Lakeshow

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  • oneinchpunch
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    • Jun 2013
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    Lakeshow

    It must've been the banners that rattled the Clippers
    Hashtag thepowderblues
  • ArtistFormerlyKnownAsBKR
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    • Jun 2013
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    #2
    Crown them.

    Troll better.

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    • oneinchpunch
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      • Jun 2013
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      #3



      What a blast-off by the Lakers' castoffs


      Never saw this coming. Never felt this happening.

      Never thought the Clippers would begin their march to the NBA Finals by tripping over the Lakers ... bench?

      Never thought new Clippers Coach Doc Rivers would watch the first step toward his second championship ring tarnished by … Mike D'Antoni?.

      Never thought a Staples Center that contained some loud Clippers fans — including one dude who infiltrated the Lakers courtside seats—would once again roar for the Lakers as if it were June.

      Never thought they would be roaring for … Xavier Henry?

      Believe it. The building is still rocking from it. The NBA experts are still reeling from it. A season that is one day old might already have its upset of the year .

      On the first step of the Clippers' supposed championship run Tuesday, the Lakers hit them over the head with a bench, kicked them in the gut with energy, and stole this season-opening moment with the unlikeliest of 116-103 victories.

      That's right, a Lakers team playing with mostly old guys and castoffs — and without Kobe Bryant — beat the NBA's newest glamour teams with its new glamour coach by 13 points, outscoring them by 17 points in the fourth quarter.


      The Lakers aren't supposed to make the playoffs. The Clippers aren't supposed to be knocked out until at least the NBA Finals. Yet what ensued was so upside down, the Lakers' faces were filled with shocked joy and the Clippers couldn't even look up from the floor.

      "Man, that was fun," said Henry, a Memphis castoff who led the Lakers with 22 points, including a dozen in a fourth-quarter comeback engineered completely by the reserves. "We just want to prove everybody wrong."

      This might be only one game. This might be only one moment. The Lakers might never again feel and express the joy that came from Tuesday's 14 three-pointers and a sprinting attack that ran the disjointed Clippers ragged.

      But goodness, for this one night, they indeed proved everybody wrong. It was Showtime from a team expected to spend the season in down time. Besides Henry, it was fist pumps and swaggers from former Lakers castoff Jordan Farmar, who returned from a season in Turkey to score 16 points off the bench. It was skips and struts from reserve Jodie Meeks, who scored nine points in the fourth quarter. The Lakers' bench scored 76 points, third most in team history.

      And, oh yeah, it was a horrendous defensive effort from a Clippers team that is still clearly learning Rivers' patented defense. Rivers was hired to teach this contending team to win games in the fourth quarter, yet the Clippers allowed the Lakers to shoot 65% during a fourth quarter in which DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin combined for three points.

      "Everybody said we weren't going to beat them, and we were like, fine," Henry said. "We thought, if they want to beat us, they had to show up and beat us."

      This was supposed to be Rivers' debut party. It was, instead, perhaps D'Antoni's finest 21/2 hours, his team finally running and rolling the way he's always planned.

      This was supposed to be a reborn Clippers team's first national statement, a game filled with Chris Paul's magic and Griffin's acrobatics. It was, instead, a reminder that the Lakers, despite predictions of doom this season, still know how to be the Lakers.

      The Lakers not only won, but they won with starters Pau Gasol and Steve Nash sitting. Trailing by four points at the start of the fourth quarter, the Lakers stormed back with the most unlikely of heroes. Henry hit a layup. Farmar hit a three-pointer. Meeks hit a three-pointer, then a layup and was fouled for a three-point play. Henry made a three-pointer. The Lakers were suddenly up by four with 8:23 remaining, and the Clippers never really fought back.

      Even the coolest of celebrities were excited.

      "I'm literally jumping up and down like a 12-year-old," tweeted Adam Levine, lead singer from Maroon Five.

      Even the most animated of celebrities were also excited.

      Cheering wildly from behind the courtside seats was Dodgers kid star Yasiel Puig, who began the game by singing along with the blaring pregame song by the Black Eyed Peas.

      The night was so crazy, even an appearance by Bryant, who probably will miss at least the season's first month while recovering from a torn Achilles' tendon, went virtually unnoticed.

      Midway through the second quarter, he slipped into the second row of the bench. He was dressed in a black suit and tie. He was staying strangely quiet. In fact, a quick check of his Twitter account revealed that he didn't even tweet.

      "It's his rehab. ... He has his hands full with that," D'Antoni said.

