Lakers Spank the Knicks, Get Their Groove Back by Doing What They do Best: Copy the Other Team's Play Style

The Lakers last night were in-your-face, troublesome, dominating in the paint, and unapologetic; everything we have begun to associate with the NY Knicks this season. This has all been part of the Lakers' success ever since Phil Jackson took over as head coach: their ability to have a chameleon play style. Rather than having a strict playbook, Jackson has the Lakers do everything in their power to copy exactly what the other team does and beat them at their own game. It's the same reason the Lakers easily defeated the Orlando Magic in the Finals two years ago, simply seeing what their opponent had to offer and shoving it back in their faces. The Lakers' defense held Amar'e Stoudamire, the leading candidate for MVP (and rightfully so) to NO field goals in the first quarter and only 1 point. Several technical fouls were called, most of them correctly, but Bynum was unfairly ejected at the start of the 4th quarter off a horrible call by a referee. It's not like it mattered, the Lakers still won by 22 points, their largest victory since beating the Chicago Bulls before Boozer came back from injury.

This 4-game win streak has been welcomed in LA after horrendous during Christmastime. If the Lakers can continue this pace, Matt Barnes might prove to be even more valuable once he gets back from his torn meniscus probably before the playoffs roll around.

In other news, the Miami Heat had a "thrilling" OT win over the Portland Trail Blazers. I put thrilling in quotation marks because of the Heat's 107 points, Lebron, D-Wade, and Bosh scored 96 of them. The only other player to score more than 2 points was James Jones with 5 points. Quite literally, it was just these 3 guys and some guys making lucky shots (Carlos Arroyo was 1-5 in field goals) playing against an entire team and winning. This is precisely the reason the Heat have been unable to win against their biggest competition, the Boston Celtics. The Celtics have long understood how to shut down both Wade and Lebron and it has shown in both of their defeats. The secret to stopping the Heat is simply to only guard the Big Three and pay some degree of attention to their company. The most dangerous part about this is everyone knows now that the easiest way to stop the Heat is Lebron getting injured. Who wants to bet that an unfriendly player known for flagrant fouls will intentionally try to incapacitate Lebron? Not like it will matter though, the Celtics or Magic will easily shut the Heat down come playoffs time to make sure David Stern never gets his Kobe vs Lebron Finals.

UPDATE: Andrew Bynum's 2nd technical foul for allegedly purposely bumping into the referee who gave him a technical for loudly disputing a call was rescinded.