LAKERS -at- HEAT - 12/19 - Thoughts and :-(( Ratings

[DancingBarry]

Beat at Their Own Game... Kobe Bryant attacked across the lane to his left, faded against Shawn Marion, and put up a jumper hoping to tie the game. The ball went down, rattled around and popped out. Thus, the Lakers stumble out of the gates on the first game of their roadtrip, falling 89-87.

"It's what we wanted. It just didn't go in," Phil said of the shot.

The Heat beat the Lakers using our own defensive scheme. L.A. played as if they didn't know how to attack it, which is hard to believe. The Heat sent the extra defender strong side and zoned weakside. Sound familiar? They also fronted our post and we didn't know how to go to our counters to make the Heat pay. (Michael Beasley was guarding Bynum and Odom and never paid the price. The hoop IQ can drive you nuts sometimes.)

Instead, we pounded the dribble and often tried to attack into the heart of that zone. The Lakers had 21 turnovers, but the 10-19 shooting from the line probably also cost them the game. You just can't shoot that badly from the line on the road. It will bite you again and again. This may be a fundamental flaw of this team that won't go away. "That hurts a lot," Kobe said of the freethrows.

The Lakers held a team to under 90, but they scored a season-low 87. It seems they can't put together complete games on both ends at the same time lately. I would rather have the problems on the offensive end, since the Triangle will continue to improve as the season goes along.

The Heat had 6 blocks to our 1 block. Who played bigger than whom? DWade hit a 32-foot prayer at the end of the third quarter. How huge did that end up being?

With several Lakers suffering from illness, tomorrow's back-to-back game will be a tough one to push through.


Kobe -- -- Kobe had a team-high -6. Offensively, the ball died in his hands way too much and we played right into the strengths of the Heat defense. Kobe led the team with 5 turnovers. He still shot a decent percentage, but our offense had no flow whatsoever. Both he and Trevor were wearing the new low-top Kobe shoe. Poor debut on the court. The Stats: He scored 28 points on 12-24 shooting (1-3 from three, 3-4 from the line) to go with 3 boards, 3 assists, 5 turnovers and 3 fouls in 35 minutes. The Action: He posted up and scored at the front of the rim. Farmar attacked, lost the ball right to Kobe and Kobe quickly reversed before the first-quarter buzzer. He attacked and kicked to Fish for three. He blew past Wade and changed hands in the air to finish with his left. He pumped, Marion didn't bite and he still swished the 18-footer. His lob pass was deflected away. Bad pass to Gasol trying to lead him too much, turnover. He was tied up in the air for a jumpball, he won the tip against Haslem and then hit the three. He missed a wing jumper with the shotclock low. He missed an early offense three. He found a lane and scooped in a layup with his left. He had 17 points on 7-12 shooting and 3 assists. Second Half: He missed a quick pull-up from the wing in transition. He posted up and was blocked by the help D trying to throw it down. He crossed over and missed a layup, got it back and lost it on what looked like a foul. He sagged off his man and gave up an open three. He pulled up on the wing on the other end and hit the 19-footer. He got fouled on the perimeter and drew FTs, he made one. He ball-watched and it caused Andrew to pick up his fourth foul. He scored a layup off a give-and-go in traffic with Pau. He stalled the offense out of a timeout and missed a forced jumper. He banked after taking a pass off the pinch post. He hoisted another three in early offense and bricked. He dunked off a leak out when Pau blocked a shot. The ball died in his hands again, he missed a long jumper. He tied up Wade on the floor with 56 seconds left, Wade won the jumpball and Kobe argued about a weak toss (second one in a row). The play out of a timeout was busted, Kobe attacked, spun away from defenders and hit a difficult one-hander with 41 seconds left to cut the lead to 2. At the buzzer, his 12-foot fading jumper went waaaay down and popped out.

