In Theory: Bynum vs. Howard

1st Half

Ouch!

If the Lakers' 3-point shooting could be viewed as a microcosm of their overall shooting...I guess that would explain a lot of what's going on with the Lakers offense. The Lakers' 3-point shooting for the 1st half was 1-8. The Magic's 3-point shooting for the 1st half: 6-15. The Magic's percentage isn't all that great, but compared to the Lakers percentage...it's heaven on the court.

The Magic led at the half 48-31.

For all the "critics" who claim Kobe Bryant shoots too much, well, without Bryant's 15 points on 6-10 shooting, who knows how far back the Lakers would have been to the Magic in the 1st half.

2nd Half

Bryant scores 15 points in the 2nd half. That's a double/double, which equals 30 points. lol! That is what is called being consistent. Also, being consistent is that Bynum and Gasol, again, had double/doubles. Simply put: the Lakers' big 3 is producing in a big way. The problem is that, it seems, the other players are not being consistent. Fisher showed himself to be professional tonight. He took 14 shots and produced 12 points. I'll take that over a game when he only shots 5 or 6 times.

The bench? Metta World Peace is struggling! He had 0 points tonight after scoring 7 points the night before. That's like a roller coaster going up and down, up and down. But for Peace, it's no roller coaster. It's a straight line. Metta World Peace has scored a total of 36 point in the month of January. That's in 11 games. My goodness! That's an average of 3.2 points for the month. And mind you, this is supposed to be the leader of the bench. That pretty much sums up the Lakers after the big 3.

To give you an idea of where this might be leading to; take a look at the N.Y. Knicks and their big 3. Their big 3 usually has the bulk of their points, but their record is 6-9. There is a serious lack of balance in their approach to how the game is played. It appears the Lakers are starting to follow the "lack-of-balance" New York Knicks in how they play the game.

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GAME OBSERVATIONS

The Lakers' bench is made up of some delusional minded people. To be precise, I'm talking about Jason Kapono and Josh McRoberts. I'll say this plain and simple.

First; Kapono: you don't play 19:08 minutes off the bench and only take 3 shots! You weren't brought here because of your defense. You were brought here to shoot the damn ball!

Second; McRoberts: you don't play 17:58 minutes off the bench and don't take any shots! How idiotic is that?

Both of these players are ridiculous!
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And Howard won!

mike t.