Seven foot freaking seven! No wonder the Lakers lost.

What the hell?
Ryantific and I just got done watching tonight’s Lakers-Rockets game and are trying to figure out how Los Angeles lost to Houston – a team the Lakers spanked during the regular season. Here are some of the reasons we came up with:

• How many beers did we drink?
• Was it the Swine Flu?
• Was it the economy tanking?
• Was it the state of the newspaper business?
• Was Joey Crawford officiating?

I guess it was just good ol’ fashioned basketball played by the Rockets, a solid basketball team from center on down to the point guard position. They’re not a deeper team. They’re not a better team. But they are a bigger team, at least with their starting five.

There’s no doubt they present some matchup problems for the Lakers, who were all but forced to ditch their fun-n-gun brand of basketball for a slow, half-court game that obviously benefits the Rockets.
Watching just a quarter of Monday’s game it became obvious Yao Ming is too big for Pau Gasol, and if Bynum’s not playing up to speed, the Lakers are in trouble.

Lamar Odom is the X Factor, but he and Gasol played like they played in the NBA Finals last season and appear to be playing hide-and-seek again.
Kobe did his thing, but was only effective from the perimeter (not exactly a stellar 14 of 31) thanks to some hard-nosed defense from Shane Battier and Ron Artest – who also scored 21 points and had 7 ASSISTS and just might have outplayed Kobe in Game 1.
And it’s pretty clear who won the point guard battle tonight – tiny Aaron Brooks, all 6 foot, 160 pounds (that’s what they list him at anyways) of him, had 19 points against the defending Western Conference champs.

So there goes home court, and there goes an easy sweep into the next round for the Lakers. Looks like this will be a series after all. Well, hopefully it’ll be a series. But if Odom, Gasol, Bynum and Co. don’t start playing, maybe it won’t be one.

On a positive note, Phil Jackson ripped Craig Sager‘s hideous Butterfinger-colored suit tonight between quarters. B-R-U-T-A-L.

And Artest’s hair was hideous. I’m about to write another worst haircuts in the league story again.

The game actually featured defense and intense play (yes, by the end of the game it was a dunk contest of such with the west leading by 20 or so). Typically the All Star game would only get defensive if the game was close near the end. So how could this be? I think we can all thank Kevin Garnett. As much as I hate the Celtics for beating my beloved Lakers in last year’s finals, I have to credit KG and the dominating Celtics team defense for making it cool to play hard-nose defense again. And just like trickle down economics, the defensive-mindedness and intensity of the Celtics has seeped down into the rest of the NBA. Hence, an All Star game with some actual defense.

There is a battle between several of the NBAs top dogs to be named the league’s alpha dog. Players like D Wade, Amare Stoudemire, Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Paul Pierce know that an All Star MVP is a chance for them to separate themselves from the rest of the pack. With all of these top players wanting to be the leader the game was played at a high level. In the end, Kobe, claimed half of the All Star MVP honors, to establish himself as the reigning NBA alpha dog.

Lastly, the subplot of Kobe, Shaq, and Phil Jackson playing together again for the first time since their break up of 5 years ago was so overblown that it threatened to bore us all enough to turn the game off. But by the end of the third, Kobe and Shaq had become the front-runners for the MVP honor of the game. Who could turn the game off now! If one of these former teammates won it over the other, who knew what Shaq would say in his next free style rhyme fest. But fortunately (or unfortunately) they were Co-winners of the MVP award. Makes you wonder, how many championships they could have won together.

Now, if somebody could only put some life back into the rest of the All Star weekend. The dunk contest was the weakest it has ever been. The self proclaimed addition of Lebron in the Dunk Contest for 2010 could help to change that. The game of HORSE was intriguing except for the fact that the players involved don’t have enough of a fan base to make it interesting. How about a horse game featuring Kobe, Lebron and D Wade? Now, I’d watch that.

Bryant might not win the MVP this season (BronBron once appeared to be the front-runner, at least for the first half of the season), but No. 24 certainly has a valid argument for the best finisher in the game.