Gasol -- -- Pau missed a freethrow with a few seconds left in the game. He went just 3-6 from the line. He's still suffering from an illness, and our post play was suffering, too. "We just didn't get the ball into him," Phil said. It's true. Very, very weak job executing on the offense end. With the guys sick, you wonder how much this loss will take out of them for Orlando game. The Stats: He scored 13 points on 5-10 shooting (3-6 from the line) to go with 11 boards, 3 assists, 1 block, 2 turnovers and no fouls in 35 minutes. The Action: He hit a jumper. He tipped in a shot. He dunked in transition off a bounce pass from Luke. He hit Farmar with a kickout for three. He missed a jumphook. He missed a jumphook (fouled with no call). He had 6 points in the first half. Second Half: He missed an open jumper from the right side. He was fouled on a point-blank dunk attempt, he then missed both FTs. He swished a jumper from the left side on a kickout from Fish. He fumbled away a sure score on a lob. He hit Kobe on the give-and-go for a score. He attacked, didn't go up strong and intstead missed a baseline hook. Kobe scored off a long outlet for a dunk after Pau erased a drive with a block. He dunked off the slip screen from Fish. He was fouled by Wade with no call with 9 seconds left right under the hoop. He was grabbed again on the in-bounds pass off that play, this time they called the foul, down by two, he missed the first long, made the second, we trailed by 1.

Bynum -- -- Foul trouble seemed to throw off his game...again. He needs to beast it up against smaller teams and he's continually struggling to do that. Our inability to take advantage of our size in the post was a team-wide issue. Bynum, of course, needs to impose himself, seal and demand the ball. Get pissed. Teammates need to go to our counters better (high-lows and corner sequences) and they need to play better over the top to deal with these help defenses. There were several instances where Bynum was working hard under the hoop but teammates didn't give it to him. Despite the poor night, Bynum ended up with a team-high +4. That largely came because our bench was outplaying the Heat bench and Bynum was in on that second unit. The Stats: He scored 4 points on 2-4 shooting (0-1 from the line) to go with 6 boards, 1 assist, 1 steal, 2 turnovers and 4 fouls in 27 minutes. The Action: He kicked out to Farmar, who attacked the lane and scored. He picked up his third foul of the half on a reach and had to sit with 7 minutes left. He didn't score in the first half. Second Half: He ate up a Chalmers' drive. Excellent change of directions on the spin move from the elbow to score an And-1 layup, he missed the FT. He missed an open Luke under the hoop (would have been a layup). He had to sit after 8 minutes when Kobe ball-watched and Drew fouled his man. He bricked a short jumphook. He pulled down an offensive board, spun and hit. He slapped an entry pass away for a steal. He missed an elbow jumper.

Luke -- -- So much for the offense running better. Our starters looked disjointed and out of sync. The Stats: He scored 2 points on 1-4 shooting to go with 4 boards, 1 assist, 1 turnover and 1 foul in 17 minutes. The Action: He pushed out the break and hit Pau for the dunk. Second Half: He had his man on his hip at midcourt, kept attacking and fed Pau. He took a pass under the hoop, posting up Wade, he missed, powered up again and scored.

Fisher -- -- He, too, missed a freethrow in crunch time. I thought he had his late game FT miss out of his system for the next several weeks. Apparently not. Our PGs managed to put up a decent game compared to many of the previous outings. Hard not to improve. We struggled at times getting the ball to our bigs. Fish did hit Pau late for a wide open dunk. The Stats: He scored 13 points on 4-8 shooting (2-5 from three, 3-4 from the line) to go with 3 boards, 4 assists, 2 steals, 3 turnovers and 4 fouls in 30 minutes. The Action: He missed a three. He sank a three for our first make. He swished an open corner three off the kickout from Kobe. He missed a wing three. Second Half: He attacked and kicked to Pau for the open jumper. He swished a baseline jumper, creating with the clock low. Good rotation and help on the boards and he drew a foul on Haslem. He swiped a pass, pushed out the break and drew FTs, he made both. He missed a jumper, stepping in after his man flew by. He missed a wing three. Out of a timeout he threw a lob away. He drew FTs on a pull-up from the freethrow line, he made one to cut the lead to 5 with 3 minutes left. He hit Pau on the slip screen for the dunk. He was fouled with 1:14 left and made both.

