A great stretch for the Lakers, capped by a day of basketball for me.

First I went to see the Timberwolves visit the Knicks at 1pm. I'll leave the in-depth analysis to the T'Wolves blogger I went with, but it was a lot of fun.

I was partially scoping out Madison Square Garden for the Lakers/Knicks game I'm attending on Jan 31st. Just like Staples, MSG does not allow cameras. Today I would've been fine with one in my pocket, I'm still deciding whether or not to try.

After that, there were several exhibition games played on NBA Live 2004.

And finally, a short appetizer of Pistons at Grizzlies followed by THE MAIN EVENT.

Yes, the again overhyped Miami vs. Los Angeles. That's right, Heat at Lakers, Shaq at Kobe, Payton at Lamar, Riley at Phil, etc etc etc.

And it was a great game. I'm starting to get a feel for how this team works. Kobe scores and draws the attention. Smush and Lamar also score significantly often, creating their own shot and feeding Kwame and Mihm (who also post up on occaision). George and Luke score in the second unit, and go in for a spark when the first team loses heart. Cook and Bynum spell the big guys and try to be efficient, while Sasha fills in for the guards (generally guarding the backup PG on the other team).

When it works, it works. I think the key is that the three guys who play the most- Kobe, Lamar and Smush- are very strong defensively and seemingly can guard anybody who's hot (certainly between them somebody can- even Lamar on Shaq worked out okay briefly). Do the stats back up that observation?

Well, after staring at 82games for a while, I think it's too late to back it up with numbers, but that's how I feel. Let's see how it goes in Sacramento and Phoenix this week.

previous entry: