Preseason: Lakers -vs- Raptors - 10/19

Quick preview
Saturday night at STAPLES Center, the Lakers destroyed Regal F.C. Barcelona down low, amassing an absurd 74 points in the paint thanks to a huge size mismatch featuring Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, Chris Mihm and even D.J. Mbenga (not to mention some terrific transition offense). The four posts combined for 42 points and 16 boards while ceding just 28 points in the paint to visitors from Spain.

Operating on the block wont be so easy on Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. in Los Angeles, as the visiting Toronto Raptors boast one of the NBAs few four-five combos - in Chris Bosh and Jermaine ONeal - that can challenge that of the defending Western Conference Champs.

Pregame
I promise that I did a seven-minute pregame interview with Jordan Farmar and Brandon Heath to detail how different players prepare on game day, but the new mic we hooked up to the recorder is still in the well lets call it the testing stage. So thats blown. Instead of trying to paraphrase, Ill save that for another game. Sorry, thats no fun.

First Quarter
What is fun is a watching the Lakers play at STAPLES on consecutive evenings. Here are your starting matchups for tonight:

C: Andrew Bynum - Jermaine ONeal
PF: Pau Gasol - Chris Bosh
SF: Vladimir Radmanovic - Joey Graham
SG: Kobe Bryant - Brother of Candace Parker
PG: Derek Fisher - Jose Calderon

By the way, thats no insult to Anthony Parker, because his sister can seriously hoop (even though I prefer Candice Wiggins). However, if he took it as an insult, he scored Torontos first five points as an answer. L.A. got on the board promptly as Gasol and Bynum made four straight free throws and Fish canned a three. Kobe, who swiped six balls last night, took only three minutes to make his first robbery tonight, and streaked up floor to a baseline fadeaway to make it 9-7 Lakers. Kobes going to have the authorities after him if this blatant, unapologetic thievery continues.

Its been a relative track meet thus far, with L.A. needing just six minutes to score 17 points, a pace that would result in 144 points for the evening. The signature play of the stretch for Lakers fans should have been the gorgeous look inside from Gasol to a somewhat-unsuspecting Bynum, who nonetheless corralled the pass before getting blasted by Graham. Great look.

As Kobe scored his seventh point on a dunk after another steal to put L.A. up 23-11, I noticed something nearly as important For anyone who watches The Office, I think I see Steve Merchant - one of the original creators of the BBC version staring co-creator Ricky Gervais - sitting next to trainer Gary Vitti by the Laker bench. He is categorically, 100-percent hilarious, and if I get a chance Ill head down to interview him at halftime.

Back-to-back great Laker plays on each side of the ball: first came a tough alley-oop pass from Vlad-Rad and a fabulous catch and dunk from Bynum; second a newly checked in Lamar Odom swat of ONeal in the lane. Im discussing with Ty how good the Lakers look on both sides of the floor. Defensively, its because of length and activity, and on offense, theres been terrific ball movement. These can certainly be taken as good signs, even in the preseason, and collectively we saw a 29-20 first quarter edge as a result.

Bryant continued his hot shooting from last night by hitting 3-of-4 from the field and free throw line, while Bynum was good for seven points and three boards, not to mention five from Fish and four from Trevor Ariza. Toronto got seven from Parker and four each from ONeal and Bosh, plus four assists from Calderon, last seasons leader in assist-to-turnover ratio and Spanish teammate of Gasol.

Want to know a cool name? How about Roko Ukic? Am I wrong? Ukic is a 23-year-old Croatian who played for Spanish champion TAU Ceramica with Calderon a few years back and Lottomatica Roma last season; Toronto inked him to a three-year deal in the offseason.

This makes Ty and I think of some other elite NBA names: God Shammgod (one year in the league with Washington in 1997-98); Jamario Moon; Mickael Gelabale; Rudy Gay; Marcin Gortat (hes a real person, a post for the Magic); Richard Hendrix (just for the unnecessary x); Serge Ibaka (dangerous sounding, no?); Zydrunas Ilgauskas (OK, some of these are just different foreign names); Kosta Koufos; David Lee (just kidding); Josh McRoberts; Nene; Zaza Pachulia (captain of this team); Ime Udoka.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Preseason:
• Lakers
• -vs-
• Raptors
• 10/19

[kenside34]

yes they are. Looking like champs

[smilealexlovesu]

Were gonna own this season!!

[carlosserraalco]

sweet finger roll by odom 2:20

[FanLakers2]

Loved the allop tat farmar did for ariza! Sick!

[yannic121]

lol because raptors suck, im from brampton and i think they suck lakers all the way back 2 back

[lovi23]

wtf is this, it only showed Lakers rofl

why didnt you put any of the raptor plays, like joey graham posterizing radmonovic

[Delucci77]

raptors are soo gay

[teamboss11]

this vid makes it look like the raps had 50 turnovers

[WonderBread006]

0:44

[lakerShow]

cant wait for this season to start!

[z4ng3tsu1ch1g0]

whats up with kobe's forearm band and not that white sleeve/home court he usualy wears?probably wanted to be the old kobe that wears that band lol