Spurs 103, Lakers 91; Not a Good Start
Ack. Lakers took a step back tonight. The Spurs were awful in the first half but the Lakers led by only nine, then L.A. went scoreless for the first seven minutes of the second half and the Spurs took the lead. San Antonio played one good half and beat the Lakers with ease. Not a good sign for the start of this tough, 11-of-13 on the road streak they're on.
The day my Kobe-could-win-the-MVP thing appeared in newspapers ... he reverted back to his (bad) form of the past few years, especially in the second half, hogging the ball, taking bad shots and turning it over a lot.
Kobe was 12-for-27 shooting, including 1-for-7 to open the second half when the Lakers offense went dead. He also made a season-high nine turnovers but played heavy, heavy minutes -- like, 45 of the 48.
It's not a horrible defeat. The Spurs are the defending champs, after all, and though they've been limp much of this season they turned it up pretty seriously in the second half. Tim Duncan was particularly big, scoring 28 (11-of-21 shooting) with 17 rebounds and three blocks. And a guy named Ude Udoka had 18, which wasn't something Phil Jackson planned on.
But the Lakers had a chance to win before they unraveled. Now they go to Dallas, where the Mavericks are 18-3. Hmm. Then they come home for a game with LeBron and Cavs on Sunday.
They need to win one of those. Not both. But at least one ... or they're going to start thinking about the injury-fueled implosion they went through last year after the exact number of games (39) they had played before this game. They were 26-13 a year ago, 27-12 this year.
They went 16-27 the rest of the way last year. They're 0-1 so far this season.