Price and Davis replaces Lin and Boozer in starting line-up

[willywazza]

I dunno...I don't like the benching either because it diminishes already low morale.

But, this team is SO bad, it probably doesn't even matter.

The best move is to tank and rebuild.

I think that's probably it.... this lineup change will only help the Lakers sink lower in the standings.

I think this might be a blessing in disguise.

[kblo247]

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/12/08/as-byron-scott-talks-big-lakers-defense-sinks-to-historic-depths/

“Every day,” Boozer said. “In Chicago with Thibs, we drilled our defensive rotation every day. Every day. In the morning at shootaround, practice day – it’d obviously be a lot longer on the practice day. But every day, we drilled it to make sure we know where we were supposed to be at, what we were going to do.”

And in Los Angeles?

“We talk about it a lot,” Boozer said.

Talk is cheap - Booze calling out BS and its funny because Booz has never been a bad locker room guy while Scott has never kept a locker room

[what would jack bauer do?]

Price passed on about 3-4 open 3's and that killed us last night. He needs to take those shots or at least pump fake and attack the rack when the defense is chasing the shooter like that. And even more importantly he needs to take those shots so we can see if he's going to make them on a consistent basis. If not we need to look elsewhere for our pg woes.

I'm not a huge fan of Scott so that jab by booze is pretty funny. It's a shame as a vet booze couldn't offer up that tidbit to Scott behind closed doors. Hopefully Scott hears that criticism and uses it to improve as a coach. Although thibs has a reputation of running his players into the ground.

[kblo247]

Price passed on about 3-4 open 3's and that killed us last night. He needs to take those shots or at least pump fake and attack the rack when the defense is chasing the shooter like that. And even more importantly he needs to take those shots so we can see if he's going to make them on a consistent basis. If not we need to look elsewhere for our pg woes.

I'm not a huge fan of Scott so that jab by booze is pretty funny. It's a shame as a vet booze couldn't offer up that tidbit to Scott behind closed doors. Hopefully Scott hears that criticism and uses it to improve as a coach. Although thibs has a reputation of running his players into the ground.

We'll Scott didn't even tell boozer he was benched. Boozer heard it from the press before the game by Byron's own admission as he didn't feel he had to explain himself. So Booz fired a shot back at him

[Kilroy]

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/12/08/as-byron-scott-talks-big-lakers-defense-sinks-to-historic-depths/

“Every day,” Boozer said. “In Chicago with Thibs, we drilled our defensive rotation every day. Every day. In the morning at shootaround, practice day – it’d obviously be a lot longer on the practice day. But every day, we drilled it to make sure we know where we were supposed to be at, what we were going to do.”

And in Los Angeles?

“We talk about it a lot,” Boozer said.

Talk is cheap - Booze calling out BS and its funny because Booz has never been a bad locker room guy while Scott has never kept a locker room

Scott was a great locker room guy as a player. That doesn't mean a whole lot...

He talks about how hard they worked on D in Chicago, but everyone in Chicago was glad to see Boozer go because he sucked on D.

Boozer's opinion about Defense is just about worthless.

[kblo247]

And the 80s lakers were a special kind with their orgies, partying, and all. Rolling Stones

B-Scott however can't keep a locker room as a coach. He has a terrible personality and philosophy which has always resulted in two things, alienation and losing.

[kblo247]

And boozer has played for two coaches who would kicks Scott's ass on X vs Os in Sloan and Thibs, so he has every right to comment that Scott is yapping but not doing **** to improve any D

[Kilroy]

And Sloan was a hard nose that couldn't coach today's players either... And Thibs may be in the process of alienating his biggest star ever right now...

An NBA coach can't make player play D. They have to want to play it and have the ability... He can make them want to play it by benching them if they don't... Which is what he did. But beyond that, there's not a lot he can do... It doesn't help either that our vocal, hard nosed, veteran, tam leader, just can't really play D anymore either.

I'd be calling for Scott's head right now too, if I thought he was holding his players back. I just don't see it, and don't think anyone, including Sloan, Thibs or even Phil Jackson, could win a whole lot more games with these players.

[tenten]

Price passed on about 3-4 open 3's and that killed us last night. He needs to take those shots or at least pump fake and attack the rack when the defense is chasing the shooter like that. And even more importantly he needs to take those shots so we can see if he's going to make them on a consistent basis. If not we need to look elsewhere for our pg woes.

well, isn't it pretty obvious that he can't do what you suggested? do you just start to watch Price this year?

