Keith Grieve's NBA Basketball fan blog

I waited almost 24 hours before writing this entry. I had to wait that long for nausea to stop.

The Milwaukee Bucks are from contenders. It would be a stretch to call them pretenders. In fact, they don't 'tend' to do much of anything, especially play defense.

Which made them the perfect dance partners for the Los Angeles Lakers last night since they don't like to play defense either.

More than that though, was just how utterly painful to watch this game was. It wasn't a matter of who wanted to win. It was more a matter of who stunk up the joint least.

Missed layups, bad passes, and ill advised shots made up the myriad of images flowing through my mind. And that's without thinking about the 38 points they gave up in the fourth quarter.

The best way to describe this game is like watching my two year old daughter color a picture in her coloring book. By the time she's done sure the picture is finished, but no one except her father is going to want to show it off.

Continue reading "A Long December"

The Los Angeles Lakers play the best three periods of any team in the league.

Too bad there's four in an NBA game.

I don't know how necessary it is to really explain myself again regarding how the fourth quarter defense- or, rather, lack thereof- is tell-tale sign that any ordering of purple and gold confetti for the Staples Center in June might be premature.

Once again, the stage was set to shut me up. Playing in Washington, a team who to put it nicely has struggled to find it's identity since Carter was in office, this should have been a game where I had to struggle to find something to write about.

But nooooooo, the Lakers comply and let the Wizards hang a 32 spot on them in the final frame.

The most frustrating part? Coach Phil Jackson's remark after the game that apparently the second unit can't handle a fourth quarter on the road.

Continue reading "Lakers Are The Best Hockey Team In The NBA"

It's true that a win is a win and in the end it probably doesn't matter how a team gets one.

However, lately I've been writing about whether or not this Lakers team is for real and looking for evidence that come June, I won't be facing another heartbreaking situation like last year.

Suffering their only second loss of the season two nights ago is not a big deal in the scope of trying to make the playoffs. How they lost is another story.

In Philadelphia last night, they were comfortably ahead after three quarters. They still won by a double-digit margin, yet there's something nagging me about the box score.

It's the number '33'.

That's the number of points the Sixers scored, and therefore Los Angeles gave up, in the fourth quarter. The Lakers were fortunate they were able to score 29 themselves in the frame to stop the bleeding.

Continue reading "Lakers Rebound In Philly, But...."

The Lakers were not the only team in the NBA last night to give up 30+ points in the fourth quarter. Every team that did lost, including the Toronto Raptors who gave up 30+ in EVERY quarter.

 I have said that for the Lakers to show the world that they are serious title contenders they should win this game (among others). I still stand by that statement.

For all the strides the Lakers made during the course of last season culminating in the trade that brought Pau Gasol over from the Memphis Grizzlies, the one thing that kept them from an NBA Championship was defense.

That sore spot reared its ugly head again last night in Indiana, giving up a 15 point lead and an ungodly 32 points in the last frame.

Indiana still needed to a tip in at the buzzer to win, but if you're going to claim you're ready to hoist another banner you can't- repeat:

Continue reading "Lakers 4th Quarter Proves Jury Still Out"

Anyone happen to catch that Laker-Mavs game last night?

Anyone else notice another game the Lakers were trailing in and somehow come out with a win?

Yeah, I know they were at home and Dallas is a team that no one really knows what to expect from, but they were on a five game winning streak coming in.

Next up Toronto on Sunday. Let's see if this is a let down or Kobe and Company keep the business as usual mindset they seem to have so far. The Pistons game is the only exception I have seen. Any thoughts?

Speaking of let down, have you seen the schedule for the next week or so? After the Raptors come to town, they travel to Indiana, Philadelphia, and Washington before coming home to face the Bucks. They then take a jaunt to No-Cal for a game against the Kings before facing off against the Suns on December 10.

Continue reading "Lakers Roundup"

In light of the recent developments of the tragic figures of Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury, I have come up with a solution.

Players like these, that have no concept of the fact they are not the center of the universe, deserve to be punished by being traded to the basketball equivalent of hell.

A place where it won't matter if they practice because they're chances of winning anything will be remote.

I'm speaking of the Memphis Grizzlies.

Marbury is the most troublesome of the two to me. He came out of Georgia Tech after one year because he wanted to take care of his family.

Honorable, sure. However he was drafted by Minnesota Timberwolves and almost instantly began complaining about the cold environment up north. It didn't matter that he was paired with Kevin Garnett, he needed to play elsewhere.

Continue reading "What To Do With Iverson and Marbury"

The Los Angeles Lakers have everything they need to win a championship.

Right now.

They are leading the league in scoring per game, and while they're 'only' sixth in points allowed per game, they're also leading the league in point differential.

They are winning games they probably shouldn't. The first Dallas game comes to mind where they were not firing on all cylinders yet somehow managed to pull away.

They have 4 players averaging double figures, one of which is F Lamar Odom who isn't even a starter.

They have 3 more players averaging 9+ per game.

Andrew Bynum isn't playing 30 minutes per game, yet averaging 2.38 blocks.

Vladimir Radmanovic and Derek Fisher are both shooting better than 40% from behind the arc.

And you thought there would be issues fitting Pau Gasol with Bynum an Odom.

Continue reading "Lakers Showing They're The Real Deal"