TED SOBEL SPORTS AUDIO VAULT: Your Inside Access to TOUCHING GREATNESS

Messers Meeks, Nash, and Blake in their suits with Kobe watching from behind the bench

The Lakers emotional roller coaster season is mercifully over after a San Antonio 103-82 win and a quick 4-game sweep at Staples Center where they appropriately gave the fans ‘white towels’ to wave through-out the game…something that should’ve happened the day the Lakers made the playoffs.

Laker fans waving their free white towels

It was an impossible task for the injury-depleted Lakers (with only 9 fairly healthy bodies in uniform tonight) to win a series over such a quality team like the Spurs…let alone just one game and this last one was hard to watch in many ways. I asked some of the guys afterwards if it was also hard for them to watch and they all just shook their heads in disbelief that this would be the sorry way for this whacko season to end.

Another impossible task was for me to get into the Dwight Howard newsconference room while also gathering postgame sound from his teammates so of course I chose the locker room (although I have plenty to ask Dwight before he possibly leaves town to become the biggest and highest paid gypsy in league history).

Howard left the game (via ejection) in a way that will be embarrassing for him to return with dignity although money speaks louder than anything so nothing would shock me in his future decision. It was interesting timing that not long after Howard steamed his way onto the locker room, Kobe Bryant walked out on his crutches (Willis Reed style) but even his entrance with the loudest roar of the night behind him couldn’t help his guys in the least.

Kobe walks off into the unknown off-season

This very likely is Pau Gasol’s final game in a Lakers uni and it seemed like he was saying ‘Buenas Noches’ to us all for good as he walked off after his postgame newser in the classy way that only the Spaniard can, and it was a pleasure to shake Pau’s hand and wish him a happy adios on his way out of building…

Pao’s possible last postgame newser in L.A.

Pau Gasol:

Meta World Peace (AKA Ron Artest) who was one of 3 starters on the bench in their civies due to injury told me in the locker room that he wished he and some of the team’s other leaders (including Kobe) had spoken up more during this tumultuous season…
Meta World Peace:

Veteran Antawn Jamison who’s as nice a guy as you’ll ever meet in sports or out, gave me some great takes on what was possibly his last game in purple and gold…
Antawn Jamison:

I also spoke with the three unlikely Laker starters in game 4 and they all were open with their feelings in such a difficult time to deal with…
Forward Earl Clark:

Guard Andrew Goudelock a recent re-signee from the D-League:

Guard Darius Morris who was really disappointed in his 8 pt. game:

And finally forward Jordan Hill who came back very early after hip surgery in January, described to me what it was like to go through this series with really no chance to win it…
Jordan Hill:

It will be a very long off-season for Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak…will he or won’t he re-sign Howard? How long will it take for Kobe to return to even close to 100%? How does coach Mike D’Antoni fit for the future? What can you really get for Gasol at this stage of his career? Good luck Mitch…I’m glad I don’t have to make those decisions (although money talks for me too!) 🙂

What I do know for sure is that the Lakers must get younger, more athletic and quicker. And for the umpteenth time…it was NOT about their offense as they scored enough points to consistently win. It’s their transition defense which is THE worst I’ve seen since the days of Rudy LaRusso and Darryl Imhoff (I’m sure I just lost most of you with that reference-LOL) and they simply ‘CAN’T STOP ANYBODY’ who are quicker than an injured rehab league team. And stop blaming that all on D’Antoni as they were the same pathetic defense under ‘defensive specialist’ Mike Brown. So Mr. Howard, your ‘Bad Dream’ is over…or is this just the start of a long Lakers ‘Dwight-mare’ in the new Jim Buss era???

The Kings last celebration before the real season begins

Your defending Stanley Cup champion L.A. Kings are now officially in defending mode after ending the regular season with a nice 3-2 win over San Jose to earn the 5th seed in the NHL Western Conference playoffs. Which is all fine but that also means that just like last year, they’re stuck starting the postseason on the road as they open round one in St. Louis on Tuesday night and L.A. has lost their last 6 away from Staples something that has to concern their most die-hard fans if not the team itself. FYI it’s not official yet, but it’s expected that games 3 and 4 at Staples will be next Saturday and the following Monday.

I tried to gather as much preview sound as I could to give you the club’s mindset as they go for a 2nd straight cup…something that would turn this franchise from what some are calling a ‘one hit wonder’ to a truly elite force in the NHL.

