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The Lakers debuted their new team Sunday night in Fresno against the Golden State Warriors in their first preseason opener. Unfortunately the Warriors swooped a 110-83 win over the Lakers.
Bryant and Steve Nash hopped on the court and gave the crowd a thrill as Dwight Howard, who is still recovering from back surgery, watched and cheered from the bench. The starters played the first half and gained a respectable lead followed by a star studded performance from the gang. All the talk about Nash and Kobe colliding on the court was definitely squished this game. Nash had some wonderful looks and no-look passes I might add, and his vision was great as he scored five points and three assists in his debut. Kobe took it a bit slow in the first quarter and then swooshed in a beautiful three, assisted by Nash and put up ten points for the night. Jordan Hill and Metta World Peace also added ten points. The five starters had great chemistry together and gave Lakers fans confidence in the big time trade from the off season.
Offensively, the Lakers look ready. Now let’s move on to defense. Not so great. Nash, as I predicted and everyone else has, looked very slow and was getting beat on drives constantly. The help defense was nowhere to be found and looked a little scrambled. I say the defense needs to be picked up tremendously if they don’t want to get blown out by faster and younger teams like the Thunder.
Jordan Hill was a huge factor in the game and garnered a lot of points and plenty of momentum for the Lakers, which is what they exactly need. With his physical prowess and MWP’s defense they could be the glue that holds the Lakers together when the chips are down. Unfortunately, Hill was diagnosed with a herniated disc in his back today and it is up in the air when he will be back. This hurts the Lakers a lot as they do not have any depth on the bench.
Once the starters stepped off the court, it was very hard to watch the rest of the game. The reserves had a difficult time scoring....for half the third and fourth quarter. We also
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had a player air ball a free throw. I will not name names but, if we have bench players who can’t even score for half a quarter and Mike Brown wanting to give Kobe less playing time, how in the hell are they suppose to win games? This reserve team is useless and might as well not even be there in my opinion. The warriors played their second reserves for most of the game and our guys only scored twenty points on them. With the way Sunday went, the rest of the preseason is not looking too bright for the Lakers. Once again we put all our eggs in one basket and have no help on the bench. Praying to the basketball Gods for a healthy Kobe, Nash, MWP, and Howard is a MUST because we already lost Hill as of now and one more starter out will really hurt this team badly.
Once Howard comes back, the starters can dominate and make beautiful basketball music but, having no help on the bench is just terrible. This has to be the worst bench team the Lakers have had in awhile. I’m not too confident in them, they must prove their worth in the next few exhibition games but, until then I give a thumbs down to the bench.
Preseason games don’t really matter for teams like the Lakers, we have star players that don’t need to really play and need to avoid getting hurt. So I am not too worried about our starters, from what I saw they can hold their own and throw in Howard we’ve got a great team that can make a playoff run.
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