According to Wikipedia, and we all know everything on the Internet is accurate as can be, Lawler’s Law has held true 91.5 percent of the time in Clippers games since 1978.

Don’t know what the national figure is, but it probably holds true more than 90 percent of the time across the entire league, since we all know the Clippers can’t hold a lead to save their lives.
Good thing for Laker fan, Ralph Lawler (the Clippers play-by-play guy) wasn’t on hand for the Lakers’ 110-109 win at Boston.

Once KG fouled out, you knew the momentum was changing — especially when Kobe relocated his jumper.

BINGO!

While Kobe struggled from the floor against RK’s boy Paul Pierce, going 10 of 29, he hit the big shots when he needed to and finished 4 of 8 from beyond the arc.

Kobe hit three of those treys in the fourth, the final one coming with 1:30 left and the Lakers trailing 100-98. And he nailed it with Pierce in his grill, giving the Lakers a 101-100 lead and putting the whammy on Lawyer’s Law.

FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS, GANG. WE’RE GOING DOWN TO THE WIRE!

Oddly enough, Kobe kept forcing shots down the stretch and actually missed his final five attempts — which takes some of the wind out of “best finisher in the game” statement, but I digress.

And I think that’s a credit to Pierce’s defense. I could watch him and Kobe go at it all day. Those two guys are as good a pair of defenders at their position as you’ll see. In fact, NBC should have an inset following those two at all times come the NBA Finals.

Luckily for the Lakers, they didn’t need Kobe’s heroics in overtime as Lamar Odom iced it with a pair of clutch free throws with 16 seconds left and the Los Angeles defense kept Ray-Ray from getting off a good look in the waning seconds.

And just like that — Lakers will another big road game with Bynum, own the best record in the league, and hold the possible tiebreaker over the Cs if they finish the year with the same record.

OH ME, OH MY!

• King of New York
• New York State of Mind
• New York, New York: It’s the City of Dreams, and Defending 24 is Tougher Than it Seems
• New York, I Love (to Play Against) You (Especially When Isiah was Coaching)
• The Devil Wears Purple & Gold
• The Day the Knicks D Stood Still
• He Got Game, The Knicks Got Lame
• 61* (* point total came against a Mike D’Antoni “defense”)

Pretty unbelievable, Kobe pours in 61 points when the Lakers need it most – the same day they found out center Andrew Bynum is out eight to 12 weeks after tearing the MCL in his right knee.

Kobe’s 61 points (I still don’t know how he dropped 81 on Toronto three years ago) were the most ever by an NBA player at Madison Square Garden.

After the game, KCAL sideline leprechaun, I mean reporter, John Ireland said “there is something about this city and this building” that brings out the best in Kobe.
Hold on to your Lucky Charms, Johnny. A look at the actual stats shows Kobe brings something special every night.

Coming into the game, Kobe’s numbers against the Knicks were no better than his career averages.
In 23 games against the Knicks, he averaged 24.4 ppg (hitting 45.7% from the floor), 5.0 rpg, 4.0 apg and 0.4 bpg.
For his career, Kobe is averaging 25.1 ppg (45.4 %), 5.3 rpg, 4.7 apg, 0.6 bpg.

Yeah, he’s that good … all the time.

And that’s good news for Laker Nation, because they’re going to need that kind of production over the next eight to 12 weeks if they want to take this team to the Finals and get past the Boston Celtics or the Cleveland LeBrons in June.

Then again, had Shaq and Kobe stayed together we wouldn’t have had this or this.

The saga continues tonight in Phoenix at 7:30.

Yo RK, tell me how my ass taste!

One more question: How about those Thunder, i.e. the franchise formerly known as the SuperSonics? 1-11!?

Maybe Seattle is glad it lost its team.

As Billy Hoyle once said, “You’d rather look good and lose than look bad and win.”

Oh wait, Oklahoma City’s unis, logo and team look like crap.

