As always, feel free to refresh your browser for live updates throughout the game … On second thought, I guess they wouldn’t technically be “live” updates since you have to press refresh. But whatever.
Inactives
Lakers: Jordan Farmar, D.J. Mbenga
Warriors: Monta Ellis, Corey Maggette, Marcus Williams
Well Lakers.com BasketBlog followers, you’ve had 29-games (and a preseason) worth of Mike Trudell, but tonight you’ll be subjected to the stylings of Ty Nowell (me). I’m sure my two fans from last year are excited. The rest of you are just going to have to survive until Friday when Mike will be back in action and giving you what you’ve come to expect from these running diaries. If you see chunks of time go by without any posts it probably means the Chargers did something that helped them back into the playoffs and I got distracted. For now they’re up 17-6 and driving so we all might get lucky.
Starters:
Lakers Fish, Kobe, Luke, Pau and Bynum
Warriors Jamal Crawford, Marco Belinelli, Stephen Jackson, Brandan Wright, Andris Biedrins
First Quarter
12:00 The Ronny welcome back video got a nice ovation and Fish is rocking a head band tonight. Those two events were not related.
7:38 The Lakers carry a 13-8 lead into the first break with Kobe leading the way with five-points. Early offense continues to be a focal point of the MVP’s game. D-Fish also added four points on an easy layup and an open jumper from the free throw line after a Bynum steal. The inside game hasn’t been a huge factor yet, but there was a pretty over the head no look pass from Pau to Bynum after the Spaniard got doubled down low. The transition defense hasn’t been tested.
7:29 Like clockwork, illegal defense on the Lakers.
4:32 Sloppy play and long rebounds stoke the Warriors fire and they were able to take a 20-18 lead as the Lakers decided to take the long jumpers and make ill-advised passes. Every trip down that doesn’t involve either Gasol or Bynum is just annoying. The Warriors make it unbelievably easy to score down low.
3:02 I don’t have any insightful stats for you at this point because Celina on the stat crew put her purse down on a bunch of cables and disconnected all the stat monitors in the building. I assure you she has many fine qualities and the upside of all that is that the Chargers are up 24-6 at the half and I got to watch some of it during the timeout without feeling too guilty.
A stat the might surprise is the Warriors ranking at the top of the NBA in blocked shots with 6.6 per game. Former Laker Ronny Turiaf is fourth in the league with 2.17 bpg in just over 17-minutes per game while starting big man Andris Biedrins is swatting away 1.45 shot per game.