Lamar -- -- Lamar clanked from the freethrow line -- two big misses with just over 2 minutes left. That hurts. Powell and Vlad both got minutes at the PF spot between the third and fourth quarter. At the time, Lamar had just picked up his fourth foul. So, it could have been that Phil was dealing with foul issues...but it seemed more likely that Phil was trying to jumpstart the team. Lamar certainly wasn't doing it. (I should have used the puke emoticon for the last game since he hurled then, but the stats are more appropriate for this one.) The Stats: He scored 3 points on 1-6 shooting (0-1 from three, 1-4 from the line) to go with 4 boards, 1 assist, 2 turnovers and 5 fouls in 26 minutes. The Action: He crashed the glass, grabbed the miss by Gasol and put it back in. He was hammered on the screen-roll with Farmar for FTs, he made one. He missed a long wing jumper. He missed a 30-footer trying to beat the shotclock. Excellent footwork to stay in front of Beasley and draw a charge. He had an interior feed picked off after a good hustle for an offensive board. He charged into traffic. He drew a foul in the lane with 2:33 left, he missed both down by 7. Nice help on Wade to get a late stop. He was blocked twice in the lane in the final few seconds.

Ariza -- -- Ariza sank a huge three in crunch time. If he's going to get minutes late in a game, he's going to have to knock down some of these looks. I still have little faith in his jumper right now. After game three of this season, he has shot 19 percent from three -- yet, we are still concerned about Lamar's three shooting (.364) and our inability to space the floor with LO out there. I'm not saying Ariza shouldn't get the bulk of the minutes at SF, but there are some minutes available for LO if we want it. The Stats: He scored 7 points on 3-5 shooting (1-2 from three) to go with 5 boards, 2 steals, 1 turnover and 3 fouls in 27 minutes. The Action: He dunked off the drive and dish from Farmar. Second Half: He missed a 19-footer in early offense. He cut the lead to 4 with a jumper off the pinch post with Powell. He sank a huge wing three on a kickout from Pau with 2 minutes left.

Farmar -- -- Much better first stint from Farmar...on both ends. Our bench helped dig the team out of holes a couple of times. He's taken a lot of heat after going to Phil and laying out some excuses. Now, he needs to man up and play strong on both ends. The effort and focus seemed much better, especially for a road game. We got some fight from our bench on this first road game, instead of the fight getting taken to them in the last road trip. Farmar needs to string some of these together and get the job done, first, on the defensive end of the court. Seeing some impact and life from him was one of the few positives in this game. The Stats: He scored 12 points on 5-8 shooting (2-2 from three) to go with 2 boards, 2 assists, 2 steals, 2 turnovers and 2 fouls in 18 minutes. He was a +2. The Action: He used his off arm in the backcourt bringing up the ball and was called or an offensive foul. He attacked and bounced it to Ariza for a dunk. He drained a wing three off some good inside-out ball movement. He attacked, lost the handle right to Kobe for a score at the end of the quarter. He took the Bynum kickout, attacked the paint, jump-stepped quickly to his left and scored the layup (very nice). He set up Lamar off the screen-roll for FTs in early offense. He attacked and charged on the pass off. He swished a wing three off the Lamar swing pass. He knocked a ball loose with a reach. He scored a layup working off the pinch post with Bynum. He had 10 points in that stint. Second Half: He missed a layup off a nice attack. He tried to lob to Drew who wasn't paying attention. He missed a layup in transition, should have had it. He swiped the ball from behind Cook and scored a bustout layup. Chalmers scored a layup around Jordan off the pinch post (even though Farmar went under the screen -- didn't move his feet).

