http://www.ocregister.com/lakers/grizzl ... -didn.htmlWhy Lakers didn't foul earlier at end of loss to Grizzlies
In the way that games come to be defined by single plays, so was Friday's 109-106 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
For a journey into the many things a coach is considering when making any decision, one needed only to listen in on Byron Scott's postgame press conference when asked about the Lakers letting 12 seconds run off the clock while trailing by one before fouling Mike Conley.
Conley went to the line with 12.6 seconds left, setting off a wild and entertaining finish that concluded when Bryant's game-tying 3 was off the mark at the buzzer.
To quickly recap Scott's dilemmma with fouling: Bryant made a 3-pointer with 24.2 seconds left that cut the Grizzlies' lead to 106-105. Were the Grizzlies to run down the shot clock, the Lakers would have had just .2 seconds to score. So conventional wisdom is to foul to get the ball back.
However, Lin was was guarding Conley, and Scott was yelling from the bench not to foul. Bryant, standing at the baseline, grew exasperated and ran up and fouled the Memphis point guard.
“I was asking (Scott) if I should foul and he said no,” Lin said. “I asked two or three more times, he kept saying no. Then Kobe came in and fouled.”
Scott wanted the Lakers to wait until about 10 seconds remained, so they would get the last possesssion.
"I had told (Lin) to wait until they got past half court," Scott said, "and we wanted to foul abou the 10 second mark, he was trying to listen to me while I’m talking to him and Kobe ran up and made the foul. I told Kobe that was my judgment, just to hold off for a moment."
He later added: "I’m also looking at my timeouts, how many I have left. Can I save a few of those timeouts? With 20 seconds you foul, we go down, we score – or we miss – then we’ve got to go down again, call another timeout to get another play down. So I try to weigh all those things. I was down to my last two timeouts."
In other words, if the Lakers had fouled Conley earlier in the possession, Scott thought they might get caught up in a situation where they would have to foul on multiple possessions, drying up his cache of timeouts and putting the Lakers at a disadvantage.
His strategy was to let the Grizzlies go up by three -- Conley split the free throws, so the margin was two -- and get one last shot to tie.
And it nearly worked, if Davis had converted the and-1 possibility -- or even made both of his free throws -- the plan would have fallen into place. Then the Lakers would have had to just play defense either for overtime or a win.
