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If evidence is needed that Steve Blake's second campaign with the Lakers bested his first, one need only take a trip down "2011 Exit Interview Memory Lane." The man spoke for less than three minutes, and much of that time was filled by awkward silence. Horribly, horribly awkward silence. There are only so many ways you can ask a prideful dude not inherently chatty to begin with about his struggles in the triangle before the whole thing falls to pot. This year, Blake talked nearly 10 minutes, indicative of a season still plagued by a fair amount of lows, but capped with a nice regular season finish and some key postseason buckets.

"Over time, you get more comfortable with your teammates and they know more about you," explained Blake about gradually discovering his rhythm. "You know more about them. You kind of figure each other out. For me, it was definitely much more comfortable throughout this whole season and the playoffs."

As for why it took Blake a while to getting rolling this season, he couldn't necessarily put a finger on why.

"I think during the season some moments where you're just not playing your best basketball. But you push through it and continue to work on the things you might not doing well and you get back on track. I think for the most part, I got to a good place where I felt good and felt like I was playing pretty well."

Not just playing well, but often outplaying Ramon Sessions, imported as a theoretical answer to fill a long-time void moving forward. Sessions got off to a white-hot start, but cooled as the season continued, then appeared overwhelmed by the playoffs, where he was often outplayed by Blake. I'm guessing -- and it's purely a guess -- Sessions will exercise his player option, but if he decided to test free agency, the Terp could find himself as a potential starter. And even if Ramon returns, a legitimate argument could be made the reserves (and Sessions himself) were better served with him among them. Either way, however, Blake doesn't particularly care what role he plays, as long as it's on a winning team.

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For any NBA rookie, the inaugural season is a learning experience, but for Darius Morris, this was truly the case. Without the benefit of much playing time (just 169 total minutes over 19 games), the L.A. native wasn't left with much to do beyond gain an education. Thus, he made the most of a campaign spent primarily on the inactive roster, as he explained Wednesday in El Segundo.

Morris learned while observing opposing point guards from the bench, paying close attention to the "little tricks" in the back pockets of folks like Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook and Tony Parker. He learned from Kobe Bryant and Metta World Peace, the former with whom he forged an additionally strong friendship and the latter a self-appointed mentor. He learned what it took to win a lot of games at the NBA level.

But perhaps most importantly, he learned how to "stay ready," a refrain constantly repeated by players out of the rotation.

"As young players, we kind of embraced that, because you see how quickly things can happen, explained Morris. "I wasn't even dressing and active, and then Steve Blake goes down, I'm thrown into the fire. That right there. Everyone has their little moments. Or Dev (Ebanks), not being in the rotation and Kobe goes out. You would never expect it... It's just something you've got to do. This is your career. You are getting paid to stay ready and not have any excuses."

For his willingness to accept that and other challenges, Mike Brown praised the rookie during his exit interview for growth the coach witnessed between December and April.

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For the second straight season, the Los Angeles Lakers have been bounced in the second round of the NBA playoffs. Not cause for panic in many markets, but in Los Angeles, where expectations are always stratospheric and Kobe Bryant is far closer to the end than the beginning of his career, it's enough to sound the doomsday horn. The end of a season is (almost) always a disappointing time, but usually comes with a tinge of wait-'til-next-year optimism. To that end, while the goal is not to add insult to Thunder-induced injury, people deserve candor:

I have no idea how the Lakers quickly return to a championship level.

Not to say I don't know what they need -- the needs are pretty apparent, and not a whole lot different than the ones from last offseason -- just that I don't know how they get it. Change, likely significant, must come, but unfortunately while the Lakers may be rich in the literal sense, as it relates to assets available to reconstruct a team, they're relative paupers:

• The Lakers lack young prospects not already integral to the team's success, have no quality draft picks, or easily moved talent bringing comparable talent in return.
• Well over the salary-cap and luxury-tax thresholds, the Lakers have limited tools -- a mini mid-level exemption worth a little more than $3 million, basically -- available in a market thin on quality unrestricted free agents. (Most restricted FA's won't be an option, because L.A. can't offer a contract large enough to dissuade a rights-holding team from matching.)
• After next season, the CBA's new SuperTax! kicks in, which at current levels could cost the Lakers tens of millions of dollars.

Good players cost money. The Lakers need more of them at a time when the prevailing pressure is to bring payroll down not up, or at the very least have a rock-solid plan to do so in the very near future.

