When Pau Gasol was first traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, everyone, including myself, was filled with joy. We now had a big man that could play big, could create his own shot with his repatoir of moves in the post, and could collect rebounds.

Pau Gasol has been great for the Lakers….on the offensive side, and to further that, when he plays against a physical defender, he cant even really do that much. His numbers in this years playoffs have been somewhat decieving. Besides his first game against the Denver Nuggets and his 18 point 10 rebound performance in one game against Utah, he has seemingly not done much in these playoffs. He isnt even converting on his freethrows, which was one of the key components to his game. But enough about offense, compared to most centers in the leauge, Pau’s offense is exceptional and I am not one to complain.

The real problem is Pau Gasol’s defense, or lack there of. Sure Andrew Bynum didnt have the offensive one on one skills that Gasol has, but he made up for that with his superb defense. If you have been watching Gasol this playoff season, you have seen some of the worst defense ever. He doesnt rotate, box out to get rebounds, and by the time he makes it to the other end of the floor the other team has already scored. Ever heard of transition defense Pau? Apparently not.

You might ask yourslef, “Well, why is one person so important? There are still 4 other guys who play good defense…” To answer that, the Lakers play a “help-style” defense. When they guard their man, they are set up so that they are below the plane and in between their man and the man dribbling the ball. This works because if you get beaten off the dribble, you will have someone “ROTATING” over and “HELPING” you out.

Pau Gasol is extremely late on his rotation’s simply because he is lazy. So what is happening? The other offensive man is getting a wide open layup, and if he misses, an offensive rebound occurs because Pau is late coming to the box.

Simply put, the Lakers can score with the best of them…but defense wins championships. The Lakers will only go as far as their defense goes, and right now, the defense is dependent upon Pau Gasol’s willingness to work hard and move his feet.

The night started off on a great note. Kobe Bryant was awarded the NBA Most Valuable Player award yesterday, and tonight he received his award once again in front of the Los Angeles Lakers fans at Staples Center from NBA Commissioner David Stern.

Kobe Bryant had a huge smile on his face and everything was clear without him even saying a word. “I’m at a loss for words, I don’t know what to say,” Bryant said as the Staples Center crowd of 18,997 roared its approval and chanted M-V-P. “I love you guys so much. We’re going to play until June. Let’s get this party started.”

After the presentation of the award, the game was underway. It was time for the Lakers to do what they do best, win basketball games.

Once again, the men in the purple and gold came out strong and built a lead right from the get go. It was nice to see Derek Fisher comfortable with his shot and drilling jumper after jumper over Derron Williams. Carlos Boozer once again couldn’t handle Lamar Odom and Kobe had drawn five different defenders by the half. Matt Harpring apparently was the best defender the Utah Jazz could throw at Kobe based on his strong body and aggressive nature.

The halftime interview with Derek Fisher was quite interesting. David Aldridge, a veteran announcer and a guy who has plenty of experience on the big stage, made a funny mistake by calling Derek Fisher, Derron rather than Derek.

Just like Game 1, the Lakers played a strong game up until the end of the third quarter, and then they let the Utah Jazz get right back in to it. Derron Williams became more aggressive and led the Jazz to within four points of the Lakers. This is when Kobe took over, really made some spectacular passes, and the Lakers hustled as a group to get the right shot off. Some great passes even led to a wide open Derek Fisher three pointer to extend the lead back up to 10 points. The game ended with a bunch of Utah three pointers followed by two Lakers free throws. When Utah was down by 10 with 6 seconds left, they fouled Sasha Vujacic and even he was annoyed that he had to shoot the free throws.

The post game interviews with both teams were quite interesting as well.

After the post game interviews, after a great evening of fantastic basketball, I thought my night was complete and I was a happy fan. Fortunately enough, TNT provided me with one more great moment. The crew of the TNT show obviously likes to have a good time, after all, it’s Charles Barkley, how serious can you be with the guy.

Ernie and Kenny decided to play with Charles Barkley as he was reading over the tele-prompter and wrote in some additional text to what was already programmed. Take a look at for yourself, this is quite hilarious.

Phil Jackson has spoken, we have listened…

Well it’s time to listen again. Yesterday afternoon, Phil Jackson was invited to join the hosts of Pardon The Interruption on ESPN for a quick five minutes interview. We all know that Jackson is a man with a unique tendency to make interviews quite interesting by his always unorthodox answers.

In this clip Phil Jackson discusses a few issues including, the Los Angeles Lakers ability to contend for a title, Kobe Bryant’s chance at an MVP award, the addition of Pau Gasol to the Lakers, and the Phoenix Suns short run in the playoffs with Shaquille O’Neal.

Allow me to warn you ahead of time, prior to you reading this article, that this award is not 100% official, but just received from a strong source from NBA.com.

The 2007-2008 regular season has come to a close and the performances of every player have been closely analyzed and scrutinized by every coach, player, analyst, and fan in the world. The Most Valuable Player Award is one of the most sought after prizes in basketball, behind the NBA Championship of course, and is one thing that has been missing from Kobe Bryant’s resume.

No longer, the NBA has published the 2008 awards (see below for disclaimer) and Kobe Bryant is listed as the NBA Most Valuable Player. After an amazing season in which the MVP flipped between four candidates at any given time, including Kevin Garnett, Lebron James, Chris Paul, and Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers superstar was able to claim the prize.

Take a look at the actual screen shot courtesy of the SportsTsar.

With season averages of 28.3 points, 5.4 assists, 6.3 rebounds, 1.84 steals, and shooting percentages of 45.9% from the field, 36.1% from beyond the arc, and 84% from the free throw line, Kobe Bryant has proven that he is pretty well rounded. Kobe’s stats are obviously not what secured the MVP award for him though as his past season had better statistics.

Kobe Bryant has been criticized for years, since the infamous Shaq trade in 2004, that he isn’t much of a team player and doesn’t make his teammates better. I suppose that theory is finally over as he has taken one of the youngest teams in the league to the Western Conference’s top seed going into the playoffs.

It has been amazing to watch his game develop this season as he has finally grown into the mature role of being a floor general. I have to believe that a lot of credit is due to Phil Jackson for bringing it out in him as well as Derek Fisher for coming back and being a co-captain to Bryant.

As the Lakers make their run in the 2008 NBA Playoffs, Kobe Bryant can sleep a bit more comfortable at night knowing that his hard work has finally been recognized by everyone that matters!

Congratulations and good luck in the playoffs!

Disclaimer: Of course, allow me to mention really quickly, that this would be quite incredible if it was 100% reliable. This is the award as presented by Robert Peterson, the Director of NBA.com and the Senior Manger of NBA.com. I’ve got to find this quite reliable, but I suppose we will have to wait a little while longer until the Commish presents it.