The Heat Is on: Why the Los Angeles Lakers Will Lose on Christmas Day
Are the Lakers ready for the Heat on Christmas Day?
Are they just biding their time as they gear up for a year-end run to their third consecutive championship?
Or are they just tired? And, worse, are they just not as good as they were the last two years?
In this very early stage of the NBA season, we have seen the Lakers make it look easy with a run of quick wins, then make it look very hard with losses to some of the most hapless teams in the league.
This latest loss to the Milwaukee Bucks is very disconcerting. So many weaknesses were exposed. Andrew Bogut looked like Wilt Chamberlain. Earl Boykins—all 5'5" of him—looked like LeBron James.
The real LeBron comes into town on Saturday riding an impressive and, if you are a Laker fan (or player), very scary win-to-loss ratio in a hot December (winning 10 out of 11 games with a close loss to Dallas). What looked like it had the makings of one of the great match-ups of the season actually may be a blow-out—with LeBron and Dwayne Wade getting all the gifts under the tree.
This statement is not made lightly. Nothing the Lakers have done in the last month or so bespeaks of a winning, championship-headed team.
Granted, they have been without their vaunted big man, Andrew Bynum. But, they had been winning in the early part of the season without him and it looked like their new guys—Matt Barnes and Steve Blake—had blended into the triangle offense in a seamless fashion.
Didn't they look exactly like this last year? Didn't Ron Artest look just as horrible? Didn't Derek Fisher look just as slow? Didn't their bench look confused and unable to produce on a regular basis?
They sure as heck overcame all of that. Maybe, in typical Phil Jackson style, they are not making much of these early season outings and just honing their team's rhythm as they barrel into the end of the very long season. Maybe they are not concerned, although the two words that came out of Kobe Bryant's mouth after the loss to the Bucks were not, "No biggie."
Right now, Pau Gasol looks gassed. Andrew Bynum may be tall, but that's all. All of the point guards in the league can't wait to face off with the weathered Fisher. And the bench is hit-and-miss at best.
Steve Blake and Matt Barnes may have looked good on paper, but they have done very little to assuage any feelings of doubt.
Then there are the Miami Heat. It really didn't take that long for them to figure it out. We are talking LeBron and Wade here, two of the very best to ever play the game. Who wouldn't want them on their team with the game on the line?
Basketball is a game of match-ups and the Lakers look like the dominant team up front, with Lamar Odom, Bynum and Gasol. Odom in particular is having an All-Star season.
Can the big guys dominate again?
And what about Kobe? He looks a bit frustrated to say the least and, while he has had some great outings, he is not leading his team to victories in his typically wild-eyed, watch-me-dunk-over-you-or-throw-in-a-ridiculous-three-pointer-at-the-end-of-the-game spirit.
Right now, Kobe's future Hall-of-Fame peers look like they have the championship team. It will be up to the Lakers to show them different this Christmas Day.