Enjoy the summer, Mitch Kupchak and Jim Buss!

Having spent years kicking the can down the road in an effort to build a winner, for which management should be applauded, the box in which the Lakers placed themselves in the process has grown incredibly tight. They're still a good team, but one that just lost to a better team. No shame in that, except the standards in L.A. don't tolerate this sort of thing for very long. Moreover, the Lakers are on the way down, while the competition around them is rising. Oklahoma City is a juggernaut. Memphis, despite the early exit from the postseason, is a team with upside, as are the Clippers. A healthy Denver team is a threat. They're feeling good about the future in Utah, too, and is there any reason to believe San Antonio won't again be awesome next year?

This is the context of what could very well be a transformative, challenging and potentially fascinating offseason.

Here are eight questions facing the Lakers' front office as the summer rolls on ...

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This episode was filmed before Game 3, the first solid postseason showing for Ramon Sessions (12 points, 4 assists) in quite some time. All in all, the young point guard has underwhelmed in his first playoffs, sparking legitimate concern about his future with the Lakers. Along with Arash Markazi, we discuss why Sessions has struggled and his fit moving forward.

The Lakers got off to a great start, but from there Friday's game turned into a slugfest. In the end, though, they came out on top, effectively saving the season and giving them a chance to knot up the series Saturday night.

We broke it all down on Lakers Late Night with special guests Arash Markazi and Dave McMenamin!



Click below for all the postgame moving pictures, from Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant, Mike Brown, Andrew Bynum, Ramon Sessions, and Steve Blake.

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There is a popular saying that a series doesn't really begin until the home team loses. History, however, says that when the home team holds serve in the first two games, the series is over. Courtesy of ESPN Stats & Information, teams up 2-0 have won 94.2 percent of any series. Even the Lakers, among the most successful franchises in sports history, have only won 10.5 percent (2-of-19) after falling into this hole. The last successful bucking of the odds required a miracle shot from Derek Fisher (ironically now playing for the squad looking to eliminate the Lakers). That's what ultimately made the inability to close out Game 2 even more painful. A split in Oklahoma wouldn't have put the Lakers in the driver's seat, but an upset at least would have felt somewhat feasible. Instead, a battle uphill from the outset has taken on the feel of K2.

For more thoughts on Game 3, we conducted an instant-message exchange with Royce Young from the True Hoop network's Daily Thunder blog. Below is the transcript.

Andy Kamenetzky: As much as Game 2 was about the Lakers' failure to execute down the stretch, it was also reflective of the Thunder not giving up and remaining opportunistic. How characteristic is that of their nature?

Royce Young: Very. Game 2 Wednesday was extremely similar to Game 1 against Dallas in which OKC came back from a seven-point deficit with a few minutes remaining, capped by a Kevin Durant game winner. The Thunder have made a habit out of those types of wins. They feel like as long as they have time on the clock, they're alive. Which they should, because at any moment Durant, Russell Westbrook or James Harden can go on a burst and get them back in a game.

From the other side, is it like the Lakers to let a lead slip like that?

AK: Unfortunately, yes. Not necessarily at the end of a game, because the Lakers were 10-4 this season in games decided by three points or fewer. But a loss of focus is always a threat to plague them at any moment. All season, this team has suffered inopportune and self-induced lapses. Sometimes, they've resulted in losses. Other times, wins became more complicated than necessary. But either way, the Lakers are a team of bad habits, which makes slippage in the last two minutes not necessarily stunning.

But full disclosure, I was jaw-dropped by this. I just kept staring at the TV with this far-gone look on my face, like Private Pyle during his last scenes in "Full Metal Jacket."

RY: Allow me to be honest, as well: I had given up on the Thunder after Bynum's hook shot went down to make it seven. I just didn't see a way back, not with the way they were executing offensively.

AK: Speaking of execution, you've mentioned before the Thunder's periodic tendencies to go iso-happy and bog the entire offense. Wednesday night felt like one of those nights. Do you agree, and if so, to your eye, what caused it?

RY: I'm not entirely sure the Thunder played all that differently than they did in Game 1, but two things stifled the offense: The pace favored the Lakers, and the shots didn't fall with great regularity. Durant had attempted only eight shots entering the fourth quarter, instead choosing to kick out off his drives. The Lakers adjusted well on Westbrook and forced him into a poor shooting night. And the bailout guy, Harden, wasn't able to get going. That's where that ugly, ugly offense can come from. It's a strange thing, since they're so wildly talented on that end. But sometimes, it just doesn't work. But the Lakers deserve a lot of credit for that.

