ChapterTwo

In the last few games, my Lakers have been playing well. And I am proud of them.

Finally, the team seems like it’s gellin’ together. We don’t have to rely on Kobe scoring all the points anymore. We have 4 other scoring threats starting along side of him.

• Smush - he’s quick and will drive to the hole
• Odom - he’s a threat everywhere now. He can take the three, post up smaller SFs, or out dribble slower PFs
• Cookie - extremely dangerous jump shooter
• Kwame - explosive player

Other notable Lakers…

• George - playing excellent defense lately
• Luke - much confident in his offense now
• Mihm - really stepped up his game all around. Playing better D. Getting less fouls. Improved his midrange shoot. Too bad he’s injured right now.
• Bynum - shows promise.

Odom and Kwame really stepped it up lately. Odom is playing more aggressively and confidently. Kwame found a niche for himself on the team. And he’s finally CATCHING the ball now!

GO LAKERS!

Here’s a great picture of Odom imitating a bowling ball (Thank, Brian)…

I haven’t really done one of these “What’s new” post in a while, so here it is! Here’s my weekend recap.

I have to start out by pointing out how disappointing the Lakers have been this weekend. Lakers started out this week great! They won 2 games in a row. Just when you thought they are finally gellin’ together, they lose 2 straight. ARG! I was at the game today. The game was exciting and fun, but too bad they lost.

I am proud of my 7 mile run this weekend. Some of my muscles feel…inflamed? I am not quite sure what it is. It’s not really soreness. It’s a bit painful, but a little massaging took care of it. It’s not an inflammation of a muscle. It’s coming from the tendon connecting my quads to the side of my knees. (Anybody know what that tendon is called?)

I should start swimming. I haven’t swam since the triathlon in September. I probably should start biking more as well.

I didn’t study as much as I wanted to this weekend. I just finished what I NEEDED to get done. I have another exam in my accounting class on Wednesday. I got all the necessary reading done. I just need to brush up on all the chapter a bit. The exam shouldn’t be too bad. It’s open book.

I got a hair cut. I probably cut off 1-1.5 inch off the top. It’s much shorter and cleaner now. I was getting tired of styling the longer hair.

What else… Let’s see… For those of you that don’t know, I am pursuing a software engineer position at ABC.com now. I am quite excited about that. One, I think it would be interesting to work on the website for popular TV shows. It would be a lot more exciting than working with websites for kiddy theme parks (what I currently do). Two, I think there are a lot of growth potential there. ABC.com is still a very small team (less than 10 people total I think). And our CEO, Bob Iger, seems to have a grand vision for ABC.com. Riding off the success of hit ABC shows, ABC.com would be a great place to be for the next couple years I think. Third, it would be great to work with my buddy, Ariff, again. I think he is a natural leader and will do very well in the future. I’ll just hang off his coattails for a while. I hope everything works out…

Oh, and last but not least, according to StatCounter.com, it looks like I have a new returning visitor from Italy. I’d like to give a quick shout out to my new Italian fan! That’s all for tonight…CIAU!

“Him [Kobe] coming into your building is like inviting an assassin into a room full of living presidents.  You just know that, at any time, he could go for a zillion on you.” - Indian Pacers head coach, Rick Carlisle, commenting on playing against Kobe

Our teenage rookie center, Andrew Bynum, had his biggest game tonight. In 12 minutes of play, he scored 16 points, had a 100% field goal percentage, grabbed 4 rebounds, stole he ball once, and gave out 1 assist. Good job, Bynum!

“He’s the human joystick of basketball.” - rookie teammate Andrew Bynum commenting about Kobe’s 81 points performance.

“I’m trying to learn as much as I can from him, trying to soak everything up like a sponge. He’s teaching me everything from black history to post moves, footwork, how to play defense.” - Bynum commenting on being coached by Abdul-Jabbar.

Regarding the exchange with O’Neal, a Lakers star from 1996-2004, Bynum said: “It meant a lot. It’s something that will stick with me. It was pretty exciting, I was able to make a big move on a very, very good center in the NBA. I kind of became an overnight celebrity.”

I just read a great article on Kobe from LA Times by Bill Plaschke. Here’s the link to the article. But in case they pull it off their site in the future, here it is…

There’s Still a Lot of 8-Hate
Two days after the most incredible individual performance in the history of the NBA, and here came the flagrant fouls.

Pat Riley shrugged at reporters.

“It’s remarkable, the execution and the efficiency, but we’ve got a lot of guys in this league, if they took 70 shots, they’d score a lot of points,” he said.

Vince Carter preached to reporters.

“The only bad thing about it is young kids, whose minds are easily warped, are going to think, ‘Ohhh, I am going to go out there and do it’ instead of the team concept first,” he said.

Shaquille O’Neal refused comment to reporters. Of course.
Read the rest of this entry »

81 is the number of points Kobe Bryant scored tonight. EIGHTY-ONE POINTS?!?!?!?!! That is the second most points that ANYBODY has ever scored in NBA history. He scored more than Jordan, Kareem, or Shaq ever did! Wow, what a performance… GO LAKERS!

These pictures are from the Lakers game last night against the Miami Heat…

First, our 18 y/o center got dunked on. Note that Shaq got away with a foul there…

Then, the next play, Bynum fakes Shaq out of his shoes and dunks over him…

Followed by Bynum giving Shaq a friendly nudge. Shaq didn’t like this and elbowed him back. They both received technical fouls. Shaq should’ve been thrown out for that elbow.

These pictures are taken from Yahoo and LA Times.

Overall, it was a good game. We got good production out of everybody. We played decent defense through out the game. We finally defeated Miami since we traded Shaq. WOOO!!! GO LAKERS!

A M A Z I N G Lakers win tonight! Lakers blew away the 3rd best team in the league. We were winning by around 30 points for most of the 2nd half. At the end of 3rd quarter, Kobe Bryant had 62 points (yes, you read right. Sixty-two points) and the Dallas Maverics had 61 points. Kobe single-handedly out scored the entire Dallas team!

Kobe broke the Lakers record for the most points in a quarter. He had 30 points in the 3rd quarter. Kobe definitely could’ve broke the Lakers’ record for the most points (72 points), but we were winning by 30 points in the 4th quarter, so he shouldn’t and didn’t play.

I should be sleeping now, but I need to calm down a bit after this monumental event. Man, what a game…