What a way to start the season

The Lakers opened the year with a big 114-106 victory over the Phoenix Suns last night. Andrew Bynum played great in his first career start and Lamar Odom had a career day to lead the Lakers to the win. Also can't forget the great contribution by Maurice Evans off the bench. As I sat at the Staples Center and witnessed what happened in person I have to say I could not be more proud of this team than I was last night. After starting the game going pretty much basket for basket, Phoenix started catching fire and opened up at 19 point lead in the first quarter. Without Kobe playing it seemed the air was taken out of the building and there was not much hope. All I wanted from the team at that point was to not give up and just fight back to make it a respectable game. They gave me and the other Lakers fans across the country, much more than that.

This team, without their best player, defeated one of the best teams in the league after falling in a huge hole. Last year this would not have been possible as I'm pretty sure the Lakers would have been run out of the building. In addition, there were contributions from everyone that played. This is a deep squad that will cause a lot more problems for the league than many expect. Granted this was only one game, but if this keeps up my expectations will be rising this season. Now we just need the Mamba back.

The Lights Out campaign was a major success IMO. The court has more light on it while there is less on the crowd itself which is definitely a plus. Everyone must focus on the court because you can't find any celebrities in the stands because it is so dark. Also it definitely will put a stop to people calling friends telling them they are on TV and waving at the camera while the game is going on, thank goodness. Lights Out gets two big thumbs up in my book and it should be kept from here on out.

Last note is the actor that plays the Mongoose in those NBA 07 commercials was in front of Staples Center passing out flyers for NBA 07 and it was hilarious. He was doing his crouched defensive stance and trying to guard people as they walked by. Had a couple great pics from the game that Yahoo had I was gonna post but blogger won't cooperate right now, I'll try to get them up later.