[what would jack bauer do?]

Price passed on about 3-4 open 3's and that killed us last night. He needs to take those shots or at least pump fake and attack the rack when the defense is chasing the shooter like that. And even more importantly he needs to take those shots so we can see if he's going to make them on a consistent basis. If not we need to look elsewhere for our pg woes.

well, isn't it pretty obvious that he can't do what you suggested? do you just start to watch Price this year?

It's not as clear cut as you downplay, because frankly Price has never played big rotation minutes with a player of Kobe's caliber.... and with the closest thing to it (Utah with D.will) he shot 34.7% from 3. But yeah, the fact we have to rely on price just reinforces the sad state of our roster. I'm not asking him to be a floor general like most average/below average pg's can do (see Steve Blake). I'm asking him to shoot 35% at wide open 3's. Smush Parker the walking turnover was one of the worst Lakers starters ever and he was capable of that. Not everyone possesses a lightning quit first step and/or tight handle to blow by people, but every NBA player should be able to pump fake a man closing out on a shooter. If not we need to make a move quick because we're not going to attract a big name free agent (reggie jackson please... but i'd take a rondo) with a 25 win season.

[tenten]

Price passed on about 3-4 open 3's and that killed us last night. He needs to take those shots or at least pump fake and attack the rack when the defense is chasing the shooter like that. And even more importantly he needs to take those shots so we can see if he's going to make them on a consistent basis. If not we need to look elsewhere for our pg woes.

well, isn't it pretty obvious that he can't do what you suggested? do you just start to watch Price this year?

It's not as clear cut as you downplay, because frankly Price has never played big rotation minutes with a player of Kobe's caliber.... and with the closest thing to it (Utah with D.will) he shot 34.7% from 3. But yeah, the fact we have to rely on price just reinforces the sad state of our roster. I'm not asking him to be a floor general like most average/below average pg's can do (see Steve Blake). I'm asking him to shoot 35% at wide open 3's. Smush Parker the walking turnover was one of the worst Lakers starters ever and he was capable of that. Not everyone possesses a lightning quit first step and/or tight handle to blow by people, but every NBA player should be able to pump fake a man closing out on a shooter. If not we need to make a move quick because we're not going to attract a big name free agent (reggie jackson please... but i'd take a rondo) with a 25 win season.

If price is 25 yo, then you can hope he can improve. But he's over 30. I think we will lose more games with price at 30 minutes a game. yes, we may not attract big name free agent, but we can at least get that top 5 pick back? Won't that attract better free agent? It would suck if we lose out on that pick and win 30 games.

I rather have clarkson or any 20 yo d leaguer to play price's minutes. I just don't get the logic to suggest a 30+ yr third string journeyman who signed 10 day contracts to do better than what he had been doing in the last ten years.

Go watch that price winning shot when he was with the jazz in his rookie year, that was the highlight of his career.

[Lorenzomax7]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/LAL/2015.html?mobile=false#per_poss::29

This has drtg with Price as our #3, Lin as #10.



Also look at http://www.82games.com for opponent PER and By Position.

I'm not sure what that rating measures seriously, but you're telling me that lin has the same defense rating as our goat elite defensive long wing monster Wes Johnson? Wow. I didn't know that lin is any where the defender as Wes. And Wes is still starting. Thanks for the link though.

It measures points the opponent would score in 100 possessions. Essentially points per possession if you divide by 100, so 1.17 for Lin, 1.11 for Davis...whereas a more robust defense in Memphis has Marc Gasol with a 98drtg (0.98ppp) and Mike Conley is 104 drtg (1.04ppp).

Drtg is very largely affected by defensive box-score stats such as rb, stl and blk. Price's stls are very high but gambling too much doesn't always mean good defense.

James Harden got a descent Drtg last season - 107 cuz he gambled so much to jack up stats of rbs, stls and blks. But as we knew he had been terrible on D last year.

[jigga_man]

Tank move.

Scott should have started Davis instead of Boozer in game 3. Now he does but he starts Price, who's not really a good defender, just pesky and not a good shooter at all. So the spacing would be even worse for the starters. That means the main weapon would be Kobe midrange and Hill offensive rebounds. If Kobe gets injured Scott must shoulder some of the blame.

