How not to play the Lakers

If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere...

The new look Lakers, they are new look because, unfortunately, their rising star of a young center Andrew Bynum was hurt at the end of last week and will likely miss the rest of the regular season. The new look Lakers are smaller and faster. Pau Gasol has replaced Bynum as the center, moving over from power forward. Lamar Odom, 6'9" and an uber-versatile swingman has replaced Bynum as a starter.

As the Knicks so ably demonstrated last night in Madison Square Garden, what you don't want to do is try to run up and down the court with these guys. Of course, now that Mike D'Antoni is in the Eastern Conference nobody is playing the seven seconds or less basketball on the west coast. Good thing for them. You try to run with them and the Lakers will crush you. Last night in the Garden Gasol had an overlooked 31 points and 14 rebounds. Why was Gasol's big night overlooked?

Because Kobe Bryant went off, and broke the all-time Madison Square Garden scoring record held by the legendary Bernard King. Kobe went for 61 points, to break King's record, set against the hapless Nets, by one. Kobe shot 61% from the field and made 20 out of 20 from the free-throw line. Whoa. By the end even the Knicks home crowd gave him a standing ovation.

Read more here in the New York Times.