MVN - Most Valuable Network

Lakers beat Utah; undefeated in play-offs

The Lakers won game one 109-98 over Utah, to take a 1-0 lead in their best of seven series. The difference in the game was the play of league MVP Kobe Bryant, as he went for 38 points in the victory.

Utah has a tough squad, one that made it to the Western Conference last year, but they lack that player that can create his own shot, a player like Bryant that is. The Lakers probably would have won by twenty, except for the shoddy officiating. The problem with the officiating was that they would call a ticky-tack foul, and then let something more severe go un-whistled. Consistency is the key to officiating, and yesterday they were consistently bad.

Anyway, the Lakers are 5-0 in this years play-offs, and have won 14 of their last 15 games. Derek Fisher had an amazing 6 steals (career play-off high) and always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. Fisher played it smart, not wanting any bulletin board material to ignite Deron Williams, “I think probably what confused him was how old I am,” Fisher said, laughing. “When he fakes, I don’t go for it because I can’t react that fast so I end up stealing it from him.”

Sloan tried everyone on Bryant, but they didn’t even slow him down. Bryant spent most of the day on the free throw line, hitting his first 18, before finishing at 23-25 for the game. If Kobe can score 38 points and only take 16 shots; this will be another sweep. Kobe knows the importance of the freebees and added this after the game, “You’ve got to be able to knock those free throws down. They’re open looks, It’s my responsibility to knock them down.”

Utah head coach Jerry Sloan was very careful addressing the officiating at the end of the game, “They called them, he shot them, that’s fine,” Sloan said. “I can’t do anything about that.” In some ways it’s classy not to complain, but realistically Sloan knows the ramifications of complaining about officiating and doesn’t want to start an issue over something that David Stern would do nothing about. Phil Jackson, a man known to speak his mind regardless of others opinion had this to say, It’s an incredible night to have 23 foul shots,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. “I know that Utah’s not going to be happy about it. We’ll probably see about half that in the next game, if not less. So for him to do that, it was our biggest scoring threat of the night right there.”

Another scoring threat came off the bench as Sasha Vujacic put up a career play-off high of 15 points. Sasha is also working his butt off on the defensive end, and is developing into one of the better bench players in the league. Other notables were Pau Gasol’s 18 points and 10 rebounds and Lamar Odom’s 16 points and 9 rebounds. Game two is Wednesday at Staples.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 9:25 am and is filed under Georgia, Brian Cook, Andrei Kirilinko, Amare Stoudamire, Police, Valdosta Daily Times, Wes Unseld, Rick Mahorn, Rony Turiaf, DJ Mbenga, Pacific, Greece, Jerry Buss, Chris Mihm, Charles Oakley, Colorado, Portland, Oden, NBDL, Elton Brown, ed ziti, Kings, Maurice Lucas, Lee Riley, New Orleans, Stu Lantz, Aaron Jay Sapiro, Javaris Crittenton, Dallas, Mavericks, Josh Tucker, referees, fouls, free throws, Jordan Farmar, Don Marbury, Hornets, Bob Nightengale, Church, The Winner Within, Maurice Evans, Willis Reed, Vladimir Radmanovic, line, Betting, Bets, Gambling, Coby Karl, Larry Bird, Knicks, Smush Parker, Leandro Barbosa, Sacramento, Larry Brown, Grant Hill, Pau Gasol, New York, NCAA, Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant, Eddy Curry, Isiah Thomas, Rockies, Mike Dunleavy, Indiana Pacers, Houston Rockets, Phoenix Suns, Golden State Warriors, Utah Jazz, San Antonio Spurs, Andrew Bynum, Luke Walton, Pat Riley, DJ Strawberry, Jackie Butler, Ira Newble, Reggie Theus, Rick Adelman, Trevor Ariza, Mitch Kupchak, Lakers, Sasha Vujacic, St Johns, Derek Fisher, Don Nelson, Jerry Sloan, Kwame Brown, Lamar Odom, Baron Davis, Avery Johnson, Shawn Marion, Raja Bell, Devean George, Los Angeles Lakers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.