BOBCATS -at- LAKERS - 1/27 - Thoughts and :-(( Ratings

[jmark]

[Mr. EiGhTy-OnE]

the tuesday curse continues. 4 of our 9 losses happened on tuesday.


i blame ahmad rashad!
_________________
"When (Kobe) gets you on life support, he won't give you mouth to mouth. HE PULLS THE PLUG." -stu

[ChefLinda]

[Thugnomoe]

Yeah Pau was straight up awful.. What was his deal? He didn't sleep last night? You could tell from the get go that he didn't show up.

This game showed how valuable Kobe is the the Lakers.

[Rick12322]

Thanks for the recap DB. It must be hard writing recaps on losses. This game was ugly. Their physicality exposed the weak links on this team. Pau needs to be locked in a room with DJ MBenga, if he survives that he might emerge a man. Sasha needs to be locked in a gym until he gets his shot back. He must of reduced the amount of practice he put into his shootiing last summer in order to spend that extra time on his ball handling/slashing/driving game because I can't think of any other reason why his shot's been so erratic this year. I have nothing against expanding his game but when you neglect your one talent that got you here, and over invest on non talented portions of your game you get this. Let that be a lesson to him, or everyone for that matter, priority #1 is to keep your best talents sharp at all costs. The rest is just a bonus.

I honestly believe Bynum was only trying to commit a foul to send Wallace to the line, he wasn't trying to hurt him and had no clue whatsoever that what he did would have hurt him. I feel bad for Wallace, wow, I hope he recovers soon.

[Arizona]

[Freakout]

Phil should have put Odom on Wallace and Luke on Diaw. Truth is before he went out, Wallace was abusing us. He is too physical for Luke. Lamar could have negated most of his inside plays.

Diaw on the other hand is more finesse. A easier match up for Luke.

[Klone_dd]

Bobbies have won 3 straight at Staples? Is that true? Unfortunately, I've been to the last 2. They've always been an athletic team and now they have some vets in Diaw and the Butcher.

I knew we were in trouble with the Wallace vs Luke matchup. Super-athlete vs Molasses.

Kobe, bless him, started out like this was going to be an off-game. 0 points midway thru the 2nd and then BOOM. When he took over, the Bobbies were shaking. Looks like the dislocated finger is not going to be a major problem as he shot better than 50%. Seeing that he took 28 shots, I could hear Wilbon saying "told ya, he shouldn't shoot more than 22 in a game." I got no problem with that number because he was shooting well and we really got nothing much out of the F spots.

Bynum was a dominant force, more impressive since Okafor is a pretty good and strong defender. Phil's decision to take him out in the 1st OT is quite puzzling. He showed the complete package - footwork, left hand, right hand, 6 blocks. Only 1 assist, but when you've got it going, hitting a high %-age, and the other team isn't doubling you, you gotta attack rather than pitch out.

Pau - 1st truly bad game of the season. Offensively, he just couldn't hit his normal shots. Defensively, he didn't match up well with Diaw (kinda like how we use LO against typical PFs) and was outmuscled by Okafor.

LO had a good stretch when he wasn't committing mental errors. That ended last night. I wonder if Kobe lit into him in the locker room.

Sasha hit his first 3 3's, giving him a 'be a hero' mentality. Aside from the quick and unnecessary 3 in the 2nd OT, he shot another one earlier just after catching an inbounds pass and even though he was a good 2 ft away from the 3-line.

[mefor3]

I'm sorry, but Sasha is no NBA player...We lost the game because of his poor decisions in OT, Bynum was hot and he kept shooting...

i was yelling Sasha don't shoot, don't shoot...and he did. I would bench his azz for couple of games just for taking that three in transition

[lakers3810]

I wouldn't blame Phil too much. After all, it's quite hard to discern which one is the superstar and which one is the All-Star, but wasn't playing like one that night

[DancingBarry]

As I mentioned, Kobe was furious at LO for the boneheadery. Ding's article below is a bit harsh, but the last quote by Phil about LO is worth eyeballing:

[A Mad Chinaman]

[angrypuppy]

[Mr. EiGhTy-OnE]

