Los Angeles Lakers

Los Angeles Lakers

Plenty of Blame to Go Around in Los Angeles Lakers’ Game 2 Loss to Oklahoma City: Fan’s Reaction (Yahoo! Contributor Network)

On Wednesday, May 16, the Los Angeles Lakers blew a seven-point lead late in Game 2 to lose 77-75 at the Oklahoma City Thunder. Andrew Bynum and Kobe Bryant led the team in scoring with 20 points each.

Sparks-Storm Preview (The Associated Press)

The Seattle Storm got only 13 games from three-time MVP Lauren Jackson last season while the Los Angeles Sparks received 17 from 2008 MVP Candace Parker.

Nuggets GM: Andre Miller wants to stay in Denver (The Associated Press)

DENVER (AP) Nuggets general manager Masai Ujiri (Ma-SIGH u-JEER-e) says backup point guard Andre Miller wants to stay in Denver and the team will work hard to make that happen.

Andrew Bynum after 9-0 Thunder run beats Lakers: ‘We’re better than Santa Claus’ (Ball Don’t Lie)

After an Andrew Bynum bucket with 2:08 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Los Angeles Lakers looked to be sitting pretty. They held a seven-point lead over the Oklahoma City Thunder thanks to nearly 46 minutes of gritty ground-and-pound that made the postseason’s best offense — yes, the Thunder entered Wednesday night averaging more points per 100 playoff possessions than even the San Antonio Spurs — look disjointed and stale.
OKC had hit just 39.7 percent of its shots en route to 68 measly points two nights after scoring 119 in Game 1 , and didn’t appear to be anywhere near gettng well against a Laker team that had held them to just 20 second-half points. Unfortunately for the Lakers, appearances can be deceiving.

Whether you’d like to laud Kevin Durant for the win, damn Kobe Bryant for the loss, do neither or choose both, the fact remains that Oklahoma City went on a 9-0 run in the final 128 seconds to score a 77-75 Game 2 win , take a 2-0 lead in their Western Conference semifinal series and deliver a serious haymaker to L.A.’s spirits as they head home for Friday night’s Game 3. The Lakers blew this one, and their center knows it.
Bynum (20 points on 8-of-19 shooting and nine rebounds in the loss) said as much with a sharp, somewhat curious postgame turn of phrase that was shared by the Lakers’ Twitter account and later expounded upon by Sekou Smith at NBA.com’s Hang Time blog :
The Lakers led 75-68 with two minutes to play with the game seemingly in hand. But instead of the veteran Lakers salting this one away with Kobe Bryant finishing the deal, the Lakers lost control of the game and basically gave it away.
“We’re better than Santa Claus giving out gifts,” said Lakers center Andrew Bynum. “We like giving out gifts. We give out games, contracts and rings.”
“We give out games, contracts and rings.” What’s that about?

James Harden elbows Metta World Peace in the face on the sneak tip (VIDEO) (Ball Don’t Lie)

It’s just like my dude Marie Joseph Eugène Sue wrote in “Mathilde” — “La vengeance se mange très-bien froide.” (Some people might know “Revenge is a dish best served cold” from “The Godfather,” but I feel pretty confident that the Thursday morning crowd at BDL has its “1841 French novels” game on lock.) Twenty-five days isn’t necessarily that deep a freeze, but the elbow that James Harden put in the middle of the face of Metta World Peace during the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Game 2 win on Wednesday probably still felt pretty arctic to the Los Angeles Lakers forward.
[ Johnny Ludden: Lakers' Kobe Bryant fails in crunch time against the Thunder ]
Coming with the shot clock winding down during a late first-quarter scramble situation and resulting from a Harden behind-the-back dribble to evade a World Peace steal attempt, the left ‘bow — captured above by our friends at the Yahoo! Sports Minute — seemed unintentional and was clearly nowhere near as violent as the World Peace shot that floored, concussed and sidelined Harden four Sundays ago. Still, you don’t imagine Harden minded creating the contact too much; somewhere beneath all that beard, there may even have been a trace of a smile.
Of course, because no act of physicality visited upon the former Ron Artest can expect to simply slide past, MWP came back in the second quarter with an answer befitting wrestling legend Stan “The Lariat” Hansen:

Kobe Bryant’s late mistakes doom Lakers in their Game 2 loss to Thunder (Yahoo! Sports)

Kobe Bryant helped give away what appeared to be a near-certain victory for the Lakers.

Thunder rally to edge Lakers 77-75 in Game 2 (The Associated Press)

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) Down in desperation time, Oklahoma City Thunder coach Scott Brooks called on Kevin Durant to show that he’s more than just a three-time scoring champion. And that meant guarding one of the NBA’s all-time best.