Winning goalie Jonathon Quick (last year’s Conn Smythe trophy winner-as the playoffs MVP) had his usual game face on (without the mask) when I asked him about the task ahead of him…

Center Anze Kopitar who finished the schedule with an assist on the first goal against the Sharks and the Kings leading scorer (for a 6th straight season) with 42 points (10 goals-32 assists) talked about the importance of building some momentum into the real season…

Defenseman Rob Scuderi who owns 2 Stanley Cup rings (one in Pittsburgh) always is straight forward and actually speaks his mind like an old-schooler gave me some great takes on the rough but hopeful road ahead…

Head Coach Darryl Sutter doesn’t mince words during his postgame newsers and it was no different tonight no matter how hard I tried to get him to give me more than some coach-speak…although I really can’t blame him now to give us just the bare minimum as they approach another long ride to the finish line, but at least he did it with his usual dry sense of humor at times…

I was hoping to get some comments from Kings forward Mike Richards (for his many fans and followers of my blog) but he was not available after missing the game due to being sick. Meanwhile after leaving the locker room, it was back to the Chick Hearn media room where Kings Hall of Fame announcer Bob Miller and his wife Judy were surprised with a 50th wedding anniversary gathering of some their longtime friends and colleagues. The date is actually a couple of weeks away but it was the perfect time to celebrate the occasion despite Bob having to meet the team at the airport in the morning. As always Bob was gracious with his time giving me a few minute sit down chat to discuss the playoffs and what lies ahead, but first I had to ask him about that milestone 50th anniversary…

Judy and Bob Miller enjoy their suprise party

Of course I had to give equal time to Bob’s longtime broadcast partner and former King Jim Fox who’s always candid as we covered almost anything I could think of before the players hit the ice in St. Lou on Tuesday night…

And finally last but not least is Kings executive and Hall of Famer Luc Robitaille who’s sole goal is to give the fans the almost unthinkable–2 straight Stanley Cups…

I believe that it’s harder to predict this series with the Blues over last year’s in which the Kings surprisingly swept them into the golfing season. This St. Louis club has lost 8 straight to the Kings (including the playoffs) and 4 in a row in Missouri but to a man, everyone I talked with said that’s OLD NEWS now. And these Blues are 11-3 since acquiring defensemen Jay Boumeester and Jordan Leopold at the trade deadline….so who knows? My prediction is the Kings in 6 although I’m also predicting that it MIGHT snow here on Sunday.

What we do know for sure is that the shortened and condensed season is over and the ride to 16 wins starts on Tuesday night in the place that is appropriately known as the ‘Show Me State’…good luck guys!

As for the Ducks they ended the regular season with a meaningless home loss to Phoenix before opening up at home as the 2nd seed against the Detroit Redwings. The following preview thoughts were sent to me by the Anaheim P.R. staff, first head coach Bruce Boudreau talks about facing the boys from Hocketown…

And Boudreau loved what he saw from his almost 43 yr. old ‘Finnish Flash’ Teemu Selanne who scored career goal #675 tonight after a long drought…

Meanwhile Teemu looks ahead to facing a storied franchise that is far from who they’ve been, but have built a little momentum leading into the playoffs…

And whether this is Selanne’s last ride or not…he loves this time of year…

My pick is Anaheim in 5 games over the Wings which might be a stretch since Detroit has been playing for their playoff lives and succeeding over the past few weeks while the Quackers long since clinched their 2nd seed and have been in semi-cruise mode for quite a bit. My guess here is that the Ducks will find their mojo again when facing the less talented Wings over the course of a series. Also we figured out that if San Jose beats Vancouver in their opening round and our two locals take care of biz, it could finally be the Kings vs. the Ducks (2nd round) in a playoff series for the ages. Or should I say for the aged…since we’ve waited forever to get these two to collide in the post season.

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Kings ice turning into a hopeful but also a doubtful Lakers home court advantage

And now it’s on to the next task at hand, which is turning Staples Center into a Lakers homecourt which will be hard to turn into an advantage for our 16-time NBA Champs. That injury depleted short-handed group is a longshot from keeping their season alive as 11 1/2 point underdogs to the always confident San Antonio Spurs who lead their series 3 games to none. Anything better than a Laker funeral procession after Sunday’s game 4 will be a bonus to most of their fans. And I’ll be there gathering postgame comments for you…for whatever that’s worth!

Clippers assistant coach Bob Ociepka in his 21st NBA season

With the word this morning that Oklahoma City Thunder All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook will have surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee and will be out indefinitely, we suddenly have a totally new outlook on the expectations in the NBA Western Conference playoffs. The Thunder are the favorites to reach the finals, and remember that OKC is set to be the Clippers next opponent, IF Coach Vinny Del Negro’s guys can get past Memphis and they lead that series 2 games to 1 and IF the Thunder can eliminate Houston.