Brian Kamenetzky: I thought the Lakers' adjustments in the pick-and-roll, with the aggressive trapping and activity from the bigs, frustrated OKC. Coverages were more proactive and consistent, a big change from Game 1. Combine that with the work they did limiting the Thunder's transition opportunities, and it seemed like OKC was frustrated.

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Sometimes with a night's rest, the dawn of a new morning, and the opportunity for some fresh perspective, in the rear view mirror a game can look a little different.

Sometimes.





Game 2 Wednesday in Oklahoma City doesn't qualify. As we stepped into the studio about 17 hours after those fateful two minutes in the fourth quarter in which the Lakers blew a seven point lead, the sense of what they gave away was just as strong. I'm not going to lie, those hoping to be uplifted by the newest edition of the Land O'Lakers PodKast aren't going to like what you hear. After noting another critical example of poor execution -- Andy and I unwittingly showed up at the office in nearly identical outfits, among the more mockable things a brother writing/radio tandem can do -- we dive into the the big issues ...

• After briefly touching on L.A.'s final play, we get into why the loss in Game 2 was so significant. Yeah, it's nice the Lakers played OKC tight after the Game 1 blowout, but in a playoff series the lesser team can't afford to lose games they ought to win. In the process, we shoot down just about every moral-victory-encouraging-going-forward argument out there. Again, it's fairly depressing, which is why we make sure to drop a little Double Rainbow Guy in there.
• Is there any hope going forward for the Lakers to pull the upset?
• Ramon Sessions. He hasn't played well in the postseason. Why? What can change, and how does his poor playoff run impact his decision whether to become a free agent, and whether the Lakers should re-sign him?
• A quick look at the Clippers vs. San Antonio. We're no more optimistic about the chances of the red, white, and blue.

We're normally pretty chipper folk, but not today. Listen, but be prepared to shed a tear.

So here's the last play from Wednesday's loss (fast forward to about 56 seconds in):



You'll notice (notice again, I'm sure) it was Steve Blake taking the shot, not Kobe Bryant. Any time something like this happens, there will be discussion. Via ESPN Stats and Information, Blake hadn't attempted a game-tying or go-ahead shot in the final 24 seconds of a postseason games since joining the Lakers, and has only one in his career (with Portland in '09, a miss). At the same time, S and I provides this nugget as well:

While conventional wisdom says Kobe Bryant should've had the ball in his hands for the Lakers' final shot instead of Steve Blake, the stats say it was the right decision. Kobe Bryant is 0-for-7 on game-tying and go-ahead shots in the final 10 seconds of playoff games since 2006-07. Meanwhile, his teammates are 4-for-7, including Blake's miss on Wednesday.

Honestly, it's not a stat with heaps of meaning, at least in the implication other players are better suited to take late shots than Kobe. Don't focus on the 4-for-7 part. At least two of those (Ron Artest in Game 5 vs. Phoenix, 2010 and Pau Gasol in Game 6 vs. OKC, 2010) came on ORB/putbacks, as opposed to designed plays or kicks from Kobe. Meanwhile, Bryant's percentage is low mostly because he usually takes very difficult shots in those situations, a different (and totally valid) discussion entirely. The issue relative to the final shot Wednesday isn't whether Bryant is clutch or not, or whether someone else is clutch-er. What matters is shot quality, and if Blake's was as good or better than the one Kobe would have taken had Metta World Peace instead inbounded the ball to him.

Here, I see little room for debate. Assuming the ball even made it to him-- MWP would have had to throw a difficult pass to Bryant over the top of OKC's quick, ball-hawking defense -- it appears Kobe would have caught the ball with only five seconds left and a defender in position to contest. Probably Serge Ibaka on a switch, with Thabo Sefolosha closing fast. He didn't appear to me, as Mike Brown suggested after, "wide open on the backside." Maybe Kobe can create a little space, or has enough time to make a pass out of what almost certainly would have been a tough double team.

It's very difficult to see how either scenario would have produced a higher percentage look than an uncontested corner 3. The idea isn't to get Kobe the ball because he's "supposed" to take the shot, but to get the best shot possible. World Peace's job was to make that happen, and he did. It didn't work out the way the Lakers wanted, but they did get as good a shot as could be hoped.

