Lakers Lay an Egg for Santa on Christmas

Yesterday the Lakers did something they haven't done in 11 games at Staples Center.  Lose.  LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers were hands down, the better team on Friday after a 102 to 87 victory.

The Lakers were only really in this game in the early stages of the first quarter with leads of 6 to nothing and 8 to 2.  After that, there was a power outage on the overall game for the Lakers.  They had stretches where they couldn't make any shots and they weren't playing championship caliber defense.  Give the Cavaliers credit though for playing some outstanding defense that was too much for the Lakers throughout.  Once again, the Lakers were down at halftime 51 to 42.  It would have been 54 to 42 if LeBron James would have gotten his full court shot off a little quicker.

As the Lakers always do, they made a push to begin the second half, cutting the lead to six at 54 to 48 early in the third quarter.  The Cavs proved to be the better team once again stretching the lead to as large as 20 points. 

The big subplot to the game was the Laker players growing frustration with how the game was being officiated.  It was established very early on that the refs were going to call a very physical game and they were going to let the players play.  That did not sit well with Phil Jackson's squad however, as Lamar Odom was ejected in the fourth quarter after being assessed a second technical foul.  Kobe Bryant also had a technical foul.

Things really started to boil over though when frustrated Laker fans started throwing souvenir foam fingers from the stands.  Someone even threw a water bottle on the court.  I thought Laker fans had more class than that.  Regardless of the fans frustrations with the officiating, the truth is the Lakers were outplayed yesterday in every facet of the game and could not make any significant adjustments to stop the Cavaliers. 

I expect the purple and gold to bounce back against the Sacramento Queens...oh I mean Kings tonight in cowbell territory.  If they don't, the Lakers will have a long rest of the weekend.

In other basketball news, L.A.'s other team, the Clippers, were scorched by the Suns in Phoenix 124 to 93.

Photo courtesy:
Wikimedia Commons and michael248 under CC-SA 2.0 License