Vujacic -- -- Again, the Lakers ran a play for him out of a timeout and Sasha answered. They are using him better. Getting him and Kobe on the floor at the same time when they can. Phil even made some offense-defense subs with him and Ariza. Something that was missing in the first few weeks. It seems Sasha has been coming around since these changes. The Stats: He scored 5 points on 2-3 shooting (1-2 from three) to go with 1 board, 1 turnover and no fouls in 17 minutes. The Action: He forced a pass and turned it over. He missed a wide open corner three next time down. Second Half: He sank a pull-up three from the top of the arc in transition. He sank a wing jumper working off the screens out of a timeout. Nice pressure on an in-bounds pass (along with Kobe) and it resulted in a turnover.

Radmanovic -- -- He has been given token duties. He came in with a minute left in the third, trailing by 9 and played a brief stint at the PF spot. The team had a horrible offensive quarter, scoring just 17 points and Phil might have been hoping he would loosen things up. We trailed by 12, then cut it to 7 before Vlad left. He didn't play well. The Stats: He didn't score on 0-1 shooting (missing his only three) to go with 2 turnovers in 5 minutes. The Action: Did not play. Second Half: He threw a pass away to start the fourth. He stepped on the sideline. He missed a long three.

Powell -- -- He came in early in the fourth. Lamar had picked up his fourth, Vlad had been floundering at PF. Phil was looking for something to spark the team. He was a +1. The Stats: He didn't score on 0-1 shooting, he had 1 board, 1 assist and 1 foul in 3 minutes. The Action: Did not play. Second Half: He missed a mid-range wing jumper with the shotclock low.

Phil -- -- Turnovers in the first quarter kept the Laker offense from getting off to a quick start. This would be a trend... They were tied 26-26 after the first. Phil started the second quarter with a Bynum, Lamar, Ariza, Sasha, Farmar lineup. Some excellent effort by the second unit... The Lakers pulled out to a 6-point lead midway through the second quarter... The Heat went on a 7-0 run at the end of the half and the score was tied 46-46. The Lakers gave up 12 turnovers (8 for the Heat) and 8 offensive boards (4 for the Lakers). The Lakers shot 54 percent to the Heat 42 percent in the half... The coaches didn't like the easy looks the Lakers were giving up. They wanted better challenging of shots. And, of course, better execution offensively... Phil called a timeout, trailing 65-61 with 3 minutes left in the third. He went to Ariza and Farmar with Gasol, Lamar and Kobe... He sat Kobe for Vlad, trailing by 9. A 16-4 run for the Heat to close the quarter... The Lakers trailed 75-63 when Wade hit a 32-foot prayer at the end of the third... Phil brought in Powell at PF early in the fourth for Vlad... The second unit cut it to 4, but Phil called a timeout after they gave up a layup to trail by 6. He went back to Pau, Kobe, Fish with Bynum and Pau... He picked up a technical foul trailing 84-80 with 1:46 left in the game. Not smart (luckily Haslem missed)... Lakers trailed 88-84 with 54 seconds left after Haslem missed two more FTs. Phil brought in Sasha for Ariza. The play busted but Kobe scored to cut the lead to 2... Still down by 2 with 9 seconds left, Phil called timeout. Pau was fouled under the hoop on the in-bounds for FTs. Pau made one. Wade made just 1 on the other end... Another timeout with 6.8 seconds left. Pau, Lamar, Kobe, Sasha and Fish on the floor. Got got the ball up high, attacked across the lane to his left and got tapped on the fade...

Game Flow -- LINK -- The 16-4 run against Kobe, Gasol, Lamar and a mix of bench players at the end of the third put the Lakers in a huge hole.

[Jack Kent Cooke]

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The Man who Built the Great Western Forum

MINUTEMEN: http://img412.imageshack.us/my.php?image=minutemenuz1.jpg

Prediction: 64-18 (42-10), NBA title.

