Score: HOU 62 LAL 45
Alright welcome in to the first halftime post of the NBA Season of the Lakers' home opener vs. the Houston Rockets and Dwight Howard's return to LA once again. The Rockets head into the half up big 62-45.
The Positives
Kobe Bryant, 16 points, 6-12 shooting. It will take some for Kobe to regain his form in the regular season pace. He struggled early on starting 3-7, but he started shaking off the rust and picking up his game. He's always reliable and he was basically the lone bright spot individual player-wise in this game so far in the midst of the offensive struggles the Lakers are having, which I will address in the negatives.
Rebounding. I was expecting the Rockets to completely out-rebound us considering we don't have that type of big man who can bang in the paint, but surprisingly the rebounding numbers are pretty close. The Rockets just only out-rebound the Lakers 25-21. Boozer had 6 rebounds, Hill had 7 rebounds and they're almost in double figures. Ed Davis would get it going sooner or later, but all three have done a great job boxing out and securing the ball even if they're a bit undersized.
The Negatives
Offensive inefficiency. The Lakers are shooting 36.4%. Lucky enough the Lakers are not taking any unnecessary threes, but there were too many easy shots they could've made. It's obvious Nick Young is absent and we're missing that scoring off the bench to give us an offensive spark. Aside from Kobe's solid game so far, the offensive inefficiency would've been a lot worse. Some of it, credit where it's due, Dwight's defensive presence, but most of it, when he was on the bench, the Lakers couldn't capitalize offensively to exploit the Rockets inside.
Bottom Line
Bottom line is, somebody's going to have to step it up besides Kobe. I'm looking at Jeremy Lin, he's been a non-factor. If Lin can get it going, then that sheds off the scoring load. Also, Carlos Boozer, he has to find a way to score and shed some of that load off too. Defense also has to play better, it started off okay in the 1st quarter, but it got out of hand in the 2nd. Let's see what happens.
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