Black Friday

Black Friday did not start out meaning

the day retailers' balance sheets start

showing a profit (or go in the black).

Folks took off the day following Thanksgiving

and called in sick to their work so it

began having a bad connotation that way.

Some started calling that day "Big Friday".

However, in 1961, Public Relations News reported

that in December that year the media

cooperated in spreading the news of beauty

in shop windows readying themselves for

the Christmas holiday. Thus, people

began to hustle right after Thanksgiving

before stores became too crowded. They would view

the prettily clad shop windows and in doing

so, the day following "turkey" day, emerged

into what is known as Black Friday. Having

found out these bits of offerings I bring

to you today the fact Friday our Lakers lost

their game  playing against Memphis.

Following that game, a winning game

seems more happily to speak about though

right? Speaking of that I shall. The winner

for Sundays game were indeed our Lakers!

They played Dallas and won hands down

with a score of: 115 to 89. No Black Friday

phrasing there surely. In fact, Howard

and Gasol both broke their personal

slumps and L.A. got their first win

away from Staples Center. Interestingly

too is that the Lakers actually showed up 

on defense. Most unpredictable these

players of ours. To move the ball more

and develop far better pick and roll

is the aim of new coach D'Antoni .

So, pick and rolls fella's. Next game is 

back home Tuesday night with Indiana

and that game is followed  on Friday

night (also at home) with Denver.

 

Babs Wells

D'Antoni's Debut

Gratefully, the Lakers put on a pretty

good show and even with their new 

coach limping along the sidelines, they

managed to win over the Brooklyn

Nets. D'Antoni opted to put his

crutches aside (from knee surgery)

and pace alongside his new team

to coach. He states that he is now

fairly ready to take to the road with

a contingency plan. Although the

Lakers seemed to not play with the

same ease and efficiency as in recent

victories over the Houston Rockets and

the Phoenix Suns, they still managed

to rally past the Nets for a 95-90 win

in front of a sellout crowd of 18,997

at Staples Center. After an electric

start in which they scored the game's

first 10 points, the Lakers limped along

for quite awhile. The Nets really "got in

their face" even though they never led

by more than 6 points. Still, they refused

to play along with the Lakers' new up-tempo

offense. D'Antoni reminds us we have

72 more games to play and we can just

learn to be more patient. Actually the only

thing that we cannot do, of course, is

to win 77. In the end, we just hope to

be the best team in the league.

Lakers team is a work in progress with

our coach healing from his surgery,

Dwight Howard at only about 80%

with the mending of his back surgery, and 

Steve Nash along with Steve Blake out of the

game for now. Metta world Peace, Pau

Gasol and our Kobe Bryant have been

certainly pulling their own weight, 

although we lost 113-97 to Sacramento

Kings on Wednesday at the Sleep Train

Arena, not one of us has given up hope

for our future wins. Friday evening we're

playing in Memphis plus back to back

games the following evening in Dallas

on Saturday. Black Friday or not, we

are keeping our spirits up for a win!

Babs Wells

UP TEMPO OFFENSE

That is what D'Antoni brings to

the courts. To accentuate individual

talents, this is what in a free-flowing

play, is needed. It is an offense that

takes little time to pick up and takes

advantage of our Lakers array of skills.

Sunday's game with interim coach

Bernie Bickerstaff guiding our team,

allowed  us a win against the Houston

Rockets at Staples Center and yes,

we saw Jack Nickelson looking on.

Pau Gasol became the 10th. foreign-born 

player to score 15,000 points in an NBA

career with a basket in the third quarter.

Dwight Howard topped L.A. with 28 points

and 13 rebounds + he also blocked 3 shots.

In their first 2 games under D'Antoni's high

energy up and down the floor system, the

Lakers have scored a total of 233 points.

Every day there seems to be a little more

confidence in this new type of play.

Sunday's game gave us the score of:118-108.

We play again at home tonight against

the Brooklyn Nets and then back to back

we go up to Sacramento to play on Wednesday.

It indeed has been interesting to see our

Lakers picking up the pace.

Babs Wells

NUMBER 24

This number is the one now used by our Lakers

star, Kobe Bryant and is also the number for

the newest coach, Mike D'Antoni, of the Lakers.

