It is no doubt a wonderful news at the Christmas for fans of the Los Angeles Lakers because they have got a huge victory, probably the best victory of the season and because of that Mike D’Antoni, their coach, is having a peaceful time in the Christmas.
According to him, “It is always tough to predict about the NBA season. There is always a high expectation of us from numerous fans. This is undoubtedly a very good beginning. However, there is the necessity to improve the performance in the future.”
The Lakers are playing with better form than how they played just before two weeks. They got a slow start of this season and as a result of it Mike Brown was fired, and Phil Jackson replaced him. Soon after, they started getting better as the season progressed. They got a consecutive five game win and thus improve their point table with 14-14.
There is another extremely good news for them that, Steve Nash is fit and he is back for the team, and will surely be extremely beneficial for the better performance of the team in the Championship. D’Antoni is very much hopeful till now for doing good result in the Championship.
Nash said, “It is not at all an easy position to play. It is true that there is a huge expectation for this team. On paper, various things look extremely easy to do but practically, it is quite difficult to do. There was no training camp for the team. Players were not mentally ready to play like this. The transition was undoubtedly quite difficult for the players.”
In a crunchy situation, the return of Steve Nash has surely made all the team members happy including Pau Gasol. Coach D’Antoni has also arrived in Los Angeles after having a surgery for the replacement of his knee. He was asked if he has any regret of taking the coaching job of Los Angeles Lakers. He said, “When I got the job, I had only one thing in mind that Nash will be back for playing before I reach L.A. I was keen to wait little more.”
D’Antoni has tried to prove the fact again and again that Nash will play in such a way that the Lakers will start performing dramatically well. Before, D’Antoni has not handled the criticism in a proper way. It was proved when the Lakers lost the match in New York. A reporter asked him whether this team is practicing defence or not. D’Antoni eventually snapped at him and that gave birth to some unnecessary controversy.
There is no doubt about one fact; the return of Nash is helping the team a lot. They are playing more freely. The improvement of their defence can be easily noticeable. However, they need to work on their defence more, because they are undoubtedly playing wonderful on offence. Pau Gasol is coming back in good form.
According to the Knicks, Lakers need to be a little bit more aggressive to improve their results in the Championship.