Every rebound, every loose ball, every break seemed to go the Lakers way tonight. They were the aggressors and they won because of it.
- Kobe attacked the basket early and often. No settling for jumpshots this time.
- Lakers dominated the glass tonight. In particular Pau Gasol, who totally outplayed Garnett.
- I'll even give Ron Artest a lot of credit for being active on defense and being opportunistic on offense.
- Rondo tried to carry the team early on but nobody else really stepped up.
- Lots of C's in foul trouble in this one. Not going to blame this on the refs, but I'm really not a fan of Joey Crawford.
- Kevin Garnett looked bad, real bad. He missed a number of bunnies, made bad decisions, bad passes, and was a step slow all night. I'm worried that he might have gotten hurt sometime in the Magic series and didn't tell anyone about it.
- Paul Pierce made a valiant effort to bring the team back in the 4th but it was too late. The 3rd quarter killed us.
- Lakers got us down and finished the job in the 4th.
Before we panic too much, we can still win game 2 and earn the split in L.A.. But they'll have to play a lot better.