Kobe or Artest?

[izzatizzy]

Last possession.

Lakers on the defensive end.

Isolation play.

The ball is in the hands of clutch players like 'Bron, Wade, 'Melo, Durant, Granger, Redd, Hedo, Arenas, Pierce (ugh), Ray Allen (ugh), Terry, and all others who have made a lucky shot here and there.

No option of a pass-off

Who would you rather play on the last ball handler?

Kobe or Artest?

For obvious reasons, Kobe is a much quicker defender compared to Artest, but Artest can body up bigger players. Their defensive i.q. is quite the same. Kobe likes to defend low to take away the dribbling and penetration, but he bites on fakes. While Artest likes to defend straight up preventing shots, but he likes to gamble for steals.

Now, who would you prefer?

[dockingsched]

kobe, easy.

artest would be victim of the superstar foul call.

[MindGames]

Its as you said, i would have the player that stands the best chance according to matchups. I would prefer to have Artest to defend all those players with the exception of Wade, Arenas, and Terry

[izzatizzy]

kobe, easy.

artest would be victim of the superstar foul call.

ya think Phil Jackson will have preferences between the two?

[Slava]

Derek Fisher. He's the only guy who fouled twice on the final shot and did not get called for it.

[Hyral]

Well, it's going to be dependent on the matchups like someone said.

Artest is bigger, longer, and stronger, so he'll probably get the assignment if its Lebron, Pierce, Melo, Granger, Durant, Turkoglu, likely Dirk, and possibly Redd/Allen since they aren't that quick and more inclined to pull up for the jump shot. Artest has the length to really bother a lot of these guys.

Kobe on the other hand matches up better with the guards. Wade, Arenas, Terry, Ginobili, Parker, Roy, Davis, Billups, Iverson, etc. Kobe can bother their dribble penetration more and can body them up really tight at the same time.

[izzatizzy]

we all know that 'Bron and Melo would rather play the iso on the last few seconds. (i personally think LeBron is scared of Ron-ron)

but other 'clutch' players have different ways of getting free. but one way of getting free based on play (non-iso play) is running through screens.

artest is a great defender around the pick, its the likes of wade, areas, terry, ginobili to work around them and thats where kobe has a hard time trying to defend shooters - thus the reason why he makes occasional mistakes of jumping on fakes. running around picks was ariza's job. i can actually see artest intelligently bulldozing through picks just to get to his man.

never thought i'd say this but id rather have kobe coming as a secondary defender IF the offensive player runs through artest.

[Tommy Trojan]

Sashaaaa! corner 3!

[DEEP3CL]

kobe, easy.

artest would be victim of the superstar foul call.

I agree with that DC, but Ron might be getting some lee way on calls now. At some point in the season Phil will have to see if Ron can lock up on the last possession.

[fareweatherfan]

As many have said, its too situational to answer.

All things being equal, Kobe all day everyday on the last possession.

[Dr Aki]

kobe plays denial defense on 1st option, lamar's giant arms in the way of the inbounds passer

ball goes to 2nd option, artest plays man-defense...

simple...

[iamworthy]

Last possession.

Lakers on the defensive end.

Isolation play.

The ball is in the hands of clutch players like 'Bron, Wade, 'Melo, Durant, Granger, Redd, Hedo, Arenas, Pierce (ugh), Ray Allen (ugh), Terry, and all others who have made a lucky shot here and there.

No option of a pass-off

Who would you rather play on the last ball handler?

Kobe or Artest?

For obvious reasons, Kobe is a much quicker defender compared to Artest, but Artest can body up bigger players. Their defensive i.q. is quite the same. Kobe likes to defend low to take away the dribbling and penetration, but he bites on fakes. While Artest likes to defend straight up preventing shots, but he likes to gamble for steals.

Now, who would you prefer?

Nice question. I have to ride with Cash though. Kobe will be able to get away with alot more than Artest....for now. But I can see Phil Jackson testing that theory during the regular season.

[Patterns]

Artest for bigger players. Kobe for SGs and slow PGs.

[Guy986]

we all know that 'Bron and Melo would rather play the iso on the last few seconds. (i personally think LeBron is scared of Ron-ron)

but other 'clutch' players have different ways of getting free. but one way of getting free based on play (non-iso play) is running through screens.

artest is a great defender around the pick, its the likes of wade, areas, terry, ginobili to work around them and thats where kobe has a hard time trying to defend shooters - thus the reason why he makes occasional mistakes of jumping on fakes. running around picks was ariza's job. i can actually see artest intelligently bulldozing through picks just to get to his man.

never thought i'd say this but id rather have kobe coming as a secondary defender IF the offensive player runs through artest.

I would have to disagree. Artest has always struggled defending guys that like to go through a series of screens to score. His strength on defense is guarding his man 1 on1 in isolation situation.

Kobe and Fisher would have to chase the Ray Allen, Ben Gordon and Rip Hamiltons around.

[laduane1]

I hope both will play defense like the coach wants them to. Trevor, he could get to the rim so easy, that will be missed. Going to be a hard road no matter who plays where and who scores. We are now the target and all will come for us. Bring it...