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How many touches did Gasol get in the last 5 minutes last night? Dude is on of the best interior players in the NBA and I don't think he took a single shot.

yeah that was worse ball movement then usual. he got zero touches. i know Kobe usually comes thru but i'd like to see Gasol get a shot once in a while.

Yep from a Kobe fan, Kobe needs to give up the ball sometimes. Trust boy trust

I can't wait for Kobe to lose the MVP already. I know he talks about how it's not important to him, but his ego seems to be getting in the way of that.

Is Kobe now option 1A to Pau and Bynum's inside option 1B?

We need to work it inside-out, not just shoot off-balance leaners/fade-aways and demand fouls when we did nothing to deserve them.

Bad playcalling by Kurt..

Absurd coaching.. Kurt is not gonna replace Phil..

kevin_405 wrote:Bad playcalling by Kurt..

Absurd coaching.. Kurt is not gonna replace Phil..

Yeah left Luke in waaay too long and let Kobe shoot us out of the game with those threes, but I've seen him do that many times under Phil so I'm not sure that part is his fault.

Kurt? Phil? You honestly think they control Kobe?

Kobe runs this team.

The only play I saw them run at the end of the game was for Fish, probably the only player Kobe trusts to hit a big shot.

Since PJ's return, I have yet to see one instance of him reigning Kobe in. That's how they get along, Kobe respects PJ and PJ believes Kobe will make the next shot every time. They don't butt heads because they don't disagree anymore.

Still not healthy.

Pau hitting clutch shots in a end of the game situation would destroy Kobe's ego, I'm stunned some Laker fans haven't caught on to this yet. Kobe is so selfish, even though he tries to act like he trusts his teammates more, he doesn't.

The only guy that could potentially wrestle the ball away from Kobe is a healthy Bynum. Last season he was the only player to not pass the ball to Kobe when he asked for it. I certainly won't go as far as leaving Kobe out of the plays down the stretch, but we need more high percentage shots from our bigs than a gunslinger who's pretty much 50/50 when it comes to clutch situations. For all the things about Kobe having great basketball knowledge and high IQ he has never shown that when closing out games.

Even on that play when he tried to hit Odom on the right wing they showed a replay from the back court view that showed Kobe could've hit Pau for a clean dunk that would've kept us in it.

The thing with Kobe is he gets into this ego battle with whoever he's checking and he tries to match them stroke for stroke. Once Kobe realizes he has more weapons than most of these other guys, the Lakers and him will be more deadly. That wild heavy contested 3 he tried over Roy was the beginning of the end.

good points, but give portland some credit. theyve got 3 7footers on that team. we gave up some interior heigth for brown etc...

The beginning of the end was when Derek Fisher came into the game. He was 1-7 by the its end. Yet we had Shannon Brown shooting 4-4. Big shots too. Tough shots.

Someone find the coaching staff's testicles -- they should be somewhere in Montana where PJ stashes away his 9 championship rings and Jordan's old jockstrap.

I recognize that you need set rotations so players aren't constantly looking over their back...but Shannon was balling and a big reason we were kept it close at the end.

A cold Fish is a stinky Fish.

But once Kobe realized he was going to do this on his own (and Pau Gasol receded into his invisibility cloak) the coffin was nailed shut.

Or maybe it ended when Sasha came out for Ariza (had the worst +/- in the game by far).

****...we just got downed I guess. Player rotations are crap, but not because of Rambis, these are Phil's. We were coached by Philbot last night. On autopilot.

I hate it when Gasol never touches the ball in the end. One of the reason why Kobe almost seemingly comes through everytime in the clutch with Shaq was because the other team felt Shaq's presence, and is afraid to double Kobe. We need to make Gasol a threat in end of games so Kobe would get easier looks, and if Gasol never gets the ball, than theres no reason for the other team to heavily defend Gasol. Work the inside out game. Double Kobe? Throw it to Gasol, not a lot of big men in this league could stop Gasol 1 on 1 in the post. Double Gasol? You get Kobe out there on the perimeter. Throw in a dead eye clutch shooter Fisher in the corner, a slashing Ariza, and Bynum waiting there for the offensive rebound, we would be very hard to stop

I understand where everyone's coming from, but execution is only half the story. What about the defense? They barely got any damn stops in the last few minutes.

Bron makes use of his teammates much better then Kobe does. And thats why Bron will win the MVP.

Luxury wrote:I understand where everyone's coming from, but execution is only half the story. What about the defense? They barely got any damn stops in the last few minutes.

They were making tough shots, but yeah, we could've been better regardless. As always...

steve blake was bailing the blazers out with his midrange J last night

and kobe/gasol 2 man-game has become a little too predictable, nate mcmillan had the inside on how to defend kobe since the olympics

i think the only plays kobe trusts in is dishing to fisher and when trapped and doubled, throwing the ball to lamar so lamar can flash to FT line and cause an overlap either for gasol or an open shot for sasha (see final play of 1st half)

AceFresh wrote: Our offense is one-dimensional down the stretch, defenses key in and we're left praying Kobe can pull one out.

We have too many weapons to allow that to happen

+1.

pau nedds to be more aggressive and demand the ball. like barkley and kenny were saying on inside the nba,pau doesn't play like a real 7 footer. he needs to establish position and demand the ball,forget how kobe or anyone else feel about it. he is the second best player on this team,and he deserves to have us win or lose by him sometimes.