nutshell: this is the problem w/the bryant-led lakers

dk7th · Post #1 » by **dk7th** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 2:18 pm

this is a quote taken from the msn/fox recap for game 5:

Lakers coach Phil Jackson defended Bryant's attempts to take over the offense.

``He's the kind of guy (where) you ride the hot hand, that's for sure,'' Jackson said. ``We were waiting for him to do that. ... He went out there and found a rhythm.''

Bryant did everything he could to send the Lakers home with the edge.

He scored 23 straight Lakers points between the 4:23 mark of the second quarter until there was 2:16 left in the third. But over that span, the Celtics expanded the lead from one point to 13.

``I just tried to keep telling them, it's only 2 points each time he scores. It's not 10,'' Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. ``It's just like if someone else was scoring. ... I love that our guys for the most part, they understood what he was doing. But we defended everyone else. And I thought it was big.''

as i have been arguing with the laker faithful over the years, even as i root for bryant to succeed, it cannot be merely as a scorer but as a facilitator. every time he made a great shot i laughed at his prowess he's that good. but in the back of my mind i was wondering when was he going to set up his teammates so that the celtics would have to work harder?

doesn't he realize that it is only by being a facilitator tht he can create synergy and cohesion? but he never did. 4 assists and 4 turnovers are not going to get it done. and for phil jackson to defend or justify that performance is pure spin. red holzman is turning over in his grave. "share the ball and find the open man."

putting the blame on the rest of the laker roster is just lame. bryant's fan base needs to stop making excuses for the guy. he looks more like dominique wilkins out there than he does a winner and a leader. he doesn't make his teammates better merely as a scorer. why don't we ever hear him say "i am the leader of this team and the problem begins and ends with me. i must find a way to set up my teammates to let them succeed so that we can win."

we never hear that-- and that's a real problem.

kobe808lak · Post #2 » by **kobe808lak** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 2:23 pm

Sure he could have passed more but did you see Pau getting dominated on the interior or Artest missing open shot after open show and choking away free throws when we had a chance to comeback? Would you trust that?

If Kobe tries to use his team mates and they fail its on him and he should have taken over the game.

If Kobe is aggressive and scoring at will because no one else is stepping up, he is being a ball hog who doesn't trust his team mates.

Lose lose situation. Guys on the team need to man up and play like its the finals.

TommyTheCat · Post #3 » by **TommyTheCat** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 2:39 pm

this loss wasn't a kobe issue. this time his teammates all took a dump on the court at the same time.

dk7th · Post #4 » by **dk7th** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 2:59 pm

kobe808lak wrote:Sure he could have passed more but did you see Pau getting dominated on the interior or Artest missing open shot after open show and choking away free throws when we had a chance to comeback? Would you trust that?

If Kobe tries to use his team mates and they fail its on him and he should have taken over the game.

If Kobe is aggressive and scoring at will because no one else is stepping up, he is being a ball hog who doesn't trust his team mates.

Lose lose situation. Guys on the team need to man up and play like its the finals.

but in that span bryant took 14 shots to the rest of the team's 7 shots. so my interpretation is that the deficit expanded from 1 point to 13 points not in spite of his efforts but because of his efforts.

when they showed replays of the way he was defended-- three celtics always converging when he had the ball-- that was exactly like it was in 2008. three celtics on bryant means two lakers are wide open. if he leaves his feet with three guys on him then that is his mistake because it is hard to make a pass once you have left your feet. it undermines the team concept. furthermore, if he's putting up almost 10 assists a game in previous rounds why should he allow himself to revert to less-than awe-inspiring regular-season numbers? don't you guys have a problem with that?

Tee212 · Post #5 » by **Tee212** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 3:03 pm

this thread sucks bro

countrybama24 · Post #6 » by **countrybama24** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 3:06 pm

I'm even a Jazz fan, but you can't bash Kobe for not passing. Sure, he could have created more shots, you can say that about anyone. But at the end of the day, he is so valuable because of his killer instinct which requires selfishness (a la jordan).

After these playoffs, I'll take Kobe over Lebron any day.

OB- wan · Post #7 » by **OB- wan** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 3:07 pm

But if Kobe passes and has pedestrian numbers, like the Celtic stars, he wouldn't get talked about with Jordan which is his main focus.

H00PDREAMS · Post #8 » by **H00PDREAMS** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 3:24 pm

No way Kobe did the right thing. Phil did the right thing Kobe was hot. Get it to the guy who can knock it down. This ain't regular season basketball. You can't shoot? Well you better be driving to the paint to create a foul and get to the line! Just smart basketball. If you can't do either get off the floor or pass it to Kobe and play some lock down defense and rebound your butt off on the other end. SIMPLE!

J the Drafter · Post #9 » by **J the Drafter** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 3:26 pm

As someone who's not a fan or a long-time watcher of the Lakers, I'm wondering if Kobe's ball-dominance isn't partially an issue for the coaching staff. If the Lakers feel that Kobe iso at the top of the three point line is the play to go to when the defense is going full bore, then you have a problem. It's the same reason Vince Carter struggled in the postseason; he couldn't go off most of the time without shutting down the Magic's standard (and ususally better) offensive execution. The Lakers need to make some set plays that will result in at least one of their players getting a quality shot. (They could run staggered-screen-pick-and-rolls with Kobe and Gasol, for example. That play worked for the Magic for two whole games, and might have changed the outcome of the series if it had been used from the start.)

Post #10 » by **semi-sentient** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 3:35 pm

The problem is we don't have a 3rd scorer in this series. Look at the Celtics. When 1 or 2 of the big 3 struggle they get contributions elsewhere.

