What’s Next? The Lakers "Others"

49 and 10 with 2 turnovers. Toldja. 

Yeah, soak that up J.R. Smith and Kenyon Martin. You too Kobe haters... 

K. Had to get that out of the way, now on to the rest of the blog.  

I’ve been meaning to get this out there, but over the next few days I’m going to be spotlighting the Lakers role players. Wednesday night’s standout performer (besides Mr. Bryant) would have to be DJ MBenga. With Ronny Turiaf out with a sore throat, MBenga came in and played 7 crucial minutes while the foul-plagued Lamar Odom sat out. DJ grabbed 5 boards, had a steal and handed out 3 fouls. The box score doesn’t say much, but he was energetic, brought toughness, got underneath and banged with Camby and Martin, and did about as much as one could possibly do to impress in 7 minutes of work.  

And that’s what it’s going to take for the Lakers, all of them, if they want to make a push for a championship this year. Take note Lakers. You know in baseball how the players get to choose the song they want to play before they get up to the plate, I'v got the perfect one for Mbenga. It's off Lil Wayne's Tha Carter album... "Go DJ. That's my DJ." 

But back to the game, with Odom in foul trouble, the other top performers were the Lakers small/power forward combo of Luke Walton and Vladimir Radmanovic.

Vlad Rad’s been cold this series (shooting under 40 percent), but like I mentioned earlier in this blog, he’s been getting more burn because he’s making other things happen. He has 8 assists in the two games to only a single turnover. Plus he’s still an outside threat, and once he finds his stroke (I’m predicting it will be tomorrow night in Denver), the Nuggets are going to have even more problems on their hands.

And then there’s Luuuuuuuuke. I wrote about how he might not have a place in the Lakers future despite his long term contract, but Luke’s really stepped up his play since the playoffs started (maybe he’s just a playoff performer a la Robert Horry…).

In truth, a great deal of his success can be attributed to the fact that in game one he was being guarded by Anthony Carter, but his contributions can’t be overlooked (17 points, 5 assists, 5.5 rebounds on 68 percent shooting). The difference in his game is the lack of that “hesitation” that has seemed to plague his entire professional career. When he gets the ball, he’s immediately making decisions, whether he’s acting on basketball instinct or what, it’s made him a lot better of a player. When he gets the ball, he’s firing. When there’s a seam in the defense he’s driving.

This confidence is what Lakers fans saw two years ago when Luke put together that 11, 4, 5 season. And with his confidence, he’s quietly murdering the Nugs too.

Both Luke and Vlad Rad (moreso Luke) have done a pretty nice job on Carmelo Anthony as well. They’ve limited him to 41 percent shooting and 3 turnovers per contest. In fact, if you plop their combined numbers next to each other the matchup might actually favor the Lakers.

Melo:  26 ppg, 2 apg, 8.5 rpg, 3 TO, 41 percent 
RaWa: 22 ppg, 9 apg, 8 rpg, 3 TO,  52 percent

Look for Melo to take off in Denver and put this matchup back into the proper perspective. But as awesome as Pau and Kobe were in the first two games, a lot of the Lakers success has come from the SF position.

Tomorrow, spotlighting Sasha and Farmar, the Lakers’ “other backcourt.”