Fifth Quarter: Lakers vs Heat (1/19/12)

To start off, I just want to say that I'll do my best to be unbiased even though it might means I have to trash my Lakers.

The two leading scorers in the league met Thursday when Kobe Bryant's Lakers traveled to South Beach to take on LeBron James' Heat. Widely anticipated, the game was being blown up as a one-on-one contest. LeBron vs Kobe. The final score: Heat 98, Lakers 87. The final score was a far cry from what it should have been. The Heat just absolutely dominated this game. It started off pretty close until Bynum picked up 2 early fouls and had to go out. After that the Heat took over and just never looked back. LeBron was absolutely dominant. A complete stat stuffer. He outplayed Kobe, and, unless Kobe gets out of this recent slump he's been in (15/43 in the last 2), the Lakers are in trouble. LeBron had 31 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, 4 steals, 3 blocks. Wow. Kobe ended up with 24 but did not deserve it. The Heat deserved this win, and the Heat went on to get this win.

Starting with the Lakers:

Positives: 

• Played the Heat close until Bynum went out
• Metta World Peace seemed to get his stroke back, hitting two threes, equaling his total for the year...Still shooting good from the line as a team
• Troy Murphy scored 8 points on 4 for 4 shooting
• Kobe started getting everybody involved when he was doubled (especially Murph)
• Gasol had 26 to lead them (great shooting night too 11-19)
• Never gave up, and Kobe finally broke out of his shooting slump in the last 2 minutes (single handedly cut the lead from 15 to 10 in about ten seconds) hopefully that translates to the Magic game

Negatives: The whole game (not really, but it was bad). For real though, negatives: 

• Bynum took 2 early fouls because he wanted the blocks too much
• There were still times when you could still see the confusion from a coaching change
• There were times when they were totally out of sync
• They shot 6-20 from 3
• Got out rebounded
• Mike Brown needed to figure out how to run the offense when they played such good D on Kobe
• Kobe started off cold again
• They lost

Now the Heat:

Positives:

• Outrebounded the Lakers
• Shot 50% from the 3-point line
• Eddy Curry got in and actually played well
• Improved to 5-0 without DWade
• 4 players scored in double figures
• Overall just outplayed the Lakers, in almost every aspect of the game

Negatives: 

• Let the Lakers make a run at the end, and started to get into foul trouble. That's really it.

-Gunner