Notes And Quotes – NBA Finals Game One

“I just want it so bad, that’s all. I just want it really bad.” – Kobe Bryant after scoring 40 points in game one.

“We’ve never had a shooting night this bad. We’ve just got to come out and play a lot harder than we did tonight.” – Dwight Howard after the Magic went 8 of 23 from three point range and just 30% from the floor.

“He was great. He was tremendous. We were giving him too much space on his pull-up jumpers and he did a good job of attacking us. I know this: We are a lot better than we showed.” – Stan Van Gundy on Kobe Bryant

“It’s just one game. It’s a long series. We’ve got a couple days to work on some things. We know how good we are, and we know what we need to do to win.” – Hedo Turkoglu after a 3-11 shooting night.

· Kobe’s 40 points were a career high for him in the NBA Finals and the 10th time he’s scored 40 in the playoffs.

Lakers/Rockets Series Just Lost Interest

With the news coming out late Saturday afternoon that Houston Rockets’ center Yao Ming would miss the rest of the playoffs with a broken left foot the attraction and interest in that series went out the window. Sure, there’ll still be a lot of thuggish, physical play between the two teams but what the series will be missing will be any chance of the Rockets winning now. I think I’m going to pass now and wait for the Nuggets/Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.

Los Angeles Lakers Will Struggle Without Bynum

The good news for the LA Lakers is that center Andrew Bynum will make a full recovery. The bad news is that it will take him at least eight weeks to do so. Bynum is averaging a double-double as the center for the Lakers and suffered a subluxation of the patella and a bone bruise of his left knee during Sunday night’s game against Memphis. His 10.2 rebounds led the team and his 13.1 points were third behind Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odem.

With rumors swirling that Kwame Brown will take over the starting spot the Lakers are automatically losing 5 points and 9 rebounds just in stats alone. Most importantly LA is losing a big physical body inside who takes up space and plays aggressive. While Brown is a big body and does take up space being described as physical and aggressive are easily debated but the Lakers have no other options.

"Unless Wilt [Chamberlain] comes back from the dead, I don't know what else we're going to do," Lakers Coach Phil Jackson said when discussing Brown. "He's going to have to handle the starting job."

The Lakers, who are 9-1 in their last 10 games, trail the Phoenix Suns by a half a game and have a 4.5 game lead on the Golden State Warriors. If there ever was a time to not give up any ground this would be it. However, without their big man I don’t see any way Los Angeles can avoid it.

Blockbuster NBA Deal Waiting to Happen?

The Los Angeles Lakers have a pouting All-Star who is requesting a trade because the team isn’t doing enough to improve. The Minnesota Timberwolves have an aging All-Star who they owe a ton of cash to. The Indiana Pacers just need players!

All of this makes for some great rumors and potentially the biggest trade in the NBA since Shaq went to the Miami Heat. Reportedly the original deal included the Boston Celtics as well but has fallen through because the Celtics backed out not liking what their end of the deal was going to be. My opinion is that Boston problem was just sour grapes because they wanted Garnett. Now they may possibly have more issues because it looks like Paul Pierce is taking the Kobe approach by telling team management to either get better or trade him.

Trade discussions initially involved the Lakers, Wolves, Pacers and the Celtics. Boston would have gotten Jermaine O'Neal from the Pacers and sent young players to the Wolves. The Lakers would have gotten Garnett, while the Pacers would have landed Los Angeles forward Lamar Odom and center Andrew Bynum. Minnesota would also have acquired at least one of the teams' draft picks, possibly Boston's No. 5 in Thursday's draft.

With Boston out of the mix the Lakers are trying to broker a two team deal with Minnesota but the Timberwolves reportedly aren’t interested in Odom and Bynum meaning that most likely a fourth team needs to emerge for this deal to work.

With the draft just over a 48 hours away a deal is going to have to happen quickly if it is going to happen at all.