The Lakers and Rockets Are Starting To Dislike Each Other

Tonight in Los Angeles, order was restored. Kobe Bryant came out like a house on fire, and after the first quarter, it was all Lakers, 39-25, and we looked well on our way to the home team shaking off all rust and exerting their will.

And then the second quarter started, and the Rockets showed how things were going to be very different.

With a 16-point turnaround engineered by Ron Artest and the bench, the visitors shook off the first quarter blitz and foul trouble on Yao Ming to take a lead. More importantly, they showed the Lakers bench to be a weakness, especially when it came to converting from distance with a hand in their face. The game turned around so much, Testy was chatting up Jack Nicholson and Coach Philip was actually involved. I'm not a Laker Fan or a Rocket Fan, but hearing the dead LA crowd and seeing Coach Philip upset is, I confess, starting to sway me towards the road team. And I'm starting to suspect that TNT feels the same way, in that they were giving love to Testy's barber. (No, seriously.) It was tied at the half at 57.

In the third, the Lakers put Ming back on the banch with his fourth, Bryant got it going again, and the Lakers were able to push it back to a double-digit lead behind Lamar Odom controlling the boards. Then it got stupid chippy, with Derek Fisher clocking Luis Scola in the face a play after Scola and Luke Walton had beef, and honestly, Fisher would have gotten five minutes and an ejection in the NHL, let alone in a game where the players don't wear pads. It was so bad, even the refs got the call right with an ejection. See it for yourself here.



And that, more than anything else, tells you all that you need to know about this series. The Lakers don't go to this level of dirt unless they are feeling well and truly threatened, and with bench guys like Carl Landry (21 points and 10 boards on 7 of 9 shooting, in just 23 minutes) giving the road team big benefit, you can see how comfortable the road team feels in this matchup. So long as the Lake Show is getting next to nothing from Sasha Vujacic, and the Rockets are getting hyper-effective play from Testy (tonight he was 8 of 14 for 25 points), they are going to be a very, very tough out...

But only if they don't implode from their own damn selves. Reserve Von Wafer got tossed for arguing with coach Rick Adelman, and when you say things that Ron Artest's coach can't abide, you must be kind of special. Then, Testy got tossed his own damn self with 6:57 left, after Artest got called for a foul after Bryant got away with an elbow to the throat. After getting no satisfaction from the refs, Testy got into it with Bryant, and with the refs on amber alert after the Fisher ejection, a quick-trigger toss of the most infamous player in the NBA wasn't all that surprising.

It also was pretty terrible, flow-free basketball, which is just what happens when the refs get scared these days. When actual basketball happened in the fourth, the Lakers were able to get enough on the break, especially form Houston turnovers, to finish out the win. That's how Lakers will win this series; with Team Rocket turnovers, because every Houston offensive option is prone to do bad things under good on-the-ball pressure, and the Rockets aren't explosive enough on offense to overcome late deficits.

But great pressure and third quarter leads are not the kind of thing that an erratic and thin defensive team does on the road, and that more than adequately describes this Lakers team now. The Rockets have home court advantage now, and if the refs ever let the teams play again, this one's going long, nasty, and good. Especially if Bryant loses his temper with the refs, the Rockets, or his teammates. There's all kinds of ticking time bombs in this series, on both sides.