Game Thread - Friday, March 28th 2008

[dockingsched]

the lakers aren't .5 games behind the top spot. they're two losses behind without the tie breaker making them 3 games back. basically, they aren't getting the top spot.

[Kobay]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pdFnaOtl5lY

[Alyosha12]

Whats really amazing and i think people are overlooking is that Kobe got 53pts with only 7 FTA.

[incontrol__]

Whats really amazing and i think people are overlooking is that Kobe got 53pts with only 7 FTA.

We lost so it doesn't matter, obviously.

Also, according to B-Scott Kobe should be embarrassed not to have scored 60 on them.

Baron Davis, Jason Richardson and many other players have blown by him all season.

He guarded them the majority of the time he played against them, didn't he? Do you just not watch the games or atleast not pay attention when we're playing defense? You seem to just assume that whoever lights us up is who Kobe guarded.

Baron Davis lights us up? Kobe's fault. Stephen Jackson has a pretty good game in the exact same game? Kobe's fault. Game before, Monta Ellis had a good game - Kobe's fault. Jackson also had a pretty good game that game, too, again - obviously Kobe's fault.

Kobe's defense wasn't great in the Charlotte game, btw. I agree with that. He didn't defend Carroll or Wallace very well, or Jason Richardson either when he was on him for stretches. It's true that Kobe's defense hasn't been near DPOY lately. I don't disagree with that at all.

...Kobe's carrying alot of injuries right now and doesn't really have anyone at all to help him out, though. No fellow wing defender, no defensive anchor, and has pretty poor defenders either side of him a majority of the time with Farmar or Fisher and Walton and Radmanovic being our PG and SF rotations. When he gets put next to Sasha he is also not exactly next to a stellar defender.

Odom, Kobe, and Turiaf are really the only good defenders we have on our team. Turiaf is fairly streaky in that department, too, as he's very foul prone.

Everyone else is either poor (Walton, Fisher, Farmar, Radmanovic) or good for stretches but generally just very average to below average (Mbenga, Sasha).

Newble could help out, but unfortunately Phil refuses to play him. We'd be an okay defensive team if we rolled out a lineup of Fisher, Kobe, Newble, Odom, Turiaf consistently.

Unfortunately we roll out Fisher, Kobe, Walton or Rad, Odom, Turiaf with Mbenga, Sasha, Rad/Walton and Farmar our main contributors off the bench.

It's just fairly dissapointing to me that you're always looking for anything to bash Kobe that you ignore what's pretty clear to see on the court. Alot of people do that, though, so it's not that surprising i guess.

Bottomline: Once we get Gasol, Bynum and Ariza back, Kobe, Fisher, Farmar, Odom, everybody's defense will look alot better because we will have 4 pretty good defenders getting a fairly large amount of minutes in the rotation (Ariza, Odom, Turiaf, Gasol) and two great defenders getting a large amount of minutes in the regular rotation (Kobe and Bynum).

Fisher, Farmar, Vlad, and Walton will still be poor defenders, but they will be heavily masked by the fact that we can now use great defensive tactics - like funnelling the defender baseline - which you can only really do when you have a very good defensive anchor (and good defensive players, in general, who get a large amount of minutes in the rotation).

Edit: Typing this post has only made me further upset that Bynum, Gasol, and Ariza are still a fair way away.

[kno]

Problem with the Lakers is we were not a great defensie team even with Gasol, but we could simply outscore teams. Now with Gasol out the lineup,that defense is more noticed.

Kobe has not played D in years

A couple of games ago you were praising Bryant's stellar defensive performance.

Its pathetic.