For my first post in god knows how long, I’m here watching the game breaking down specific plays and analyzing their effects.

• Lakers win the tip and push the ball inside to give Bynum a chance to get going early. Pau Gasol is called for a three second violation, which has been happening far too often recently. The Lakers need better communication in the post between the bigs to make sure that they don’t give up anything easy.
• Ariza creates the first basket for the Lakers by driving and finding Andrew Bynum underneath by himself for the easy dunk. The dribble penetration will be very important for the Lakers’ success. Easy dunks and open shots make the game much easier. those open shot opportunities must be created and won’t just be handed over.
• Kobe posts up, draws two fouls on Jones early. Rather than take the fallaway jumper, Kobe now has the consistent three point shooter Trevor Ariza who he dishes the ball out to for the wide open three. Lakers take the lead!
• Six minutes in, Kobe draws the 4th foul against Jones who goes to the bench. JR Smith will now be covering Kobe.
• Sasha has continued to struggle. The shot just simply isn’t falling. I am somewhat unhappy with how he has continued to force his shot rather than let the offense come to him. I rather him miss wide open jumpers the way he did last season rather than attempt to dribble and attempt to create his own shots off balance. He needs to start driving to the basket more and moving off the ball. He seems to have becmoe slightly stagnant.
• Carmelo needs some more attention. Ariza is playing hard but struggling to contain him. Anthony is far too good of a shooter and penetrator to not body up on him.
• Just as the Lakers look like they are playing some tough defense and locking down the Nuggets, they decide they are done covering the three point shooters. Denver hits two quick three pointers to get the game back within five points. The defenders have got to do a better job of shutting down the Nuggets and not allow them to take wide open shots. This is the playoffs, HUSTLE.
• Denver comes out of halftime playing strong and doing a good job driving to the basket. Lakers are maintaining a little lead but are struggling to really take advantage at this point. The second half of the third quarter will be the time to break it open and build a double digit lead.
• The Lakers seem to have given up on this game. I can’t even identify whether they are struggling more on the defensive end or on the offensive end. It’s quite pathetic all around. I’d like to see some defensive intensity and some dribble penetration creating some easy shots. They haven’t had a wide open shot in who knows how long and it’s time that someone takes one.
• Kobe came back in after a brief rest and took over the game. His presence alone has made the difference. He hit a big three pointer straight over Carmelo Antony bringing the deficit down to four. Shannon Brown hit a big three with Nene guarding him to bring it back to one. They are finally playing with a bit of heart out there working hard on the boards and picking up the offensive rebounds.
• Clearly something has happened since Kobe entered the game. Even Lamar Odom suddenly made both of his free throws to get the Lakers the lead.
• This game is coming down to too many free throws rather than actual basketball. The refs are controlling the tempo of the game and preventing both teams from building any kind of rhythm.I’d really like to see the Lakers execute their offense more efficiently and score some easy points. But then again, that requires the refs not to make any stupid offensive foul calls and to blow the whistle against the defense.

There’s really not much for me to say. It’s a tough loss and extremely pathetic that the referees are dictating the games as much as they have.

The three morons in zebra strips have messed up too many crucial calls this season. Chauncey Billups was out of bounds in game one which wasn’t called and JR Smith ran through the play during the jump ball which wasn’t called a violation causing Denver to gain control of the ball, after a foul that wasn’t called of course, to give them two free throws and a four point lead.

I’d love for David Stern to think of a solution to these 85 year old guys to use replay to make decisions that make sense. There is no logic to the way the game is currently refereed and very unfortunate that fans commit this much time and money to a sport that they genuinely love so much and can’t enjoy.

Thank you David Stern and the referees. WELL DONE. APPLAUSE.