      If Tuesday was any indication, Bryant might want to hurry back. Who knows? He could be missing all the fun.
      Hashtag thepowderblues

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      • ArtistFormerlyKnownAsBKR
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        • Jun 2013
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        #4
        Lakers fans crowing about Game 1 heroics. I guess that's where you're at these days.

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        • oneinchpunch
          Registered Charger Fan
          • Jun 2013
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          #5
          @teamziller:
          Lakers beat the Clips in the 4th with three minimum contract guys, a veteran guard making $1.5M and a second-contract big man making $3.5M. Clippers had three eight-figure guys on the court most of the fourth.
          Hashtag thepowderblues

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          • sandiego17
            Registered Charger Fan
            • Jun 2013
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            #6
            Those banners are intimidating. If I were lesser rivers, I wouldn't want to see them either. 16 banners are tough to hide, so it's Paul, Blake and what, 14 Sterlings?

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            • sandiego17
              Registered Charger Fan
              • Jun 2013
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              #7
              Originally posted by oneinchpunch View Post
              @teamziller:
              Lakers beat the Clips in the 4th with three minimum contract guys, a veteran guard making $1.5M and a second-contract big man making $3.5M. Clippers had three eight-figure guys on the court most of the fourth.
              76 bench points. Clips should have hired Thibodeau.

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              • sandiego17
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                • Jun 2013
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                #8
                Originally posted by ArtistFormerlyKnownAsBKR View Post
                Lakers fans crowing about Game 1 heroics. I guess that's where you're at these days.
                Lakers won't have much in contracts following this season (Nash, potentially Kobe), it is exactly where the team is these days. Most Laker fans know where the team is. Clipper fans had to deal with the reality check, that D is awful, even against scrubs. Lets see if Rivers can fix an awful D that Thibodeau hasn't influenced.

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                • oneinchpunch
                  Registered Charger Fan
                  • Jun 2013
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                  #9
                  Doc Rivers said he's looked into parade routes for the Clippers

                  Clippers' championship dreams weren't crushed on opening night, but their pride certainly took a hit.

                  Especially when you add in the fact that pregame, new coach Doc Rivers was apparently talking about how he's looked into championship parade routes already. Via NBA.com:

                  The information gathering began, Doc Rivers said, four days after he was hired as coach and head of basketball operations for the Clippers. He wanted to learn more about parades. Championship parades. Championship parades for the Clippers.

                  He couldn't follow his Boston formula of tracing the route the Patriots took and using it once he coached the Celtics to the 2008 title. He certainly wouldn't copy the Lakers' path through downtown, not when the whole point is for the Clippers to hammer out their own identity. Maybe the NHL's Kings. Rivers could have road tested Lord Stanley's 2012 ride. And he never would have guessed that teams have to pay at least part of the bill for the celebration.

                  “I've researched enough to know what we can do,” he said.
                  Hashtag thepowderblues

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                  • ArtistFormerlyKnownAsBKR
                    Registered Charger Fan
                    • Jun 2013
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                    #10
                    Originally posted by sandiego17 View Post
                    Lakers won't have much in contracts following this season (Nash, potentially Kobe), it is exactly where the team is these days. Most Laker fans know where the team is. Clipper fans had to deal with the reality check, that D is awful, even against scrubs. Lets see if Rivers can fix an awful D that Thibodeau hasn't influenced.
                    Game 1. Why play the rest of the games?

                    Exactly where the Lakers' fans are is crowing about Game 1 in an 82 game season. Great, you won one. Are you arguing that the Lakers are going to win more than the Clippers this season? I suspect not.

                    Dumping on the Clippers is all Lakers fans seem to be clinging to for this season. Why is the rise of the team (for once in its history) so threatening? Telling Clippers fans about reality checks is humorous given the team's history.

                    But hey, congrats. You won. You beat one of the league 's top teams. A lot of balls bounced your way. But it's a pretty small sample to be making a lot of pronouncements about. Says more about your psyches than anything I could.

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                    • sandiego17
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                      • Jun 2013
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                      #11
                      Which balls bounced the Lakers way and what pronouncements are being made? The only pronouncement I see is that the Clips aren't a championship team with that D, do you realistically think they are? They got destroyed by scrubs. You saw luck in that drubbing?

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                      • ArtistFormerlyKnownAsBKR
                        Registered Charger Fan
                        • Jun 2013
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                        #12
                        If you're saying the Clippers' defense is what it will be by the end of the season, I'd call that a pronouncement.

                        As for your other question, I'd draw your attention to the video and the boxscore. A regression to the mean for both teams is pretty likely.

                        Again, its game 1. OIP is trolling.

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