Basketball from a fan perspective
Finally
The
Lakers won Game Two over the Rockets 117-109, naturally LeBron James and
Anthony Davis led the way but wait there is more. The Lakers shot nearly 57% from the floor for
the game and the bench showed up and showed out. We continue to hear those questioning the
Lakers reserves. Markieff Morris led the
way for the reserve crew with 16 points followed by Kyle Kuzma with 13, there
was a Rajon Rondo sighting.
The
veteran point guard scored 10 points and was quite effective distributing the
ball to teammates for 9 assists and came up with 5 steals. This series is nowhere close to complete, the
Lakers will face these same tough Rockets tonight. Laker Nation can breathe a sigh of relief, finally
we won a game after our Game One loss.
Oh, by the way Anthony Davis scored 34 points along with 10 rebounds, as
for LeBron it was 28 points 11 rebounds and 9 assists one short of a triple
double.
Five years
I
believe Kai Sotto’s name might have first popped up in Words eye view well over
a year ago. At that time, he was playing
basketball at home in the Philippines.
More recently we reported Sotto had arrived on these shores and began
play at the Skill Factory in Atlanta. It
was reported he wanted to develop his skills to eventually play in the
NBA. Since then he’s made additional
news, the first bit was the announcement he was headed to the G-League rather
than college.
While
preparing for the season he indicated a five-year timetable to begin play in
the NBA. Since he’s only 18 years old he
would be slightly older than most college athletes who spend four years in
school. Sotto is 7-foot 2-inch and
weighs 245 pounds, the youthful Big Man indicates he is modeling his game after
long-time Spurs forward Tim Duncan. If
Sotto progresses at the rate many hope he could be in an NBA jersey sooner rather
than later.
Characters
I have
often expressed the belief basketball like other sports suffers in one area,
there are no longer any characters in the game.
Characters like the late Darryl Dawkins a.k.a. Chocolate Thunder, Shaq
the Big Aristotle, and the late Jerry Tarkanian former UNLV coach. One of those characters often mentioned was
Metta World Peace formerly known as Ron Artest.
Speaking
on the NBA Bubble, he said: “I say I average 26 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists,
and locking down someone really bad.
Yikes. No homecourt advantage
means you’re A- - is mine. LOL” Those of us who remember MWP might dispute his
scoring total, the defense is certainly plausible for him. There is no bravado in his statement MWP was
a lock down defender when he played, at the end of the game you knew who defended
you.
“I’m from Missouri you’ve got to show me”
Rick
Pitino had a solid record until 2017, that was the year the veteran coach was
fired by Louisville. He claimed no
knowledge of the improprieties of an assistant coach however the old standby,
“Lack of institutional control’” was a key.
Pitino coached in Greece for a few years and in March 2020 Iona announce
his hiring as head coach.
