It won’t just be the Los Angeles Lakers going for their eleventh straight win when they take on the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight at the Staples Center.
Derek Fisher will be trying to win his eleventh straight game against the T-Wolves as well.
"It’s all about not necessarily becoming complacent because we don’t know everybody’s name on their team," Fish said of playing the 3-19 Timberwolves. "They have a lot of young guys. It requires you to really get familiar with their roster and learn the tendencies, strengths and weaknesses of the personnel. That will give us a good chance to come out and play the way we’re supposed to."
While Los Angeles has wracked up ten straight regular season wins, their best streak since February of 2008, their point guard has won ten straight over Minnesota alone, starting the streak back in January 2007 when he was with Utah.
No. 2 helped the Jazz win their final three matchups against the T-Wolves that season, and after coming back to Los Angeles, has helped L.A. win the past seven. The Lakers have won eight straight against Minnesota, dating back to the spring of ’07.
In his time with the Lakers against Minnesota, Derek has been both strong and occasionally sublime. He kicked off the ’07-08 season series with an 11-point, nine assist outburst in a 14-point Lakers’ romp. In four of his past seven games over the T-Wolves No. 2 has scored in double-digit points.
In the 08-09 campaign, Fish averaged 9.3 points and four assists per game in four games against Minnesota. And the year before, the always consistent vet scored 10 points a game while averaging, again, four assists.
But this time D-Fish and his teammates will be playing a team coached by former Lakers assistant Kurt Rambis, who runs a very similar scheme in Minnesota to the one his mentor Phil Jackson runs in LA.
"We do it every day and I guess in some way it relates to what we’re trying to do," Derek said. "But we’ll still have to come out and play the game. They do some things differently than we do and Kurt will definitely have some gimmicks and some thigs he tries to pull out to get the win."
LET SHANNON DUNK
The Lakers viral media campaign to get Shannon Brown in the Slam Dunk Competition is in full force, and today it was Fish’s turn to speak about the man who relieves him at the point.
No. 2 says Brown is so fast and strong, it almost seems likes he’s playing a different game.
“He makes it look so easy, we’ve seen him do some of the same things in practice, it’s almost like he starts running down hill and he takes off.”
You can hear everything D-Fish has to say here.
WEEK IN REVIEW
Fish started the week off hitting a clutch three to put the Lakers in a position to beat the Miami Heat. He followed that with seven points in a win over Phoenix and then helped the Lakers defeat his former teammates, the Utah Jazz.
NEXT UP
Derek and the Lakers face ex-Laker assistant Kurt Rambis who brings his Minnesota Timberwolves to LA tonight. D-Fish will be matched up with rookie point guard Johnny Flynn. The game tips off at 7:30 p.m. PST from the Staples Center and can be seen on Fox Sports West.
RELATED ARTICLES
Lakers 101, Utah 77: It may not be X hat worthy but 10 straiht wins is pretty good (LA Times Lakers Blog, December 9, 2009)
http://lakersblog.latimes.com/lakersblog/2009/12/lakers-101-utah-77-lakers-win-10-consecutive-games.html
Timberwolves-Lakers meeting (ESPN.com, Dec. 11, 2009)
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/preview?gameId=291211013