Giant Elephant in the Room

[Mamba Venom]

Kobe is the best defensive star in the game. Come on most stars dont play any D... Do you want Nash D, Dirk D... those are the last MVPs.

You guys must be getting hungry w/ the munchies

Definitely some good stuff you are smoking

[snaquille oatmeal]

I think most of the fans on this board have come to terms that If the Lakers don't improve defensively...they will not win an NBA Championship.

There's a giant elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about and that is Kobe Bryant.

I'm a Kobe fan. My favorite player in the world. BUT has anyone been getting sick of his "rover/safety" defense that he plays? I mean he gambles so much and it seems that everynight the guy he guards has a career high.

Individual 1 on 1 D. Kobe can shut down anyone. However his TEAM DEFENSE is horrible. I mean he gets a couple of steals (2 per game if even that). But he probably let's up 5 uncontested layups per game.

Why is he doubling 30ft from the basket? When his guy cuts to the weak side...why does he stay on the strong side? He gets back door-ed more than anyone on our team. Atleast 3x a game I see him give a "My Bad" to the bench for his defensive lapses.

Do you guys agree or am I smoking too much?

Freakin' Republicans...

so talk about the sexy donkey that is in the room now then

[Dr Aki]

I think most of the fans on this board have come to terms that If the Lakers don't improve defensively...they will not win an NBA Championship.

There's a giant elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about and that is Kobe Bryant.

I'm a Kobe fan. My favorite player in the world. BUT has anyone been getting sick of his "rover/safety" defense that he plays? I mean he gambles so much and it seems that everynight the guy he guards has a career high.

Individual 1 on 1 D. Kobe can shut down anyone. However his TEAM DEFENSE is horrible. I mean he gets a couple of steals (2 per game if even that). But he probably let's up 5 uncontested layups per game.

Why is he doubling 30ft from the basket? When his guy cuts to the weak side...why does he stay on the strong side? He gets back door-ed more than anyone on our team. Atleast 3x a game I see him give a "My Bad" to the bench for his defensive lapses.

Do you guys agree or am I smoking too much?

Freakin' Republicans...

[hermes]

I've pretty much lost all hope that we're every going to play with any sort of constent excellence on the defensive end.

that's the spirit

offense is where it's at

[hermes]

[DEEP3CL]

Maybe this is just me. But we have all seen that the Lakers CAN play good defense - when they want. And we usually only see them play it against good teams. It seems to me that Phil literally tells them to take it easy on D some nights and not to over exert themselves... I could be wrong, but it is the only explanation I have as for why we can crush teams like San Antonio, play good D against Boston etc. but teams like NY, Indi, Sac etc can stay with us seemingly effortlessly. It seems like Phil knows that we wont meet these teams in the playoffs so he just tells the guys to only play on the offensive end as not to wear themselves out...

You know Nicka I've always thought that too in the back of my mind. Cause it seems like you just shouldn't be able to turn it on and shut it off like that. But in reality the Lakers have and it boggles us fans to why can't they consistently be amped on D nightly.

[Chubby Chaser]

Ya Kobe does double a lot but that all goes into Kurt's new defensive schemes. Kurt's defense is very aggressive if you haven't noticed. We double A LOT, almost once every possession. Even if we don't need it. Then we trap with our overload defense all the time. When the opponent has the ball somewhat near the baseline, the man defender will shade them towards the baseline and one of our bigs will stand there by the baseline to close out the "trap". When everyone sees this they all sag off their man and face the ball looking to intercept a cross court or bad pass. We try to do this on almost every defensive possession. But I've noticed that we don't talk enough or are disciplined enough on defense to do this. Sometimes our bigs come too late to trap and the offensive player will just to baseline and either draw the foul on our late arriving big, or get a free lane to the basket. Also, our rotations are horrible. We don't recover very well after we trap. And Kobe is probably the worst violator of this. I don't think I've seen him recover well once this season. When he tries to recover he often tries to bait the offensive player into passing the ball so he can try and steal it. He plays the passing lanes a lot instead of trying to get back to his man and deter the shot. Our defensive schemes I think is too aggressive for our guys. But at least we have a defensive scheme in place to talk about. This is new for Phil. He used to never worry about defensive schemes. He used to never double.

[That Nicka]

You know Nicka I've always thought that too in the back of my mind. Cause it seems like you just shouldn't be able to turn it on and shut it off like that. But in reality the Lakers have and it boggles us fans to why can't they consistently be amped on D nightly.

It is possible, I mean, just look at 2001

[That Nicka]

Anyone still dont believe me? look at these back to back wins @ Boston and Cleveland. Without Bynum...