He is our 24th coach and we wish him the best

in the weeks and months to come. Bernie has

been doing a super job with our team and we

do thank him as well. Having won a game and

then lost game, we find now that we are just

starting to feel far more organized as a team

an understand the workings of individual

players better than we did in the beginning.

Now last eve. we won again playing against

the Phoenix Suns (a team our own coach

we have now used to coach plus the very

team our player, Steve Nash used to play

with for a few years as our opponent).

The score last night was: 114-102.

A fun game to watch and I am pretty sure

Steve Nash would dearly have loved being

a participant in but due to his  team doctor

refusing him to suit up just yet, having  the

minor fracture to his left leg, he sat out.

Nash remains quite familiar with D'Antoni's

pick-and-roll based offensive system after

compiling two NBA league MVP's through

four seasons playing under him in Phoenix.

This last game showed us that the Lakers

had the ability to run down the court with

uncharacteristic speed and  determination.

They seemed to score with ease and won 

in front of a sellout crowd of 18,997 at Staples

Center. Perhaps now we can say goodbye

to slowtime and hello to showtime?

Friday marked the end of an era, with

interim coach Bernie Bickerstaff guiding

the Lakers through D'Antoni's up-tempo

offensive game plan.  No, the Lakers did

not charge down the court with reckless

abandon. They picked their spots, running

when they outnumbered the retreating Suns

and slowing down when the situation called

for caution. They did move around the court

quicker and found a nice rhythm to their

offense from the opening minutes and went

into the game averaging 96.5 points in their 

deliberated offense. And so we end this column

today yelling "Are we having fun yet???!!!".

Babs Wells

SPORTSNET/SPORTSNUT

The scenario shifts. Losses are old history now

and wins are all the talk of the town. No more 

do we have coach Mike Brown with our Lakers

either, but the crowd chanted "Bring back Phil".

Yes, coach Phil Jackson did retire on what

he probably thought was a sticky wicket with

our Lakers losing out in getting yet another

ring and that is a shame. Yes, his health

is much improved we are hearing, but the

sports latest information is telling us that

the new coach hired for our "FAB FOUR"

and all the Lakers players to listen to and

to hopefully gain insight from, will not

be Phil after all. Seems another Mike will

be taking their offer..Mike D'Antoni.

We will graciously accept him into the

fold and  listen to his teachings in the

role chosen for him. We have been on a

winning streak already which is pretty

great! Recently we won against Golden

State and again against Sacramento.

Our games have been played in Staples

Center and as home games I suppose

that we indeed have had the advantage.

Without Steve Nash out on the floor

we were sort of wondering just how it

would play out, but with point guard Steve

Blake he's done a wonderful job there.

Kobe was out a bit too and of course

initially so was Dwight Howard. Having

Pau Gasol always right at the net when

needed and Metta World Peace grabbing

the opportunities provided for him with 

making baskets has been great too.

The caption heading this column today

indicates Time Warners new sportsnet that is

bringing us the Lakers games and of

course the sportsnut refers to me,

the writer which is my handle with google

to obtain information gained in

order to read my articles.

Namely: sportsnut-babs.blogspot.com

Me..Barbara, AKA Babs...so do hope

you continue looking for me and

keep the faith in our team too,

especially so now with yet another

brand new coach. Gonna be lotsa fun!!

Babs Wells

NOW FOLKS, THIS IS MORE LIKE IT!!!!!

Good work fella's! Good teamwork, unison,

and good defense. Dwight Howard? Made

some free throws this time and his smile

made up for any errors before he may

have made. Steve Blake? A very good point

guard and even though Steve Nash is out,

we find Blake to be most dependable.Our Kobe

did not have to feel he had to carry the entire

game and that is one great big plus.

The Lakers expect Nash to sit out for at least

another week. This then, means that he will

be missing out on playing this next Wednesday.

Wednesday's game is to be in Utah and then

on Friday we play against Golden State.

With Steve Blake starting at point guard

while Steve Nash recovers from a small

fracture in his left leg, coach Mike Brown's

roster shuffling could leave Jodie Meeks and

Chris Duhon mostly on the bench.

Brown said he will keep Devin Ebanks and

Darrius Morris at the respective backup

shooting guard and point guard spot.

