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I wrote last week that the Lakers could go another month without a loss. Since then, they’ve beaten Sacramento, Toronto and Portland. After last night’s “top-to-bottom shellacking” of the best of that group, Myles Brown tweeted, “It is entirely possible that the Lakers won’t lose a game before Christmas.” And in Matt Moore’s recap over at PBT, he wrote, “The Lakers are the best team in the league and it’s not even close.”

This early-season dominance should be a bit surprising. There’s no questioning their talent or their ability to defeat any given team come playoff time, but there were several good reasons to predict a slow start and an up-and-down regular season for the defending champs: Kobe’s playing hurt and he’s got another long season of wear and tear on his body. Bynum’s out, so the young Derrick Caracter and the old Theo Ratliff are in the rotation. And L.A. has earned a reputation as a team that has wavering levels of regular season effort and intensity.
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John Bennett’s been on the OTN team for a few weeks now, as the host of The Outside The NBA Podcast. This is the first edition of his weekly column The Lookahead, where he’ll preview the games he’s most looking forward to. He just joined Twitter and you should harass him because doesn’t worship Hubie Brown. -Ed.

1. Thursday’s TNT Doubleheader: Boston @ Miami & Lakers @ Denver

Miami looked completely lost in its season opener in Boston. Wade was understandably horrible as he played 3 minutes in the pre-season, and they barely ran an offense. That will not happen this time and while the crowd won’t be as ridiculous as it was in the Garden, it should help the Heat when Boston’s D tries to clamp down.
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A later, but longer BfB today. It was a busy night in the NBA last night and a busy morning/afternoon for me as I watched the games I recorded. Continue Reading

I tried this weekly recap thing last week, using Twitter as a guide. This week, I’m at it again. Same idea, but I’m going to use video as a guide. These clips are mostly from a few fantastic YouTube uploaders, but there are a couple of NBA.com videos in here too. This won’t be quite as good as actually watching the games as they happen, but it should at least give you an idea of what you’re missing. Continue Reading