NBA: Lake Show in danger of being cancelled
NBA: Lake Show in danger of being cancelled
2010-04-27
The Lakers players were telling anyone that would listen their late season doldrums were nothing to be concerned with, once the playoffs began it would be “go” time and they would take care of business. That has not been the case thus far. After surviving the first two contests in Los Angeles vs. Oklahoma City, the Lakers were turned back soundly on the road in consecutive contests. Now, the defending champs face a pivotal Game 5 contest and oddsmakers at Sportsbook.com list them as 6-point home favorites.
Oddsmakers haven’t been fooled and neither has the public. Los Angeles has a team of mostly self-satisfied players this year, not willing to do what it takes to be great and their visible weakness cannot be masked without all-out effort. A surprisingly low percentage of bettors have actually backed the Lakers to this point.
On the season the Lakers shot 45.6 percent from the field, they have not touched that figure once in the playoffs. Oklahoma City is receiving a great of credit for how they are playing defense against the triangle offense, but the fact is the Lakers players are being outworked in trying to run their offense.
It is of little surprise that L.A. is 13-25 ATS second half of the season watching this kind of effort.
Kobe Bryant is playing a curious role in this series. Undoubtedly he is more injured than what most know. Other than Game 2 when he scored 39 points with his father in the stands, he at times is not even looking to being offensively assertive. He is either trying to get the ball to teammates for them to become more aggressive or he is trying to prove a point by saying “you are either with me or against me” and is disgusted with their lack of performance and is being indignant.
When this has happened in the past Kobe always has an answer, just like this time.
“(Oklahoma City) is a young team that plays hard, that’s playing with house money, so they go in there and let it all hang out,” Bryant said. “It’s a series, it’s a challenge. It’s how playoff basketball should be.” We’ll see he and the Lakers really feel about their situation as they are 13-3 ATS after a loss by 15 points or more.
Sportsbook.com has the Lakers as six-point home favorites with total of 193.5. Los Angeles has won 17 straight games when the series is tied at 2-2 and are 17-5 ATS when tied in a playoff series at any juncture. The Thunder will try to use its growing confidence to pull the upset and have spotted the flaws in Los Angeles and will look to attack once again and are 19-9 ATS as a road underdog this season, losing by less than a point a game (0.9).
This is the late 10:30E conflict on TNT and the Lakers are 11-0 UNDER as a home favorite of 3.5 to 6 points over the last two seasons.
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