Meeks has averaged only three points on

40 percent shooting in nine minutes

through two games. Duhon has played only

4 minutes in  one game. They both played

in the final 4:13 against Detroit though.

We will stay tuned and await this coming

Wednesday nights' game. Hope for another

winning score!

Babs Wells

ANYTHING NEW HERE????

LAKERS!!!!! Wake up! And, believe me it is not fair

to think our Kobe can do it all. Yes, Dwight did

finally make some of his free throws, bravo!

But, even with Kobe making 40 points, we lost

the game to the L.A. Clippers, score: 105-95.

So...seems with 8 games lost previously and now 3 more

losses in a row..... Phil Jackson, where are you???

With the fairly new season for us all, let's just

mark it up to "getting it together and getting

to know each other far better" in order to win.

On a completely different note though, since 

both the Lakers and this blog writer are from

the state of Minnesota, our little American-

Profile paper had a super article that I thought

I might share and tell you about.

The subjects' name is: John Rheinberger, an

attorney from Stillwater, MN. Last year he

concluded one of his life's pursuits of being on 

a worldwide tour of 196 nations which he began

37 years ago. In addition to the 193 

members of the United Nations, Rheinberger

visited Kosovo, Vatican City and Taiwan. The U.S.

Department of State recognizes 195 independent

countries, absent Taiwan. The ink stamps in

John's passports read like the register of

an experienced and dedicated world traveler.

Algeria, Bolivia, China, Germany, Haiti,

Honduras, Iran, Japan, Libya, Namibia,

North Korea, Spain, Ukraine, Vietnam.

Initially he journeyed across North America

from Ottawa, Canada, to Mexico City, and

in 1978 he flew to Australia, a trip he

encourages others to try and he recounts

as one of his most memorable. He thought

it was the 51st state when he was there!!

Surprisingly, John wasn't particularly 

apprehensive about visiting countries

ruled by dictators, "Initially, I was a little

scared" he says, "But in some ways you

are very safe because everybody is watching

you and watching out for you. There is real

protection in that". He is currently toying

with an idea of getting a doctorate from the

University of Minnesota. (He has 6 other

academic degrees). Most interesting man

and very fascinating article I thought.

Another footnote before ending this

article today is to say "Hats off to our

Lakers for yet another contribution

that we just learned about" All of the

dollars in donations sent off to the

people that were harmed and put in

recent harms way during the tragic super

storm the East Coast endured: "Hurricane Sandy".

And so, we watch the news reports of

the ongoing job of renewal & cleanup. 

Our East Coast neighbors harboring such horrid past

days and memories now that we pray they

find some hope and help in days ahead.

Babs Wells 

NOW WHAT?????

TNT showed us one of the latest Lakers

games and believe me that was great

to watch instead of the ever so poor

camera angles shown on TWC. Correction

too..had Kobe with a (left) hurt foot when

indeed it was the other (L) foot...the right one.

Sorry about that error however he still did

suit up and play after all and now we note

that Steve Nash got tangled up in our last

game playing against the Trail Blazers'

guard Damian Lillard and hurt his leg.

He may surprise us though as the next game is

to be played against the L.A. Clippers and

so far they seem to be a team to contend with.

Getting every single game during the exhibition

games and losing, and now the two season

games we've played, also losing, it is not a happy

scenario. Dwight Howard missed all but 3 free

throws out of 14...what was he doing in practice

during his back recovery anyway? Seems it might

have been a very good thing for him to have been

practicing free throws...you think? Otherwise it

is very possible we could easily have won our

game last time having lost by only 8 points.

What a big thud that was to have happen to us.

Howard also missed his first Lakers shot badly.

His dunk attempt dancing around the rim before

it fell away only added to the fans frustration.

Lakers fell behind in the closing seconds of the

first half and simply just never did get caught up.

Pau Gasol scored 23 points and added 13 rebounds.

Dwight Howard finished with 19 points on 8-for-12

shooting and grabbed 10 rebounds but failed so

miserably on his free throws that it gives cause

for us to wonder, even when star Dirk Nowitski

was not playing either due to knee surgery.

How now will this play out? Home game tonight

at 7:30 in Staples against the L.A. Clippers.

Ought to be a really great game to see.

Babs Wells