Who steps up for us when Kobe or Gasol (or worse, both) are off their games?

No one.

Artest is a very bad fit for us on offense and if he's not defending well then he's practically useless. Odom has always been useless off the bench for us. Bynum hobbling around on the court practically guarantees that we don't have a consistent 3rd option, so we basically have to pray that Fisher or Farmar explode.

Our struggles on offense can be directly tied to our struggles on defense as well. We're pretty much a mess right now, and it's only getting worse as the series progresses.

I hate to say it, but the Celtics have us figured out, and that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone because we're not that difficult to figure out to begin with. The problems that we had in the regular season are being amplified right now. No outside shooting to provide proper spacing, not much contribution from Bynum (due to injury) or Odom (bad fit off the bench), and a general lack of toughness from our post players.

The only team in the league that this shows against is the Celtics though, and unfortunately, they're our Finals opponent once again.

MasterRyu · Post #11 » by **MasterRyu** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 3:41 pm

ok, it doesn't matter who got the points. As long as you get them. Bryant got the points for them. The issue is not about the offense. It's about getting stops on the defensive end. You cannot come back from a deficit by trading baskets with the opponent. You have to pull out some crazy defense. The Lakers didn't do that; blame it on the whole team and the coach. Plus Pierce was shooting like a madman.

Yesterday's game was not about the offense really. The Lakers just couldnt' rebound and stop the Celts from scoring.

Tee212 · Post #12 » by **Tee212** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 3:47 pm

Yup! how easy the offense gets blamed. lakers shot 39% and still made a game out of it. Their D sucked ass.

Post #13 » by **semi-sentient** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 3:48 pm

^^^ Sometimes poor offensive execution leads to poor defensive execution. You could see it in the body language of our guys. Poor rebounding... turnovers leading to fast break points... not getting back after a missed perimeter shot...

If we put the ball in the basket, then guys play with more energy, not to mention they actually have a chance to get set up on defense.

Free Rider · Post #14 » by **Free Rider** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 3:56 pm

dk7th wrote:
but in that span bryant took 14 shots to the rest of the team's 7 shots. so my interpretation is that the deficit expanded from 1 point to 13 points not in spite of his efforts but because of his efforts.

when they showed replays of the way he was defended-- three celtics always converging when he had the ball-- that was exactly like it was in 2008. three celtics on bryant means two lakers are wide open. if he leaves his feet with three guys on him then that is his mistake because it is hard to make a pass once you have left your feet. it undermines the team concept. furthermore, if he's putting up almost 10 assists a game in previous rounds why should he allow himself to revert to less-than awe-inspiring regular-season numbers? don't you guys have a problem with that?

What caused the lead to expand during that stretch wasn't Kobe's shot attempts but our lazy defense. It would have been one thing if Kobe was just chucking and missing shots left and right but he was actually making shots and keeping the team in the game. It's like Doc said it's him going 7 for 7 is no different than if other teammates were scoring instead of him. The biggest problem we had in game 5 is that even with Kobe's performance we failed to get any stops whatsoever. Had we gotten at least 2 or 3 stops during that stretch we could have close that lead to 5 or 6 points. I'm someone who has ripped Kobe for going into chuck mode in prior games because what happens is that eventually those shots stop falling but he still keeps going. By I could have lived with that in game 5 if we had just bothered to play defense.

Pablo Escobar · Post #15 » by **Pablo Escobar** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 4:24 pm

Set up who? nobody showed up last game and people want Kobe to pass stfu if he didn't score as much as he did we would of lost by 30+

Tee212 · Post #16 » by **Tee212** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 4:28 pm

semi-sentient wrote:^^^ Sometimes poor offensive execution leads to poor defensive execution. You could see it in the body language of our guys. Poor rebounding... turnovers leading to fast break points... not getting back after a missed perimeter shot...

If we put the ball in the basket, then guys play with more energy, not to mention they actually have a chance to get set up on defense.

Youre 100% right on jacking up perimeter shots leading to easy fast break points for them. More times than not the C's defense are pushing the bigs out of the triangle execution thus swingin the ball side to side...they front, push the post and pressure the post entry very well which most of the times ends up being a kobe bail out % buster long jump shot. The figured us out and the only thing we can use against them is the high pick n roll with kobe/pau. The only positive i can make out of this lost was their 4 bigs showed up compared to our 1 and it was still a managable game on the ROAD.

Ben-N1ce · Post #17 » by **Ben-N1ce** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 4:39 pm

Funny thread. If LA would have won the game this would have been a Kobe is GOAT thread for sure.

chefy · Post #18 » by **chefy** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 4:41 pm

phil has to take some blame...should have made adjustments early in the game even james worthy said it last night...but no. he waited till the 3rd where it got worse and kobe has to take impossible shots. what's worse is he got contended riding kobe. from there our offense really got stagnant and everyone was just watching kobe even on defense. also we didn't give the bigs enough touches.

Tee212 · Post #19 » by **Tee212** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 4:44 pm

yes as you can see why kobe is the highly most ridicule player on earth.

magic1fan · Post #20 » by **magic1fan** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 4:48 pm

sorry but this thread has to be a troll attempt...this has nothing to do with kobe lead teams..it has to do with guys like odom,gasol and artest not showing up...like semi said the celtics have three great players/hof's on their team..we have one,and if the other guys aren't going to contribute then we are in trouble...last i looked this kobe lead team is in it's third consecutive final,and still has homecourt advantage...we win this series and people will forget all about game 5...