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Not sure if this exactly warranted a thread on its own but I think it's worth a discussion. Watching tonight's game I couldn't believe how many turnovers the Lakers committed at the end of the game. There were as many bad passes as bad catches and it looked like everyone forgot how to play basketball on the offensive end for a while. I don't remember the last time I felt like pulling out my hair so badly, and I'm primarily a Raptors fan so that's saying something.

So the Lakers appear to be among the league's worst in turnovers committed (if I'm reading the stats correctly), and I wanted to know what you guys thought as to why this is the case. In addition, how much you guys think it's costing the Lakers games.

My thoughts on the questions: I think it's costing the Lakers huge. Everyone keeps trying to pick out individual players and performances but the sloppy offense is killing me every game (literally, I've probably lost a good 5 years on my heart). It would be better if it was because the opposing team was playing good defense but most of the time the Lakers just look like a team of rookies seeing NBA pressure for the first time. Sometimes, like tonight, they just look stupid, bobbling the ball on catches repeatedly.

Maybe the reason for the turnovers is a change in offensive systems that has happened multiple times throughout the season (Princeton, SSOL -neither of those two appeared to have been fully implemented-, and now whatever you want to call playing Kobe on-ball -which I think is a good idea). Maybe the lack of identity is causing confusion and in the second half of the season we'll see turnovers decrease, but I really can't account for stupid turnovers. My best guess is it's caused by panic, which is weird for a roster full of veterans.

Anyways, I think the turnovers are costing the Lakers some easy games and they need to tighten up on the offensive end. What they're running now seems to be working but maybe D'Antoni is letting players off the ball improvise too much and this needs to be figured out in practice.

THOUGHTS?

1. we're used to it
2. no, we see the stupid turnovers too.
3. everyone has butterfingers

Dwight and Pau are extremely weak with the ball. Nash has been sloppy this year too. Kobe facilitating more leads to some bad decisions too (but generally has been quite good).

Also, the biggest issue is these turnovers directly leading to points on the other end. The transition D is a joke. Turnovers put this already terrible defense in a worse position.

I think they just got a little overexuberant with the all-for-one one-for-all, Kobe assist thing. Many of the turnovers were guys trying to hit other guys for easy shots but the passing lane was not quite there. Good idea, wrong decision. There were way too many of these, especially early in the game.

MWP was just completely befuddled when the ball came to him last night unless he was set to shoot... Then he was befuddled on the shot.

Id be shocked if Clark ever once in his entire career even practiced throwing an inbound pass.

Kobe was making the classic football mistake of not watching the ball into his hands. He also was passing up wide open shots to make superfluous passes...

Dwight is enamored with bounce passes and bringing the ball down around his knees before a shot.

Nash just hasn't been as crisp with his passes so far this season.

Blake dribbles too much and is indecisive with his passes.

Basically, we still don't really know what the hell we're doing. If it isn't Kobe running the show and making it up as he goes along, it's ineffective.

Kilroy wrote:MWP was just completely befuddled when the ball came to him last night unless he was set to shoot... Then he was befuddled on the shot.

Id be shocked if Clark ever once in his entire career even practiced throwing an inbound pass.

Kobe was making the classic football mistake of not watching the ball into his hands. He also was passing up wide open shots to make superfluous passes...

Dwight is enamored with bounce passes and bringing the ball down around his knees before a shot.

Nash just hasn't been as crisp with his passes so far this season.

Blake dribbles too much and is indecisive with his passes.

Basically, we still don't really know what the hell we're doing. If it isn't Kobe running the show and making it up as he goes along, it's ineffective.

so what you mean to say is GEK right?

Not really, because I don't think Kobe making it up as he goes along is sustainable, especially in the playoffs.

The team needs a system... Something to fall back on when the showtime stuff isn't working. Something they can trust to keep them in the game.

Right now, the only system they have doesn't seem to work. I think they were trying that more last night in the first half, and it looked awful.

I am saying though, that if they're going to run Kobe Showtime at all, they need to stick with it and trust it. Even if it means Nash's role gets subjugated.

Because, if they roll with it, I think they need Nash to fill in for Kobe when he's out and visa versa.

Even thought Duhon had some stretches where he looked better than Blake at packup PG, I don't think any of our PG's can run a system similar to what Kobe's doing.

Kilroy wrote:MWP was just completely befuddled when the ball came to him last night unless he was set to shoot... Then he was befuddled on the shot.

Id be shocked if Clark ever once in his entire career even practiced throwing an inbound pass.

Kobe was making the classic football mistake of not watching the ball into his hands. He also was passing up wide open shots to make superfluous passes...

Dwight is enamored with bounce passes and bringing the ball down around his knees before a shot.

Nash just hasn't been as crisp with his passes so far this season.

Blake dribbles too much and is indecisive with his passes.

Basically, we still don't really know what the hell we're doing. If it isn't Kobe running the show and making it up as he goes along, it's ineffective.

Main issue is we went away from what has been working. We did not really isolate kobe in the post, and set a screen for him for the easy free throw shot. Where was that against pheonix.

The team's identity has to do with utilizing kobe, dwight, and gasol in the post. From there we get high percentage shots from 15 feet out or less...or a kick out to a shooter. Key is to try to look for the easy shots near the paint rather than settling for the three. Lakers were 8 for 27 from three...obviously tired legs from a back to back.

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