Where is the Defense??
It seems like a recurrent theme in all my favorite teams, Michigan, the Raiders and now the Lakers. Yesterday I was fortunate to have tickets to the home opener against the Suns so I took off for Staples Center excited after watching the season opener on Wednesday. But of course the same problems that we were fortunate to overcome on Wednesday, we were not so fortunate yesterday. The Lakers have no Defense to speak of. There is no interior presence and until someone steps up, I'm looking directly at you Kwame Brown, these teams are going to shit on us like Denver did with Dre Miller to Marcus Camby or like Steve Nash did throwing up oops to The Matrix all fucking night long. It is almost painful to watch. You just have to screen and roll and the screener will be left wide open in the middle of the paint for an easy lay in or a dunk.
The Lakers tried to just outscore the Phoenix Suns and that's not going to happen, especially on a night when 7 Suns scored in double figures, including all 5 starters, along with shooting over 50% from the floor and 43.5% from behind the arc. It just will not happen. Any time you score 112 points you should be able to win a game but no, the Lakers lack of defense allowed the Suns to put up 122 and send the Staples Center crowd home disappointed.
While on the topic of the Staples Center crowd, I have to say it's fucking pathetic. This is the reason I can't stand USC and the Angels and makes me ashamed to be known from the Los Angeles area. There are very few fans in LA, 99.9999999% of them are "fans." Yes that is in parenthesis, because they are just front running, bandwagon hopping shit heads. After the Lakers cut the deficit to 3 and then James Jones came down and popped a 3 to make it back up to 6 some people started to leave, once the Lakers came down and missed the subsequent 3 pointer after that over half of the crowd just got up and started to leave. That's the kind of shit I'm talking about, LA does not deserve sports like we have. A team like USC that is on the verge of possibly winning its 2nd and a half consecutive national championship cannot sell out games on a consistent basis. Before Carson Palmer led the team to an Orange Bowl 4 years ago no one gave two shits about USC around here. Now every other car has a USC sticker, license plate holder, flag and what not. People start talking shit about a program they know nothing about. Most people probably couldn't tell you a single defensive starter on this team minus Frostee Rucker since he's got a cool name. Because they're winning they get away with everything sexual assaults, battery, beating up teammates because of video games, it's ridiculous.
Back to the topic at hand, the lack of defense by the Lakers, it's extremely frustrating as this play can be seen from a mile away, the lack of rotation on the defense is just inexcusable. It's one thing to happen the first or second time, but to happen consistently through the game is unacceptable. We had been reading about how defense was being preached throughout the preseason and training camp yet we saw none of it on the floor last night. It's still early in the year but after seeing it for two straight games I hope something can be done. It doesn't help when your front line is Kwame Brown and Chris Mihm and the backups who have to give the starters a few minutes so they can rest include Stanislav "the Black Hole" Medvedenko and Brian Cook. Ronny Turiaf could have been a big help to this squad this year, hope he can have a good speedy recovery and we can contribute to next years squad.
I may sound extremely angry and bitter right now and that's because I am, since the middle of October there have been 19 days up until today and I have worked full days on 18 of them. I had one Sunday off on October 23rd and have worked every other day for at least 10-11 hours a day. This weekend, the weekend right before my 24th birthday, yes I know I'm getting old and that's another depressing topic but, I am going to get shit faced like no other this weekend and I can't wait. Plan for this weekend includes drinking, watching Penn State-Wisconsin, drinking, watching Virginia Tech-Miami, drinking, drinking and drinking. I know it may sound like an alcoholic but damn it I deserve it after these three weeks. Hopefully there'll be some funny shit to write about on Monday or I'll have no recollection of what happened but either way it should be good.
The Lakers tried to just outscore the Phoenix Suns and that's not going to happen, especially on a night when 7 Suns scored in double figures, including all 5 starters, along with shooting over 50% from the floor and 43.5% from behind the arc. It just will not happen. Any time you score 112 points you should be able to win a game but no, the Lakers lack of defense allowed the Suns to put up 122 and send the Staples Center crowd home disappointed.
While on the topic of the Staples Center crowd, I have to say it's fucking pathetic. This is the reason I can't stand USC and the Angels and makes me ashamed to be known from the Los Angeles area. There are very few fans in LA, 99.9999999% of them are "fans." Yes that is in parenthesis, because they are just front running, bandwagon hopping shit heads. After the Lakers cut the deficit to 3 and then James Jones came down and popped a 3 to make it back up to 6 some people started to leave, once the Lakers came down and missed the subsequent 3 pointer after that over half of the crowd just got up and started to leave. That's the kind of shit I'm talking about, LA does not deserve sports like we have. A team like USC that is on the verge of possibly winning its 2nd and a half consecutive national championship cannot sell out games on a consistent basis. Before Carson Palmer led the team to an Orange Bowl 4 years ago no one gave two shits about USC around here. Now every other car has a USC sticker, license plate holder, flag and what not. People start talking shit about a program they know nothing about. Most people probably couldn't tell you a single defensive starter on this team minus Frostee Rucker since he's got a cool name. Because they're winning they get away with everything sexual assaults, battery, beating up teammates because of video games, it's ridiculous.
Back to the topic at hand, the lack of defense by the Lakers, it's extremely frustrating as this play can be seen from a mile away, the lack of rotation on the defense is just inexcusable. It's one thing to happen the first or second time, but to happen consistently through the game is unacceptable. We had been reading about how defense was being preached throughout the preseason and training camp yet we saw none of it on the floor last night. It's still early in the year but after seeing it for two straight games I hope something can be done. It doesn't help when your front line is Kwame Brown and Chris Mihm and the backups who have to give the starters a few minutes so they can rest include Stanislav "the Black Hole" Medvedenko and Brian Cook. Ronny Turiaf could have been a big help to this squad this year, hope he can have a good speedy recovery and we can contribute to next years squad.
I may sound extremely angry and bitter right now and that's because I am, since the middle of October there have been 19 days up until today and I have worked full days on 18 of them. I had one Sunday off on October 23rd and have worked every other day for at least 10-11 hours a day. This weekend, the weekend right before my 24th birthday, yes I know I'm getting old and that's another depressing topic but, I am going to get shit faced like no other this weekend and I can't wait. Plan for this weekend includes drinking, watching Penn State-Wisconsin, drinking, watching Virginia Tech-Miami, drinking, drinking and drinking. I know it may sound like an alcoholic but damn it I deserve it after these three weeks. Hopefully there'll be some funny shit to write about on Monday or I'll have no recollection of what happened but either way it should be good.
posted by Kenny at
3:43 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home