A lot of LeBron, a lot of Kobe, and a lot of bad calls.The Los Angeles Lakers, playing in their 120th straight Christmas day game (Kobe's 46th), were embarassed by the Cleveland Cavaliers -- led by LeBron James.
The Cavs rolled into L.A. with a mission -- to avenge one of their two losses to the defending champion Lakers last year -- while proving that they shouldn't be counted out of the conversation of best in the East.
The Cavs definitely succeeded. It was like they couldn't miss tonight.
It's a funny thing however -- it seems like last year's match up featured LeBron flirting with a triple-double, but having his team get worked.
Today's game proved the opposite. Kobe finished the game with 35 pts, 9 boards, and 8 assists -- but his team got smashed.
The refs were questionable at best. They didn't seem to help either team in particular -- though Lakers fans might disagree. The refs only helped the notion that many of them can be pretty damn pathetic and/or biased.
The fans didn't prove to be too great either. They were taken out of the game early, and took their anger out on the Cavs by throwing multiple objects at them from the stands. That was more embarrassing than the loss.
Funny how spoiled L.A. fans can get rather quickly -- two years ago, you couldn't find a single Laker flag on a car -- but now the Lakers win a championship and aren't allowed to lose to two future Hall of Famers. Hmm.
Lamar Odom joked afterwards with the media about the nonsense of anyone thinking that the Lakers should be worried, which he is right about -- for the most part.
I called a Cavs win this past week because of how poorly the Lakers have been playing against terrible teams. I didn't know the Lakers would get blindsided, but I think they needed this to wake up their defensive abilities -- which are at least top three in the league.
With that said -- the Lakers are 23-5, they're the defending champs, and they don't need to worry about this one game, regardless of who it was against.
Merry Christmas!
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