Second Attempt At A First Win

November 2, 2007, 10:30 PM Eastern (7:30 PM Pacific)

U S Airways Center- Phoenix, AZ

In Tuesday’s season opener, a miraculous comeback almost resulted in an upset win for the Lakers’ the Houston Rockets, but came up just a bit short.

Tonight, at the US Airways Center in Phoenix, the Los Angeles Lakers will face off with the Phoenix suns in their home opener. Phoenix kicked off its season last night in Seattle. Despite being heavily favored heading into the game, the Suns’ 106-99 victory against Kevin Durant and the Supersonics was anything but easy, with Phoenix trailing for much of the game, including facing a 3 point deficit entering the fourth quarter.

Lakers’ Notes

With the Kobe Bryant trade talks dying down (at least for the moment), the Lakers can finally focus on basketball. With Lamar Odom still nursing an injured should, as well as a slight concussion suffered in a car accident on Tuesday, Phil Jackson’s starting lineup should resemble the unit that took the floor against the Rockets- Kobe and Derek Fisher in the backcourt, Luke Walton and Ronnie Turiaf at forward and (hopefully) Andrew Bynum in middle (although it will likely be Kwame Brown once again).

In order to have success on offense, the Lakers will need to look to the gameplan that allowed them to have success against the Suns in the 2005 Playoffs- try to control the tempo with their halfcourt offense, keep feeding the post, and only look to run when the opportunity clearly presents itself. Another aim of this strategy will be to attack Amare Stoudemire, who was very foul-prone early in Thursday night’s game in Seattle, much like he was last spring in the Suns’ playoff series against the Spurs. Until he shows the ability to avoid early foul trouble, this will be an area opposing teams should look to exploit against the Suns. The low post attack should not be confined to only Amre Stoudemire. The Lakers need to use Kobe, Fisher and Luke Walton to make the other members of the Suns, particularly Steve Nash, Leandro Barbosa ad Grant Hill, play defense on the low block. In addition to the fact that not one of these guys is a defensive stopper (Nash is actually a liability), they are probably a little tired. This is the second game of a back-to-back- and the first ended after 10:30 PM (Pacific Time) last night and took place 1,500 miles away.

Suns’ Notes

The Phoenix Suns did not look sharp for the first three quarters of their season opener. They did succeed in putting it all together in the final quarter against Seattle to come away with the 9-point win, but they clearly did not storm out of the gates. Granted, their style of play is such that as long as one guy is hot from the outside at a given time, they can hang some huge numbers on the scoreboard. On the injury front, both Leandro Barbosa is suffering from sore ribs and both Boris Diaw and Raja Bell are nursing sore ankles, but all three played at least 25 minutes last night without showing any ill-effects. Don’t look for the Suns to change anything in their gameplan. Regardless of the opponent, Nash & Co. will look to do what they always do- run early and often and move the ball until someone has a clean look from the outside. When that gets old, they’ll run some more, this time looking for Barbosa, Hill or Shawn Marion on the wings. The only way to stop them is to get back early on defense, find a man and guard him (even if it’s not “your man”) and keep your long-range misses to a minimum.

Look for the Suns to start Nash and Raja Bell in the backcourt, with Marion, Grant Hill and Stoudemire up front.

What should we be looking for tonight?

This is exactly the kind of game in which the Lakers have pulled many an upset before- they look out of sync, no one is really paying any attention to them on the court, Kobe is mad and the Suns took a late flight home following a hard-fought game last night. Expect another close one tonight. Also expect another big game from Kobe tonight- he’s just in one of “those” stretches where he looks like he’s shooting for 40 every night. Whether the Lakers are able to pull it out will depend on two things- their discipline in sticking with the half court game and their commitment to getting back early against the Suns’ break.