I got lucky this week and scored my company's third-row midcourt seats for the Lakers vs. Jazz. It's amazing what you see when you're right there. Here are a few of my observations.
1. Shaq is the largest human being I've ever seen. I mean . . . holy shnitt this guy is big.
2. Devean George leaves his feet more than any NBA player I've ever seen. I saw him get faked four times; I saw him leave his feet to pass the ball three times, and he even left his feet to catch a pass twice. I know the last isn't necessarily a bad thing, but man, this guy doesn't look like he belongs out there. He bounces around like some junior high player.
3. Poor Brian Cook. I was actually glad when he made a shot in the first half, because I felt so bad for the guy. He played as if his jock was around his ankles for much of the game. He got bailed out (by the same ref who tossed Shaq) on travelling on an inbounds pass after a score. Payton inbounded the ball to Cook, and Cook caught it and walked to the baseline to inbound the ball to Payton. It was funny. After a little conversation, the ref called an inadvertent whistle.
4. Gary Payton isn't enough. These Lakers aren't formidable at all with out BOTH Kobe and Shaq. I would have thought The Glove and The Daddy would be enough against this Jazz team. Payton had a decent game, but sometimes he looked downright lost. Arroyo had a couple of one-on-one steals on Payton, and Lopez made him look bad a few times on D. But then he'd hit some sweet layup in traffic.
5. Shaq got jimmied by that ref. On both of the technical calls, Shaq was guilty of a personal foul, maybe a flagrant, but tossing him was a little strange. Not that I minded; I was screaming "Left, right, left, right" with glee as Shaq stomped off the floor (I'd like to think he glared in my direction). But yeah, tossing a superstar out of the game like that was weird; but hey, I'll take it. By the way, Shaq can swear really loudly.
6. Shaq is a lazy basketball player. Besides getting the jimmy from the ref and getting beat up all night, Shaq played a lazy game. The Jazz don't have anyone that can deal with O'Neal when he really wants to score. He gave up an uncontested dunk to Greg Ostertag; he settled for awkward turnarounds when he's got the moves to beat anyone the Jazz could bring. He missed another point-blank dunk (yeah he was fouled, but his ball hand was untouched). I counted twelve times he passed out of single coverage deep in the paint. Four of those times he was guarded by Michael Ruffin. While I'm on Michael Ruffin, Shaq let Ruffin totally push him around. Ruffin even put Shaq on the floor once. The way Ruffin played Shaq, you'd think Ruffin should have left in a body bag; but Shaq just took it. He didn't contest very many shots.
7. Kareem Rush wants to be Kobe. He looked really good in the first quarter, and some of his offensive moves look exactly like Kobe's. In fact, after one fake and turnaround jumper, I could see and hear Kobe yelling from the bench, "Yo that's mine bro. That's mine!"
8. The Utah fans suck for booing Karl Malone. It was funny to watch security toss a couple of guys who held up a sign that said "Benedict Malone." Delta Center officials said the message was too complicated for Malone to understand. Karl supposedly was heard to say, "Dat foo wid dat sign don't know what he do, my name Karl Malone."
9. Andrei Kirilenko is everywhere.
Two best plays of the game: 1. AK47's right to left layup in the first half was sweet. 2. Raja Bell swats The Glove's break-away layup from behind and then dribbles down and drains a long jumper while Payton complains. Hee hee.