The result of such a deep squad are the huge one sided wins against the Clippers and the young Blazers. Granted these two aren’t exactly powerhouses in the NBA but still the Lakers showed they were in mid season form. Kobe wasn’t playing the minutes that he had last year and he wasn’t having to use up all his energy on the offensive end. In fact, from this writers perspective it almost seemed like this team was even playing better without him.

Then Saturday night happened. The Lakers played the Denver Nuggets in easily the ugliest game Lakers fans have seen since the first couple of games in the preseason. The Bench Mob was awful. Foul trouble sat many of the Lakers key players in the first half.

The team looked ragged. Now, it could have been that they were nervous because it was there first road game of the year. Or it could have been that Denver was still seething from last years playoff sweep by the hands of the Lakers and they were fired up for revenge. Or it could have been the mile high altitude making it tough to breathe for the Lakers. Whatever it was, it wasn’t pretty. And that’s not the point here.

This is Kobe’s team and they need him. He scored 14 of his 33 points and the fourth when the Lakers needed it most. Carmelo Anthony appeared to be breaking out of his two game suspension nap and started dropping some threes. But Kobe put on his cape and brought the Lakers home for their third win in this young season.

So I may have gotten a bit cocky about the rest of this Laker squad. The Bench Mob holds a special place in many Laker fans hearts. But they can’t do this alone this year. Laker fans need their superstar Kobe, because he can change any games outcome. Even in the final quarter. Good thing too.

“(Expletive), did you see Artest is going to the Rockets? Makes them tough.”

The Sacramento Kings sent 6-7 Artest to Houston for a familiar face in Bobby Jackson, draft rights to Donte Greene and a No. 1 pick in 2009.
The trade finally gives Houston a legitimate Big Three in Artest, Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming, and, more importantly, gives the Rockets a much needed defensive presence and a killer mentality.
Skip to My Lou helped give the Rockets a new swagger last season, but the Rockets have been known as an otherwise “soft” team in recent years because of Ming’s demeanor and McGrady’s one-dimensional ways.
Now they’re considered an instant contender in the wild, wild West, with a defender who can actually slow down Kobe Bryant (like only the Celtics were able to do in the playoffs).
For those who don’t know, Artest and Kobe have plenty of history as you can see by Artest’s unconventional one-on-one interview with “one of my idols” on the Best Damn Sports Show.
Artest said it best during his interview with Bryant: “I gotta get ready for Kobe.”

• Shaq O’Neal told us how he really feels about Kobe Bryant, and even the mainstream media is picking up on it. While it should be chalked up as an over-the-top freestyle “performance” to fuel an NYC nightclub crowd, it was nice to hear an athlete speak the truth about a hot topic like the Kobe-Shaq saga. Why it took all these years, I don’t know. What I do know is that what Shaq said is true, “Last week, Kobe couldn’t do it without me.”
• The NBA Draft is on Thursday. Who do you go with? Derrick Rose or Michael Beasley. I’d take Beasley. He’s left-handed, 6-8, 240 pounds. And he grades out with 9s or 10s in athleticism, size, strength, quickness, jumpshot, rebounding and post skills. Just watch his high school highlight reel and imagine where he could be in a couple more years. How do you guard that guy?
• And with the Celtics winning the NBA title last week and the NBA Draft on the horizon, it’s hard not to remember Len Bias, who died in 1986 after suffering a cardiac arrhythmia stemming from a cocaine overdose just two days after being selected by the NBA champs. In 2003, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski had this to say about Bias: “: there have been two opposing players who have really stood out: Michael Jordan and Len Bias. Len was an amazing athlete with great competitiveness. My feeling is that he would have been one of the top players in the NBA. He created things. People associate the term ‘playmaking’ with point guards. But I consider a playmaker as someone who can do things others can’t, the way Jordan did. Bias was like that. He could invent ways to score, and there was nothing you could do about it. No matter how you defended him, he could make a play.” Imagine Bias playing on those Celtics teams in the late 80s and early 90s.