Alright welcome in to the full recap of tonight's game between the Lakers and the Rockets where the Rockets made Dwight Howard's return to LA a successful as they throttled the already short-handed Lakers 134-108 for their 8th straight victory.
First off it's great to be back after a long layoff for Q-by-Q, halftime, and full recap posts. Of course spent a lot of time watching All-Star weekend, great break, but fun while it lasted. Meanwhile, not so fun for the Lakers' 1st game after the break. Obviously the hype surrounding Dwight's return. He needed something to prove much to the dismay of many Laker fans including myself and credit where it's due, he did a hell of a job, just like he did last season in his return to Orlando since being traded to LA and he's continuing that trend.
Some of the positives this game. I'm serious this game was pretty hard to keep up with, since pretty much the outcome was already set. It's difficult to pick who's the top performer this game in between Wesley Johnson and Kendall Marshall, but I say Wesley Johnson deserves to be the top performer for the Lakers this game. Johnson 24 points, 7 rebounds, on 7-13 shooting. Like I said in my halftime post, he's been playing a lot better. Aside from the Chicago game, he's put up decent double figure numbers dating back on the road against Minnesota, Feb 4, Johnson has been averaging 16.6 PPG shooting around 52% down the field (I checked the stats, thank you very much). In a previous recap, I said Johnson is athletically gifted, the only thing he needs is confidence and the last few games, he's been confident alright. Anyway, Kendall Marshall, 20 points and 16 assists. Marshall wasn't doing all that well this until garbage time, shooting wise, but he's been constant all season long tallying up double-figure assist numbers. The Houston D respected his game and they've find ways to contain him resulting in 4 turnovers committed by Marshall. Jodie Meeks aside from his highlight play early in the 1st, he didn't do much too until garbage time, so his return game is somewhere in the border.
Onto the negatives this game, again it's like I'm beating a dead horse, the turnovers. Literally almost 20 turnovers this game, sure Houston had their share in committing boneheaded turnovers, but the Lakers committed too much, too many that they pretty much sealed their own outcome early. Nothing I can else say. Another negative, Chris Kaman. Obviously, Dwight Howard was having his way against Kaman and I'm sure Dwight liked it. After making his first shot, Kaman started missing 4 consecutive shots including an air ball. The Lakers' interior defense was getting abused all game long and it was evident in this rout.
For a little bonus in this full recap, I'm going to talk about the Steve Blake trade. Obviously the trade deadline is tomorrow at 12:00 PM Pacific time, so GMs around the NBA are shopping around like it's Christmas Eve. So the Lakers traded Steve Blake to the Golden State Warriors for Kent Bazemore and Marshon Brooks. It's tough to see Blake go because the guy was really a tough, hard-nosed competitor. His tenure in LA was pretty rocky considering he was so lost in Phil Jackson's triangle and in Mike Brown's "I have no idea what I'm doing" offense until he found his groove back under D'Antoni's system. But this trade, it's obvious the Lakers needed to get younger. Not so sure about Bazemore, I'm sure he's just throw-away piece in the deal, but for Marshon Brooks, like I said, it's a way for the Lakers to get younger. Brooks has fallen off since his rookie year in the Nets' final season in New Jersey and he's another 1st round cast off. This season is audition season and we'll see if Brooks can adjust the sail of his pro career with the Lakers. Steve Blake to the Warriors obviously helps improve the Dubs' bench. They have a solid lineup in the Splash Bros (Curry and Thompson), Iggy, Lee, and Bogut, but what has derailed them this season is lack of bench play and Blake can provide decent numbers off the bench for them, not to mention, they traded for Jordan Crawford early in the season to provide more scoring off the bench. With the Blake trade, it adds more depth in the back court for the Dubs and improves their bench play just a little bit, not a lot.
Overall, thanks for reading the full recap. The Lakers got a rivalry game against the Celtics on Friday. Both made the finals, 4 years ago and they're on the same path rebuilding to reclaim glory in their respective franchises. Hard to believe that. I'll see you guys on Friday for that game. It feels good to be back.
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