Chapter 513 A Different Team 1
With Dennis Rodman joining the team and Robert Horry's return the Los Angeles Lakers team was complete again, Rick Fox was playing very well this season and the only concern for Jake and the coaches was the position of PF.
But now they had Robert Horry and Dennis Rodman to complete that missing position, Dennis Rodman could help the team more defensively and with rebounds, but because of the problems he might have, maybe it would be Robert Horry the main player in that position.
From what Jake remembered the most difficult phase of the team at the beginning of the season had passed, then the Los Angeles Lakers team won 10 games in a row and went back to being one of the main teams in the NBA, with Jake in the team they had lost only one game, so these 10 victories would make the Los Angeles Lakers team even stronger for the playoff.
After training Jake could see that Dennis Rodman was still in the good physical condition and could actually play in the next game for the Los Angeles Lakers team, while Jake was getting ready to leave, Dennis Rodman came over to talk to him.
"Hi Jake, I already talked to all the players and I wanted to talk to you too."
"Hi Dennis, I'm a big fan of yours, I think it's incredible the NBA title you managed to win and I think you're an incredible player because of the rebounds you get"
"I think you're a good player too, I saw you at the Grammy yesterday, I thought I'd ask you to come to the party after the awards, but you left very quickly."
"I didn't know that I went to the Grammy with a ticket that I got from a friend, so I didn't think it would be good to go to any party after the awards."
"So you thought wrong, I'm sure you just weren't invited because they didn't know that you liked to participate in awards, but now that they know you're going to receive several invitations to attend the Grammy, Oscar and other awards."
Jake thought about it and thought Dennis was right, he hadn't received any tickets because the people at the Grammy organization didn't know he liked to attend these events, but now he would probably receive several invitations.
Jake and Dennis talked a little more before Jake left, later in the afternoon, the players got together again at the Anaheim Arena which was where the game would take place, the Los Angeles Clippers team was one of the teams most affected by Jake's coming to the NBA.
In Jake's past life the Los Angeles Lakers team would lose all 9 games earlier this season, but the Los Angeles Lakers team switched Eddie Jones, Elden Campbell, and Derek Harper to have Jake on the team.
So the Los Angeles Clippers team was unable to sign Michael Olowokandi and chose Jake, because of this change the Los Angeles Clippers team had won 3 of the 9 games they had this season.
It was not a good result yet, but they did not lose all the games as they normally would have, with the experience of Derek Harper and Eddie Jones leading the team they achieved three victories and played well in most of the 9 games.
The three players that were switched to Jake to go on the team were very talented, but because of the excellent season that Jake was making the crowd happy, he no longer cared about the players who left the Lakers team.
"Welcome to everyone who came to watch one more game this NBA season, in that game the Los Angeles Clippers team will play against their biggest rival in the NBA, the Los Angeles Lakers team."
"This is the fourth game in a row for the Los Angeles Lakers team playing as a visitor, the last three games that could have been easier have become very difficult games in which players have had to work hard for the Los Angeles Lakers team to win."
"The Los Angeles Lakers team also has a lot of changes in the last few days, Dennis Rodman signed a contract with the Los Angeles Lakers team and will be able to play in the next game, Robert Horry has recovered from his illness and will play in that game."
"The biggest news is that coach Del Harris was fired even after this excellent start to the season with 11 wins in 12 games, so assistant coach Bill Bertka will head the team today as head coach."
"This is also the first game that Eddie Jones, Elden Campbell, and Derek Harper play against the Los Angeles Lakers team that was their team, it is also the first game between the rookie Jake Smith plays against the team that selected him in this draft season."
"So we expect an exciting game today between these two teams."
The Los Angeles Lakers team would start the game with Jake Smith playing as PG, Kobe Bryant playing as SG, Rick Fox playing as SF, Travis Knight playing as PF, and Shaquille O'Neal playing as Center.
The Los Angeles Clippers team would start the game with Derek Harper playing as PG, Eddie Jones playing as SG, Rodney Rogers playing as SF, Elden Campbell playing as PF, and Lorenzen Wright playing as Center.
