Heir’z Corner: Lakers Get the Best of Mavs

Fish- Same as Kobe, Fish had me rolling my eyes during the early moments of the game with bad decisions on offense. He continuously tried dumping the ball in the post when the post player was double teamed and it lead to turnovers. On defense he kept leaving guys like Barea wide open and free lanes to the basket. If the player didn’t score on an easy shot in the paint a teammate had to cover for Fish by taking a foul. When Dallas went on a run, however, Fish was who kept us in the game in the first half. At one point he scored 9 straight points for us and it got the rest of the team going. Then in the second half he hit big shots during our runs that kept the momentum on our side. He delivered a performance reminiscent of the Fish from last season. Final stat line: 19 points, 8-14 from the field, 3-5 from downtown, 4 rebounds.

Bench- The bench was phenomenal tonight, the stat sheet doesn’t tell the story at all outside of Ariza. Lamar only scored 2 points but his energy was crazy. I’m talkin Lil Wayne crazy. He kept the momentum on our side by rebounding, passing, and taking care of the ball when one of the players was on the verge of turning it over. And I can’t say enough about Ariza’s hustle tonight. He did it all tonight, point blank. As I mentioned earlier, it looked like Phil was frustrated with Sasha; 1-4 from the field in only 8 minutes of play. Ouch.

Final Thought- We overcame another poor start and imposed our dominance on yet another team. Our slight decline is very noticeable, but with the attitude of Kobe, Fish, and Phil, I’m not extremely worried. I hate that we gave up over 100 points again, but maybe a strong defensive game against a high scoring team like Toronto on Sunday will spark a good 5 to 7 games of above average defense. Toronto is looking for a 3rd straight win; let’s end another team’s streak.

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