, and then got poked in the eye by Kobe on an inadvertent play going for a rebound (the refs mised the obvious foul on Cousins' eye). Was bloody and swelling by halftime. In any case the guy was sitting on 22pts by halftime and nearly matching Kobe. Started the third with a lot of atteniton obviously being paid, and used it to make multiple nice little passes to set people up and punsih the doubles. Then scooped up a ball Kobe dropped and beat him on the break for the layup. Scoring slwoed but was still making contributions. Lost the + to his A in the 4th, where he was having a hard time powering it up through all the traffic inside. But his attention took a most pleasing turn as he committed himself fully as a defender, and used his strength in some great power on power defense muscling it up with Bynum. Was stoning Bynum out of the paint, and then turnign around and getting his hands on a lot of balls for blocks and tips inside. In fact really if the + was lost in the 4th it might have been lost again by his own coach as much as by Cousins himself, as he got sat down by Westphal, wih his one foul with 6 minutes to go in the 4th and us with a 10pt lead, and did not get back in uuntil the 3:15 mark with the lead sliced to 4 and us in real danger again, and he missed most of the alst couple of mintues as Westphal kept going offense/defense with Daly back in there, and the Lakers kept fouling us so that we essentially never had any more offensive possessions. In any case, the talent was fully on display tonight, as are the reasons to believe that the future of this matchup may once again be ours in a few years.
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