Coach Bertka decided to leave Travis Knight playing that game because Robert Horry was still not very well, but after the third quarter, coach Bertka would put Horry in the game, in the first quarter and in the second quarter Horry could still be substituted.
In the next game when Dennis Rodman could play, he could put Robert Horry in for a few minutes and Dennis Rodman in the game and thus he would have qualified in the position of PF in every game, the truth was that coach Bertka did not think that the Los Angeles Clippers team could win that game and so he intended to replace the starting players for many minutes in the game.
At the start of the game Shaquille O'Neal won the first ball possession for the Los Angeles Lakers, Jake calmly advanced the ball and Derek Harper gave Jake space to move forward, Jake advanced further and passed the ball to Kobe Bryant on the right.
Bryant received the ball and Eddie Jones came to defend, they were friends, but in the games, Jones and Bryant would still face each other as they did in any game, Bryant tried a feint, but Jones was not fooled, so Bryant passed the ball to Rick Fox through left.
Fox received the ball and Rodney Rogers came to press on defense, Fox held the ball for a while and passed it to Jake further behind, Jake received the ball and quickly passed it to Shaquille O'Neal ahead.
O'Neal received the ball and Lorenzen Wright came to press on defense, O'Neal made a strong move and managed to spin and tried the hook to make the first 2 points of the Los Angeles Lakers team.
In another move, the Los Angeles Clippers team went on the attack and Derek Harper came forward and passed the ball to Jones from the left, Jones received the ball and Bryant pressed the defense, Jones tried a feint, but Bryant was not fooled.
Then Jones passed the ball to Rogers on the right, Rogers received the ball and Fox arrived to press, Rogers quickly passed the ball to Jones again, this time Eddie Jones received the ball and tried a mid-range shot to score 2 more points for the Los Angeles Clippers team.
Eddie Jones and Derek Harper were the players who stood out the most on this new Los Angeles Clippers team, perhaps with a few more new players on the Clippers team they could try a spot in the playoffs of the coming seasons.
The Los Angeles Lakers team ended the first quarter by winning with a good point advantage, Jake played for 12 minutes and made 11 points, 3 assists, 2 rebounds, and 2 steals, Jake realized that in this game Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal did not were performing well.
Bryant was still replaced in the first quarter for a few minutes and had even less time on the court, it seemed that coach Bertka did not expect this game to be very difficult and so he decided to let Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal rest.
In the second quarter, the Los Angeles Lakers continued to press forward and even with the Los Angeles Clippers team doing better they were unable to defend against the best NBA attack.
At the end of the game, the Los Angeles Lakers team won with 129 points against 95 points of the Los Angeles Clippers team, Jake played for 48 minutes in that game and had 43 points, 11 assists, 8 rebounds, and 7 steals.
"The game ends with the Los Angeles Lakers team achieving another victory this season, the Los Angeles Clippers team played well, but could not handle the strong attack of the Los Angeles Lakers team."
"Even with coach Bill Bertka replacing Kobe and Shaq for many minutes, the Los Angeles Lakers team still managed to win with Jake's good performance that made 43 points and 11 assists."
"Yes, Jake was once again the highlight of the Los Angeles Lakers team and those 43 points were the maximum points he made in a game this NBA season, with the top players on the Los Angeles Lakers team being replaced Jake had to try even harder to take the team to victory."
"Rick Fox played very well in that game too and Robert Horry also performed well even though he played less time in that game, it shows that he can help the team even more in the next games."
In this game Jake played very well and had a good performance, he did not let Derek Harper manage to attack a lot and still got many steals, in addition to the points he made in that game, Robert Horry also played well despite playing for only 20 minutes.
Robert was certainly concerned about Dennis Rodman joining the team, everyone knew that Dennis was an excellent player and if he worked hard at the games Dennis could certainly be a starting player on that Los Angeles Lakers team.
Even more, that the coach had changed, so Robert knew he had to prove that he was the best player to be one of the starting players on that Los Angeles Lakers team.