Wow. Just... wow.

There are losses. There are bad losses. And there are bad losses that carry the sting of 1,000 bees -- all born and raised in Oklahoma, naturally -- working in unison to attack as one. A primo chance to drastically alter the tone of this series went out the window, and the Lakers will have to work overtime to dig themselves out of a hole. And by "overtime," I mean "quite possibly beyond their capabilities." And by "hole," I mean "grave."

On tonight's Lakers Late Night, we broke down the break down over the final two minutes, along with ...

• The magnitude of the wasted opportunity. The Lakers blew a seven point lead with two minutes remaining, fueled by giveaways and mismanaged possessions.
• A rough fourth quarter for Kobe Bryant, who not only turned over the ball in a critical spot with 1:45 remaining, but also missed his final five shots in a 2-of-7 final frame.
• Yet another disappearing act for Ramon Sessions. Two points, no assists, one turnover. He wasn't the only member of the supporting cast coming up short, and along with a lack of outside shooting from the team (2-of-13 from 3-point range) it was too much to overcome, despite a great effort defensively.
• A look ahead to Game 3. Is there any way the Lakers play themselves back into the series?

It was like any of the thousands of practices in which Derek Fisher and Kobe Bryant had gone up against each other since entering the league as rookies with the Lakers in 1996.

But this time, there were 18,203 mostly blue-shirted fans in the stands, Fisher was wearing his Oklahoma City home white uniform and Bryant his purple Lakers road jersey, and the spirit of competition was dampened by the fact Fisher's Thunder were already up by 30 when he matched up with Bryant on defense and got him to miss a turnaround jumper on the baseline.

"It was interesting," Thunder coach Scott Brooks said Tuesday. "I was a little worried for Derek. But (Kobe) did miss the shot."

It wasn't the first time Bryant and Fisher have been opponents. There were those years when Fisher played for Utah and Golden State before coming back to L.A. for rings No. 4 and No. 5. It wasn't even the first time this season they've played each other, as the Lakers and Thunder had two games in the regular season since Fisher was traded from the Lakers in March.

It was the first playoff game, however. Now, Fisher and Bryant find themselves pitted against one another in individual quests for a sixth championship, rather than going for it together.

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Because, you know, a 29-point drubbing by definition means you can never tweak too many things. Yesterday, Brian offered several areas in need of drastic improvement. I thought I'd add my two cents with four more suggestions. (Sadly, we likely still didn't cover everything. But hey, we only had 48 hours between Games 1 and 2, and both needed to sleep a bit.)

1) Get the ball up the court faster to initiate the offense earlier
During the era of "Derek Fisher and Lamar Odom bringing the ball up so Kobe doesn't have to do everything," a turtle with a decent handle might have taken the place of either without anybody noticing. Whether because the directive to slow tempo was taken too literally, or because Fisher's declining speed and LO's generally laid back style, it felt like the court was covered in molasses. Eight second violations were regularly flirted with, and precious time was frittered away over the entire 24 seconds. As a result, someone was often forced to take a bad shot.

Mike Brown arrived in L.A. with the stated goal of getting into sets faster, and with Ramon Sessions eventually in the fold, that objective should have become even easier. However, slow migration end-to-end remains a habit, particularly Monday in Game 1, and it's a habit in need of immediate breaking. I'm not calling for a radically pushed tempo. The Lakers don't have the personnel to live in transition, and getting into a foot race with the Thunder is a losing proposition. This is simply a matter of milking possessions for their maximum opportunities. Any early deep position gained by Andrew Bynum or Pau Gasol gets negated if they're watching the ball handler meander upcourt for 3 seconds while a defender pushes them off a spot. The Thunder's defense is being far too much time to set in general. And should any of Game 1's offensive confusion bleed into Wednesday's proceedings, an extra four or five seconds to sort through the mess could go a long way towards salvaging possessions.

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Lots of talk about the debacle in Game 1 (has "The World Naked Gardening Day Pruning" caught on, yet? I didn't think so.), and looking ahead to tonight's Game 2.

And while there is still a lot of hoops left to play against OKC, more than a few fans are looking forward to the offseason. We take a look at what might be coming, as well.

Here's the link to the transcript.

LOS ANGELES -- Close-out games in a playoff series have a way of turning paupers into princes overnight.