-i hate when kobe's heroics are for nothing (this game, @SA, against hous where he drilled that 3 in the corner after kwame missed the free throw)
-note to phil:leave bynum in the game, your mind games hurt the team
-i still cant believe LO left Diaw and commented how the d was good because diaw's shot % was low. ding's article was dead on
-then in double OT, d-fish leaves brown open for 3 to go help
-pau was pathetic, i dont care he had a bad shooting night but the turnovers and laziness hurt us more.
-pau came in for P-n-r defense? andrew did a good job of flashing and showing. not to mention he was a BEAST on the offensive end. actually pau did a good job too because felton should have lit up d-fish
-i hope bynum isnt suspended for his hit on wallace. with our luck stu will suspend him before the boston game.
-i hope trevor bounces back quickly. his energy was missed
-luke is garbage, he had no business starting against wallace. i was happy with phils quick timeout but not happy to see luke replace kobe in OT
-sasha was open off a screen when luke threw the ball away. didnt we have a timeout? some high bball IQ
-luke wouldnt even start for the bobcats or wiz but he starts for us?
-why not try the big 3 lineup and force other teams to adjust to it?
-i hate tuesday games, stop voting for us....lol
-anyone see the play that knocked trev out?
-kobe fouling out was a tragedy. im not asking for superstar calls either. i dont even think a bench player should foul out like that. 3 of his fouls were questionable. ask yourself this if kobe had the ball and raja had 5 fouls, would they have let it go? OF COURSE

thanks DB. not sure how you do it after a tough loss.
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"When (Kobe) gets you on life support, he won't give you mouth to mouth. HE PULLS THE PLUG." -stu

[Sister Golden Hair]

Last year, before the Pau trade, I said numerous times that the lakers were not going to win any rings unless they got rid of at least two of the following three players: Kwame, Luke, LO. I stand by that. Trade either Luke or Lamar (hopefully both, which won't happen), or stick one of them (Luke, most likely) at the end of the bench where the damage he does to his own team can be minimized.

Luke has now proven himself to be LOUSY under pressure. he's made these kinds of end-of-the-game catastrophic miscues over and over again throughout his time here. Seems like failure is hard-wired into his system under pressure now. I'm not sure why PJ still has faith in Luke when it's apparent to even the casual observer that Luke just can't cut it in those situations (not that he's any great shakes at other times, either -- still a horrifying defensive liability, and an overrated passer).

In the play-offs, assuming Luke starts, teams are simply going to collapse the defense, and let Luke shoot all he wants. He will clank the majority of the time. Having him out there is like playing 4 on 5 because the other team can allow the guy guarding Luke to simply roam because Luke is absolutely no threat. His vaunted (read:overrated) passing ability won't make much of a difference because team's will be doubling Kobe, and playing everyone else close. They will dare Luke to beat them, and he will fail. And the lakers will get off to slow starts and it will all be uphill from there.

LO is LO -- just not a winner. A guy who is defined by his chronic (no pun intended, but then again ...) crumbling under pressure and penchant for making the same boneheaded mistakes over and over and over again. People keep saying (after last nite's loss) that hopefully the team will learn from it. But when has that ever been the case? Luke repeats his failures, as does LO -- REGULARLY. They won't change, and believing that they will is an excercise in denial.

SGH

[wolfpaclaker]

[Sister Golden Hair]

[klew]

So disappointing...

[wolfpaclaker]

SGH - I'm not going to get into great detail over a number of things stated there, because it would take away from the overall thread and become a LO thread. Don't wanna crap on DB's thread.

My main point was the blame game. I hate that Jackson puts it (the game) on Lamar's lap. Mind games? Maybe. I still don't agree or like it. There's a zillion things and threads you can post and I can respond about Lamar, but that doesn't have anything to do with the central factor in my rant on Jackson's quote - which was the main point.

Jackson is excusing himself. He's excusing Pau and the rest of the team. He's putting it on Lamar basically and Ding is twisting it around as if Lamar is screwing the team. You're calling him a cancer. If thats how they see it, great, let him go to another team, I am starting to look forward to see if it really is him.

Interesting thing is that Fisher had the exact same type of play to a worse degree (because LA went down 1 for that play and lost the game immediately, unlike last night where we had a chance in another session to beat them and couldn't) and we heard nothing like that from Jackson or the media. Why? Fisher, his standing is different. Even though the truth is Lamar has outplayed Fisher on both ends of the floor this year in a lesser role. Doesn't matter, