Game Countdown: This Used to be a Marquee Game – Knicks @ Lakers

New York vs. Los Angeles!!!  LA vs. NY!!!  Any other sport and this might actually be something getting excited about.  Instead, the once marquee match-up of the Knicks and Lakers has gone from “must see” TV to “maybe I’ll check on the game during commercials while I watch V” TV.

Kobe vs. the entire Knick team…  Kobe still wins.

Instead of Laker stars going to battle against Knick stars like Ewing, Frazier or Reed, tonight we get a healthy dose of Curry, Duhon and Gallinari.  Please, try and contain your excitement.  This pairing has now devolved to the state of no longer wondering who will win but wondering just how badly the Lakers will beat the Knicks and how many points will Kobe score against them.  Let’s be honest, the only real reason to watch this game is to see if the Mamba can one-up the 61 points he dropped on New York the last time these two teams met.

So set your Tivo for this one… or don’t.  You probably won’t be missing anything that you can’t just catch on SportsCenter later.

New York Knicks (3-10) @ Los Angeles Lakers (10-3)

Game Info: 7:30 PM PT TV-Fox Sports West  Radio-710 AM, 1330 AM

THREE Questions:

• How many points will Kobe score?  I touched on this up above, but I wasn’t kidding, that really is the primary point of interest for this game.  61 seems far-fetched at this point, but a minimum of 30 points seems pretty reasonable.
• Will the Lakers regret selling their first-round pick to the Knicks after getting a first-hand look at Toney Douglas (who the Knicks used that pick on) tonight?  I can’t imagine the Lakers would possibly want a young, athletic guard off the bench who can both shoot and score.
• Who will destroy the Knick interior more: Pau Gasol or Andrew Bynum?

TWO Predictions:

• Garbage time is unavoidable in this game, so a Shannon Brown monster dunk is pretty much inevitable.  I am thinking a two-handed pump between the legs into a reverse jam.
• Derek Fisher scores a season-high in points with at least 15 points.  That sounds like a bold prediction, but his season-high is 12 points.  Then again, Fish has only scored double-digits twice so far this year.

ONE Wish:

• I wish that the Lakers could face the Knicks frontline every single night.  Are you really telling me that Eddy Curry (less fat, same total lack of defense), David Lee (6′9″), Darko Milicic (just plain terrible), Al Harrington (allergic to playing in the paint) and Jared Jeffries (small forward masquerading as a big man).

ZERO Tolerance for… this game even being close.  The Knicks play at a frenetic pace which can sometimes give the Lakers trouble, but playing fast doesn’t necessarily mean an offense is good as the NY offense is horribly inefficient, opting for the quantity over quality theory of offense.  Plus, they are one of the worst defensive teams in basketball.  This one should be a cakewalk and nothing less.

Leave your own questions, answers, predictions or wishes as a comment or just hang out with us during the game or hit us up on Twitter @LakersOfFire.

Tags: Al Harrington, Andrew Bynum, Chris Duhon, Danilo Gallinari, Darko Milicic, David Lee, Derek Fisher, Eddy Curry, Game Countdown, Jared Jeffries, Kobe Bryant, New York Knicks, Pau Gasol, Shannon Brown