OHHHH LAKER FANS!

Game One was an amazing afternoon at Staples. We got downtown early as we haven't been to a game in a year or two and wanted some time to check out the Team LA store and just enjoy the day.

The downtown area is rapidly changing with new buildings being put up [our old parking lot was gone!] and old buildings being renovated to look damn spiffy. They still have a long way to go to get the area to a place where your average person would be cool walking down the street when there's not a game going on but... it's progress.

Staples looked awesome with purple and gold balloons by the entrance way. People were gathering around the Magic Johnson statue to take photos before the game including yours truly. After making our way inside, we stopped at the Team LA Store to check out the latest merch... along with every other member of Laker Nation it seemed. The place was PACKED to the roof with Laker fans already decked out in Laker gear looking to scoop up more. I saw a few things that I wanted but they were sold out in my size. The Missus did pick up a new Laker shirt though.

We made our way towards the escalators to get up to our seats. Upstairs, they had decorated the pillars along the walkway so I stopped to get a word of advice from the Zenmaster. Or maybe I was giving him some sound advice on taking advantage of the Nuggets' porous defense? You will never know!

We made our way through the concourse where they were offering free purple and gold hair dye and facepaint to anyone interested - a table that was JAMMED by the way. I chose not to partake as I had a funeral to attend yesterday and couldn't afford to have purple and gold hair dye not come out... yeah, that's why... not because I'm not a face painter. Let's go with that.

Inside the arena, the place was looking awesome. As mentioned previously, our seats were literally in the last row of the building right next to the retired jerseys and the banners. But Staples was designed to go up and not out so really, I've never had a bad seat for a game there. For $12 a seat, this was a perfect seat for me. The place slowly filled through the morning as the Lakers ran various hype videos on the big screen. One thing to note that I love about Staples is the out-of-town scoreboard also shows scores from other sports so I could keep an eye on the Dodger game during timeouts and the like. The Dodgers should take a cue on their boards because there are a ton of Laker fans in LA who would like to be able to keep an eye on the team during the Dodger games.

Couple shots from shootaround...


You already know most of my in-game thoughts from the Live Blog. Pau was amazing, Kobe did his part but for me, the real MVP of that game was Lamar Odom. He was absolutely everywhere in that game. He was dishing assists, he was scoring for himself, he was pulling down boards, he was playing D, he was hustling for loose balls. The team looked great for most of the game except for a few stints where they got sloppy.

The big controversy of the night I guess was the "DUI" chant. For the record, I didn't participate in it but I found it slightly amusing. The first time it happened, I thought it was funny. The other times? It got less and less amusing. By the end, I felt pretty bad for him though. Laker fans hated it when Kobe drew chants like that during his legal trouble so I would think they would feel some empathy for another player getting heat for his off-the-court actions. And if that's not enough, personally I wouldn't want to piss Carmelo off since he's perfectly capable of dropping a big game on us if he gets motivated. There's already talk on the Laker boards that the Nuggets fans are considering a chant in reply to point out Kobe's past problem... something that I think will end very badly for them but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Most of the in-game photos aren't worth posting since they're from so far away but I did catch some nice videos that I might put up later. They're big files so I don't feel like waiting right now.

After the game, we made our way out to Chick Hearn Drive where the post-game showing of Lakers Live was taking place with a ton of screaming Laker fans. We joined in, possibly getting on camera a couple of times as the camera panned the crowd. James Worthy came out on the outside deck above the crowd and waved a few times to a big cheer. And after a few more photos, we called it a day.

Big first win for the Lakers. Fifteen more to go, Laker fans!