"It ain't over. It's 7 game series." - Carmelo after Lakers win 4-0.

[City_Dawg]

Thanks as always DB
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*sighs*

!...

[jsi106]

lately, other than ariza, lakers bring out the worst of all their players.
especially lamar, i want yo give him a slap on the head

[Tony Almeida]

Thanks, DB.

I've been concerned about something for several weeks.

re: Andrew Bynum. Fire.

As you said about Bynum:

[king255]

Remember when I said wait till we fell another loss behind Boston, with the delay in starting Ariza? Looks pretty prophetic now, probably even a little earlier than I thought. The thing is Phil probably could have tried to mask Luke's incompetence again by telling them to "really get up" against this team. I mean, they played hard, but there's a difference between playing hard, playing hardest and playing with heart. You can see that Wade got up to play against Kobe(you can see it on some of the ridiculous shots he was making), but I don't know if you can say the same back. Usually, when you have a guy trying to show another guy up, then the other, if he was truly unfazed, would do it right back. Well, Kobe tried to respond all right, but his "heart" just was never there, that and you can't try to force it when the score or momentum is against you.

[J.C. Smith]

[Arizona]

One thing's for sure. This team's getting its ass handed to it again by the Celts on Christmas Day, this time on their home court. It's gonna be ugly.

So much for Drew and Ariza being the answers. The team's worse than it was last year, their record aside. Damn.
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“I’m just a basketball player, you know? Just put me where you need me.” -Lamar Odom

“You’ve got to play with pride and guts.” -LO

[USCandLakers]

Disagree about Kobe. He was one of the few bright spots tonight.

[A Mad Chinaman]

DB - thanks for the write-up

Question:
What will Howard do to Bynum, if Drew is having problems with Miami's so-called "big men?!?" As "Big Game James" stated on TV - "C'mon Anderew, It's Time to Plaaaaaaaaayyy!"

Despite the Lakers recently playing better defense, why are the Lakers a step too slow and/or making the wrong decisions (still) on P&R.

[limchrc]

Thanks. Too bad we lose the game. Hope for a better showing in our next game.

[Jack Kent Cooke]

[Mr. EiGhTy-OnE]

its unacceptable not to get the ball in the post against an undersized team. this team never learns.
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"When (Kobe) gets you on life support, he won't give you mouth to mouth. HE PULLS THE PLUG." -stu

[KobeJaws]

Thanks DB.

[Rick12322]

Kobe has a couple of bad habits, each one probably caused by the drive that makes him great. he tries so hard to be the best that on D he gambles too much, looking for the steals. Almost every time that happens we give up points. Secondly, when the game was slipping away, he tried to respond to a Miami 3 with one of his own which was rushed and taken outside the offense. That was the point where we went down by 10. So, again, instead of playing fundamentally he's trying to go beyond that and as is often the case it backfired.

Another problem we have with Kobe is his game meshing with the team is kind of like water and oil, it doesn't mix. When he gets it going and he's hot, the team zones out of it's own game, and vice versa when he's cruising the team steps up. There never has been a good blend of both. What kind of led up to our falling behind was his hot first quarter took away from the teams execution. When the second half rolled around the team was out of the flow and Kobe went cold.

I would like to see Kobe become mr. fundamental on D, and find a better way to mix his game up within the team so they can all click. On the game ending scenario when he's doubled I'd like him to become a great passer and find the open guy, and trust his teammates to make game ending plays.

[Mr. EiGhTy-OnE]

from espn.com

[D Nice]

[Perceptor]

[DancingBarry]

[City_Dawg]

[Rigged4fun]

The Lakers shouldn't have been in the position of last second shot. They played miserably. I agree with Rick's assessment. The Lakers will never win the championship with the last few games. I hate to say "wait till next year" but if there isn't some sort of shakeup that's the way it's going to be. They can't get out of their own way.