There was the 37-year-old Steve Kerr, playing in his 15th and final season for the San Antonio Spurs when he came off the bench to hit all of his shots in Game 6 of the 2003 Western Conference finals against the Dallas Mavericks, going 4-for-4 on 3-pointers and scoring 12 points, which happened to be the Spurs' margin of victory, 90-78, that night. He didn't even play in Game 5.

There was the 21-year-old Cleveland rookie Daniel Gibson pouring in 31 points, going 7-for-9 from the field and 5-for-5 on 3-pointers, in the Cavs' upset special over the favored Detroit Pistons in Game 6 of the 2007 Eastern Conference finals. He wasn't even drafted in the first round.

Then there was Steve Blake on Saturday, his career arc somewhere in the middle of where Kerr's and Gibson's were when they had their nights as shooting stars, but whose unexpected boost had just as much to do with the outcome of his team's crucial game.

The 32-year-old, in his ninth season, shot the Lakers into the second round, scoring a career-playoff high 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the field and 5-for-6 shooting on 3-pointers in Los Angeles' 96-87 Game 7 win over the Denver Nuggets.

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The Lakers move on after a fairly epic 96-87 win over the Denver Nuggets in Saturday's Game 7 at Staples Center.

Up next, the extremely well rested Oklahoma City Thunder.

On tonight's edition of LLN, we hit on...

• Huge, and hugely redemptive, games for Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol.
• An excellent return from exile for Metta World Peace.
• A very good game for Kobe Bryant, who made Denver pay for double teaming him.
• Steve Blake filling a big void for the Lakers from the perimeter.
• The next series. What kind of odds should the Lakers get against the Thunder?

Click below for more video from Kobe, Bynum, Gasol, Blake and World Peace:

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That the Lakers failed to close out Denver on Tuesday wasn't horrible in and of itself, but the reason for failure certainly was. It's one thing to get outplayed, especially by a quality team desperate to stay alive. Getting outworked, however, is another story. The Lakers' inability to match the Nuggets' energy, intensity and desire was inexcusable, and as Brian noted, costly on a practical level. Still, what's done is done, and now is the time to make lemonade from lemons. The Lakers get two more cracks to wrap this up, but success on the first try equals that much less energy expended before battling the Thunder. The task won't be easy, especially in Denver. But it's doable, assuming the Lakers are willing to focus, execute and work enough.

For more thoughts on Game 6 (Thursday, 7:30 p.m. PT), I had an IM exchange with Kalen Deremo from the True Hoop network's Roundball Mining Company. Below is the transcript.

Andy Kamenetzky: Heading into Game 5, you weren't sure how this inconsistent Nuggets team would react to an elimination scenario. What did you make of the way they played?

Kalen Deremo: Shocked. Well, maybe not shocked, but thoroughly (and pleasantly!) surprised. For years, this team has exited the playoffs in embarrassing fashion. Tuesday, they played with heart, soul and passion. For once it looked like they actually cared about showing pride in the playoffs. What was your reaction?

AK: In the meantime, Denver continues to improve as the series progresses, certainly more than the Lakers.

KD: That performance was probably the Nuggets' best in the playoffs since 2009, when they reached the Western Conference finals. I think no matter what team they were playing, the Nuggets were gonna give it their all. What I want to know is what happened to Pau Gasol? Andrew Bynum and Kobe Bryant have showed up for the most part, but Pau just seems invisible.

AK: In fairness to Pau, he's been asked to facilitate more than score, and his passing has been very effective. Nuggets coach George Karl has even cited Gasol as a weapon hurting them in this respect. However, his rebounding numbers are down a bit from the regular season, problematic in a series where Denver's control of the glass makes or breaks L.A. His defense around the rim has also been erratic. And like Bynum, he was pretty MIA for most of Game 5.

In the meantime, JaVale McGee! Have you ever seen a player improve more over a series?

Kalen: McGee, man, I don't even know what to say. Seeing a 7-footer operate like a champ in the post, seeing his pure physical attributes dominate his counterpart, is a sight to behold. The Nuggets haven't had that type of center since Dikembe Mutombo, although Marcus Camby was nice defensively. Wow, I'm just getting way ahead of myself. Yeah, McGee was just unreal. It's so nice to see his maturation with the Nuggets. The guy has so much talent and potential. Seeing him discover it during a time like this is beautiful for Nuggets fans.

Do you think he could even end up outplaying Bynum two games in a row?

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