The Grizzlies are favorites to even this series tomorrow afternoon in Tennessee so it was great timing to have Clippers assistant coach Bob Ociepka call me to discuss this scenario. And how about Bob just finishing up his advance scouting the Thunder while just finding out about the Westbrook injury before our chat?

Timing is everything, and we discussed it all…
Bob Ociepka with Ted Sobel:

Remember that you can hear all Clippers playoff games on KFWB Newstalk 980, with tomorrow’s airtime starting at 12:30 with “Lob City” and first tip is just past 1:30.

The Clips need their super subs to stay that way

The Clippers are enjoying a 2-0 series lead going into tomorrow night’s game 3 in Memphis…but before they left town, I headed to practice this morning and spoke with 4 guys who have been preparing hard to keep their current 9 game winning streak in tact…

Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro:

Chris Paul who made the big game winning shot 2 nights ago to give his team that ‘holding serve’ advantage:

Blake Griffin:

Chauncey Billups:

You can hear all of the action on KFWB Newstalk 980 beginning with “Lob City” at 5:30pm on Thursday while Saturday’s game 4 will be a 12:30pm broadcast start with the first tip at 1:35ish.

Setting for game 2 at Staples Center

As you can imagine it was all smiles in the Clippers locker room after they nipped Memphis 93-91 on a driving Chris Paul shot for the ages at the buzzer and for a 2-0 L.A. series lead. Paul was guarded tightly all the way by defensive guru Tony Allen who was mostly in his jock (so to speak) but CP3 found another way to score in the clutch something I reminded “Mr. Big Shot” Chauncey Billups afterwards that he may’ve lost that nickname on this club…and he had no problem giving it up to the best point guard on the planet right now who also scored his team’s final 8 points.

The Clippers tried to give this one away a few times—leading by their game best 12 points with 9:50 to play and then blowing a 7 pt. lead with about 4 minutes left. The Griz tied it twice in the final 1:37 but when you have CP3 all is usually fine when you need to win it at the end…and he pulled it out again.

Some of the keys to this one were the Clips franchise best 10 blocked shots (Memphis had 5 of their own). Paul scoring a team high 24 along with 9 assists (something I asked coach Vinny about after on why Chris doesn’t shoot more a little earlier so that they don’t get into these kinds of predicaments? Blake Griffin came back with a huge effort of 21 pts. on 9/18 shots and 8 rebounds. And Jamaal Crawford who insisted to me afterwards that he didn’t have a chip on his shoulder after getting snubbed for the NBA 6th man trophy…but whatever it was, he was on fire early with 13 of his 15 points in his first 9 minutes of action in the opening half when he hit his first 6 shots. The Clips also did a better job throughout in the points in the paint category helping their cause.

Crawford may be thinking give me the damn ball and also that 6th man award while you’re at it!

The following are my postgame Clipper interviews along with several preview thoughts for games 3 and 4 in Memphis on Thursday and Saturday (which you can hear of course on KFWB Newstalk 980).

Vinny Del Negro postgame newser:

Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Jamaal Crawford (who started the game by showing voters–I got your 6th man right here!) postgame newser:

DeAndre Jordan who had 4 of those 10 blocked shots, a stat that I totally surprised him with:

Matt Barnes:

Chauncey Billups who doesn’t have to be ‘Mr. Big Shot’ anymore:

Lamar Odom on being the guy with 2 rings and enjoying another shot at one:

Willie Green, who didn’t get any minutes but he’s always great to chat with while giving some solid insight to everything:

A few fun notes during my postgame locker room sound gathering…while I was interviewing Willie Green, his nextdoor (locker) neighbor Chris Paul walked up and was listening in to our chat. Right after I gave Chris a congratulatory fist pump and told him it’s been awhile since any shot has brought me out of my seat–literally. And he said with a huge smile,”Really???, did you really jump out of your seat?” And I told him yeah, and that I almost made it rim-high but still can’t dunk and never will! He laughed and said that was cool. But it was much more cool to see one of the all-time greats do what he did in person and in such an important game. Jamaal Crawford then made it into the seperate media newsconference room along with Blake and Chris at the same time something that I got a laugh from him when I said he’d get to enter through the back (or Superstar) door. And then after their newser, I jokingly asked Griffin if he’d bring me back some Memphis BBQ following his 2 games there? He laughed and said he’d love to but he won’t be leaving his room and that he won’t be eating that stuff on this trip…in which I replied, wish it was me instead, just sayin’. The ribs there are amaaaaazing! Now it’s up to the Clippers to make sure that the Grizzlies don’t enjoy their home cookin’ as much as I’d like to be the one to! 🙂