Desperation Three

Lakers-Rockets game begins in an hour or so, but before that, some quick notes on Sunday night's showing against the Mavericks... wow. Just... wow. The most lopsided win of the young season, and it couldn't have been against a better opponent (except for maybe the Cleveland or Boston). The Lakers got trampled on by the Mavs 94-80 on October 30 in what was undoubtedly one of their worst games of the season (the 14-point differential was deceiving), and Dallas is currently second in the Western Conference. What makes the win more significant was that the Lakers finally got some production out of their bench--Farmar went 6-of-8 from range and tied his career high with 24 points, Brown and Vujacic scored 11 each--and Kobe only had to score 15 points on 6-of-12 shooting. Gasol injuring his hamstring sucks, sure, but perhaps this is the impetus Andrew Bynum needs to get going again.

So a 35-point win over the Lakers' most able conference rival right now. Did the game being the second of a back-to-back for Dallas play a factor in the outcome? Sure. Dallas was visibly fatigued. Jason Kidd went 0-for-6 and was an utter non-factor, Josh Howard went 2-for-11. But was that the only reason for the differential? Of course not. The Lakers finally played the first 12 minutes with the energy and determination (as much as I hate that clichéd expression) we fans have been expecting on the defensive end, and they pretty much carried that mentality for the rest of the game.
 
 
What a lot of us L.A. fans don't realize is that all of the so-called elite teams are struggling right now. Atlanta's lost four in a row; Cleveland got upset by the Bobcats; Boston's got their own problems with Kevin Garnett missing a significant chunk of playing time due to injury. The problems with our defense are real, yes, but perhaps we're getting a little too anxious. My feeling is that there's less of a disparity between the title contenders and the rest this season than last.
 
 
Meanwhile, the 10-23 Pacers (coming into the game) have just defeated the Magic 97-90. I saw the lead the Pacers had built at the beginning of the fourth quarter and was hoping they'd be able to pull off the upset, but then I saw just how bad the officiating of the game was on NBATV and felt slightly less eager about the game. Contrary to what we'd like to think, few regular-season games are won or lost by bad officiating, but the Magic were on the wrong end of so many non-calls, it wasn't even funny.

Perhaps there is merit to the saying that we should be thankful for what we have, and that we Lakers fans are entirely too spoiled, and that complaining about last night's thrilling (and thoroughly exasperating) victory over Golden State would just be a whole lot of fuss over nothing. After all, as Forum Blue And Gold pointed out, "titles are not lost in December games."

But even given that, this has to be said: the Lakers should not need a 44-point, 11-assist performance and 43 minutes out of Kobe Bryant (not to mention 27 points, 12 boards in 45 minutes out of his sidekick Pau Gasol) to defeat the Golden State Warriors. They just shouldn't.

It certainly seemed like Kobe was doing his part to adhere to the game plan early on, racking up seven assists in the first 12 minutes of play and pounding the ball inside to Gasol and Bynum. What made the Lakers stray from that plan and play a run-and-gun game of one-upmanship with the Warriors from the second quarter onwards, I'll never know.

Regardless. The point is that the Lakers walked away from the Staples Center with the same number of losses they had when they showed up that night, avoiding what would be their third loss in four games. This one was all Kobe-Gasol. They needed every bit of them.

Perhaps the only consolation to last night's loss was the fact that the Celtics, owners of the second-best record in the league at 23-6 coming into the game, fell to the Warriors 99-103 behind Monta Ellis' 37 points. In fact, that wasn't the only notable upset that took place on Monday. The Kings defeated the Nuggets 106-101 and the crippled Trail Blazers succumbed to the 76ers 104-93.

A 15-point drubbing by the Suns makes it the third straight subpar outing for the Lakers (that is, if one were to include the double-overtime 112-103 win over the Sacramento Queens, and believe me, most Lakers fans do). What makes it even stranger is that Andrew Bynum finally snapped out of his funk with a 14-point, 9-rebound showing (albeit on 4-of-10 shooting), and yet the Suns were still able to take a commanding lead in the third quarter and not look back.

Is it the lackluster defense of Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol in the paint? Is it Defensive Player of the Year candidate Ron Artest's absence? Is it the lack of energy and hustle by the bench mob (Jordan Farmar, Shannon Brown, Sasha Vujacic et al)? Either way, now would be as good a time as ever to get it together. In the race for the best regular-season record, Boston and Cleveland are right on their heels.

The world looks different when you're a kid. That's what was nagging at me as I saw Christmas trees of all shapes and sizes this week. Each time I came across one of these fir trees, I would compare it with the mental image I had of the tree my parents would lug in the back of our old 4Runner back in California, and I would think to myself, Nope, not nearly as big as the ones we had. Or as full, for that matter. each time. Even the tree that I one day found plopped in the middle of the lobby of the dormitory, lights and all, paled in comparison with the trees from my childhood, now firmly entrenched in my memory as the benchmarks to which all trees will forever be compared.

And yet, to really satisfy all of these conditions, both the living room of our residence in Torrance, Calif., and our annual Christmas tree would have to be upwards of 14 feet high.

Not likely.

No, that's just how a Christmas tree looks when you're eight years old and you gaze upwards at the needles with all of their ornaments and lights. You're more concerned about the decorations that go on the bottom third of the tree, than the angel your mother places on the very top.