It’s Game Day LA!

Sorry folks! I know it’s been a while since my last post here at It’s Game Day LA, but a combination of things have led to my absence.  Trying to run a daily blog while starting a full time job has definitely been more than I could handle. Nevertheless, I’ve allowed the website to go by the wayside and now it’s time to start righting the ship and start stimulating our collective Laker minds.  

It’s almost halfway through the season and our Lakers have not disappointed (well, for the most part).  With the best record in the Western Conference and the 3rd best record in the NBA, the Lakers are looking like the team we expected them to be in the pre-season.  With the deepest team in the league, the Lakers have a great chance to take the championship home this season.  All this should make us fans very, very happy.  With all this positive talk, however, the Lakers still have plenty of work to do and need to address some glaring issues that may potentially be road blocks to their goal of acquiring the coveted Larry O’Brien trophy.  

Will Andrew Bynum reacquire the all-star type prowess that he started to attain last year before he was injured?  

With the all-star break already upon us, Bynum has yet to show the consistent effort and intensity he had last year.  What’s even more disheartening is his precipitous drop within the last week (while he had a spirited offensive game against San Antonio, his lack of rebounding in both back-to-back losses is quite disconcerting).  Even more worrisome is the lack of explanation or understanding by Coach Jackson, who simply addressed the issue by stating, “It just doesn’t make sense.”

Will the Lakers ever play consistent defensive?

I know the season is long and everyone from Coach Jackson to Kobe has stated as much, but both of them have also stated that defense needs to be consistent and is the key to winning a championship.  So why haven’t the Lakers played better, consistent defense?  This is a glaring issue and needs to be addressed by the team right away.  It’s simply not enough to simply say the team will try and play better defense, the effort must be made to play better defense and it must occur throughout the game, not just in the last 6 minutes of the 4th quarter.  The Lakers have fallen into the trap of coasting through games and then trying to pull out wins in the end.  This is a bad habit that must end or their chances of winning a championship will drop exponentially.

Will injuries finally take their toll on the team?

As I mentioned earlier, the Lakers had the deepest bench in the league.  Recently, however, the Lakers’ bench has been decimated by injury.  The loss of Farmar to knee surgery, and the consequential loss of Walton to sesmoiditis, and Vujacic to back spasms (Walton and Vujacic have since returned) have led Kobe and Fisher to play many more minutes than Coach Jackson has liked them to play, which has resulted in an increased risk of tiring them out for their post season run.  Hopefully, the injury bug has passed and no other Lakers will miss significant time.

Will the Lakers attain home court advantage throughout the playoffs?

Although the Lakers are confident they can win on the road against any Western Conference team, the same cannot be said of the Lakers and their Eastern counterparts.  In fact, the Lakers have proven in the last few years and already this season that they have difficulty defeating Eastern Conference teams on the road, with 5 of their 8 losses coming against Eastern Conference teams.  This is especially troubling considering that a majority of the road games they played haven’t been against elite Eastern Conference teams (the sole elite team being the Magic, which swept them in the season series).  The Lakers still have road games against, Boston and Cleveland on Feb. 5th and 8th respectively (giving us a better guage of the type of road team they are) and against the Pistons on Mar. 6th.  So it is essential the Lakers earn home court advantage.  Not to mention, both these teams have outstanding records at home (Cleveland is the lone undefeated team in the league at home) and will make them even tougher to beat in the finals.

Those are just a couple of the potential issues the Lakers need to address before the playoffs.  Luckily, we are only halfway through the season and the Lakers have another half of basketball to shore up any inadequecies.  But let me know what you think.  Discuss your ideas in the comments below.  Take it easy and “Go Lakers!”