Kobe vs LeBron: The Battle of the Hideous Hairlines

Welcome to the retro-diary of last nights Lakers-Heat game! This lockout-shortened season has given us many horrible basketball games. It’s been painful to watch these teams grind out 80 points every night while the folks at ESPN pretend that nothing’s wrong and move us from one pitiful game to the next. This is the first game I’ve been excited for all season. Let’s hope it doesn’t disappoint.

8:00: TNT opens the telecast with a Rise Against song. Bad start.

8:05: Shaq talks about his problems playing with Penny Hardaway and Kobe.  His insight is good, but his monotone mumbling makes the TNT crew decidedly less fun. We’ll add TNT to the list of teams whose chemistry Shaq has fucked up.

8:15: Steve Kerr and Marv Albert go through the announcer babbling routine. Cut the foreplay. I wanna watch some hoops.

8:17: Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Niggas in Paris plays in the background. I’d like to take a moment to point out how awesome that song is. Two rich narcissists decided to celebrate themselves by making a song about having money and being awesome. And they’ve lots more money from their song about being awesome and having money. It’s brilliant.

8:18: Tip-off. The Lakers are wearing their gold home unis so that the Heat can debut some heinous all black new jerseys. God those uniforms suck.

8:19: Kobe wastes no time jacking up his first shot. The over/under on his shot attempts tonight: 206.5. I’m taking the over.

8:23: LeBron forces up an awful 22 footer. Things uglier than LeBron’s jumper: LeBron’s hairline, the Heat’s new unis, and Snookie.

8:26: Our first Craig Sager sighting. (Reaches for remote.)

8:29: Kobe is 0/4.

8:30: Bosh completes a tough lay up with the foul. Starts pounding his chest and screaming, and then blatantly drools. The moment I take him seriously he screws t up.

8:35: LeBron iso against Kobe. A fantastic spin move and reverse lay up. He missed, but still.

8:36: Metta World Peace checks in.

8:36: Metta World Peace bricks a 3 point attempt.

8:38: Josh McRoberts elbows LeBron in the face. This will be his only contribution to the Lakers in this game.

8:40: Eddy Curry! (That sound you just heard was Knicks fans’ collective cursing.)

9:05: Derek Fisher airball. The CSI Miami crew is on their way to the Lakers bench to investigate the dead corpses of Derek Fisher and the artist formerly known as Ron Artest.

9:10: Commercial for the new movie Haywire.  Gina Carano stars in it. She’s hot, stars in movies, and is good at kicking peoples asses. Not even Kobe would cheat on her.

9:12: Joel Anthony gets called for an offensive foul. He can’t even set picks well.

9:18: Shane Battier hits a 3 and then is leveled by an inexplicable cheap shot from Matt Barnes.  Matt Barnes continues to be an insufferable dick.

9:22: Another Craig Sager sighting. Another momentary channel change by me.

9:27 Halftime. Kenny debuts his 17 year old daughter’s new music video. His unrestrained glee quickly turns to horror as she steps out in short shorts and high heels. The music sucks something awful, but it’s a nice moment anyway.

9:37: Shaq stereotypes Chinese culture, thus insulting billions of people. Not me, I don’t care. But it’s still worth mentioning.

9:42: LeBron chases down Matt Barnes and swats his lay up. It’s nice to watch bad things happen to Barnes.

9:46: LeBron posts up and finishes with a lefty hook shot. It’s good to see LeBron post up instead of jacking up bad jumpers. And hey, it only took eight years!

9:47: Steve Kerr calls Pau Gasol a “good defender.”  I had to rewind my DVR just to make sure I heard that right.

9:49: Matt Barnes flops then gets called for a foul. The basketball Gods continue to punish him for a career of douchery.

9:51: Back-to-back jumpers from LeBron. LeBron is a front-runner and a streak shooter. He’s unstoppable when his team is ahead and he hits a couple shots. It’s completely baffling that he can’t do this consistently.

9:52: Kobe scores in response. It’s not to late for him to go into Mamba-Mode and make this game competitive.

9:54: Mario Chalmers dribbles down the clock then goes 1 on 4 vs. the Lakers’ defense. I’ll let you guess how that turned out.

The worst part about that play? Erik Spoelstra called it from the sidelines. He actually called for LeBron and Bosh to clear out for Chalmers. That Erik Spoelstra coaches LeBron and Wade is every bit as infuriating as Sasha Vujacic being married to Maria Sharapova.

10:01: Mike Miller got shot and is rolling around on the ground, but he’s ok.

At the end of the 3^rd quarter the score is Heat 77 – Lakers 66. However no Lakers fan is concerned because they all watched the Finals. If anyone can choke a lead, it’s the Heat.

10:12: Beautiful baseline fadeaway from LeBron. His shoot his crooked and ugly and nasty, but when he’s on he is ON.

10:14: Nice play by Eddy Curry on a tip in. I included this so that I could the first writer in years to write “nice play by Eddy Curry.” By the way, he’s still fat. I don’t care what the announcers say. A professional basketball player should never look like that.

10:19: LeBron almost airballs a free throw. He’s shooting 72% on his free throws this year. Inexcusable. Talking heads would call that a “hole” in his game, but I don’t agree with that. More like an Eddy Curry sized fucking crater.

10:28: LeBron airballs a god awful fadeaway from the corner. Never mind that bit about him posting up. Is it possible that we’ll get a LeBrick sighting tonight?

10:32: Kobe accidentally banks in a 3. Those should count.

10:33: This needs to be pointed out: Lakers score five quick points and cut the lead to 10. Suddenly they have the momentum and a comeback is possible. What does LeBron do? Defer to Chamlers. Sigh.

10:34: LeBron makes up for it by making a nice runner in the lane. It doesn’t count as closing if you’re already up by double-digits, but still.

Final Score 98-87 Heat. Not much to take away from this one, other than that the Lakers suck and Eddy Curry is still fat. Kobe is pissed about this one. He stormed off the court without shaking hands or even acknowledging Wade or LeBron. We know what happens when the Mamba is mad. Women of South Beach, be aware.