Now the bench actually has very capable scorers. Besides Boozer's D it's actually pretty good.

Bottom 4, it's duty.

I don't see how putting in two of the teams best defenders int he starting lineup a tank move, considering the Lakers are not only the worst defensive teams in the league but rivaling the worst defensive teams in the last 10 seasons. Price is clearly the best perimeter defender the team has and being "pesky" is doing more than any other guard is so far.

And Boozer's D is not pretty good. If he was he wouldn't even be here right now and Chicago wouldn't have gave him away for nothing considering he's still solid on offense and a capable rebounder.

The best defender allowed Holiday to score 15 (of 22) pts on him by 17 fga. Last time they met, Jrue only scored 17 pts by 17 fga at home.

Umm, Ed Davis wasn't guarding Jrue Holiday.

[tenten]

I think I understand Scott's strategy now. He's too embarrassed to be bottom of the league defense since he preaches defense and replaced MDA and is doing even worse. We actually did great last game as we only gave up 107 points, that's 3 points less than our league leading avg!!!

He fails to understand that having decent offense can help defensibly since opposing teams actually have to spend energy on defense. Now that teams can just triple team kobe and watch price/wes brick shots. We will lose by wider margins, but at least we won't have bottom of the league defense right?

[KungFuJoe]

I don't like the whole back and forth between boozer and Scott. If it's true that Scott didn't even tell Lin or Boozer himself about the benching...just...wow.

[cw3k]

Please stop comparing MDA to Scott. MDA is so much better than Scott. At least MDA has a offensive plan no one can match. MDA took a squad of injuried D-leaguers with almost 30 wins last year. I don't think anyone can coach 2013-2014 Lakers do better than MDA. I am still pretty amaze some of the final play he drew up. He is brilliant offensive coach.

[Danny Darko]

Please stop comparing MDA to Scott. MDA is so much better than Scott. At least MDA has a offensive plan no one can match. MDA took a squad of injuried D-leaguers with almost 30 wins last year. I don't think anyone can coach 2013-2014 Lakers do better than MDA. I am still pretty amaze some of the final play he drew up. He is brilliant offensive coach.

did we pick you up in the Nash trade?

Please tell me we didn't trade a first for this.

[Danny Darko]

to further expand on that... We lost an efficient all star 7 footer, a former allstar 7 footer, a solid to solid plus SG (Meeks), X was healthy for much of the season, we had a few games from Nash last year, we had Blake for a chunk of the year and we replaced all that with Boozer, Kobe in chuck mode, Davis, and Price.

Blinders much? And I'm not saying Scott is a good coach but your assertion that MDA was a good coach is historically incorrect.

[Michael Lucky]

Please stop comparing MDA to Scott. MDA is so much better than Scott. At least MDA has a offensive plan no one can match. MDA took a squad of injuried D-leaguers with almost 30 wins last year. I don't think anyone can coach 2013-2014 Lakers do better than MDA. I am still pretty amaze some of the final play he drew up. He is brilliant offensive coach.

I actually agree with this especially with the piece available. Jodie Meeks played far better under that system last year than anyone expected including adding a 40 point game that all but beat OKC with Durant and Westbrook. Heck even the scrubs we brought in last year from GSW were able to put up some really good games late in the season to add to the win totals. I'm still amazed we were able to get so many wins with all the injuries last year.

[Michael Lucky]

Please stop comparing MDA to Scott. MDA is so much better than Scott. At least MDA has a offensive plan no one can match. MDA took a squad of injuried D-leaguers with almost 30 wins last year. I don't think anyone can coach 2013-2014 Lakers do better than MDA. I am still pretty amaze some of the final play he drew up. He is brilliant offensive coach.

did we pick you up in the Nash trade?

Please tell me we didn't trade a first for this.

Considering Meeks and young had by far their most efficient years under MDA system the guy has a point. I don't see any other coach having been able to use those two as efficiently as MDA system allowed them too. That's not saying that MDA is the guy you'd want to coach a championship team. He's not since he's too reliant on his offensive system and can't adapt to the players on the court, but when you look at the composition of the roster without Kobe last year and being able to just put Pau at center for the games he actually played, the offensive system did match the player personnel pretty well no matter how much we like to bitch about MDA not preaching Defense or not using his big men correctly.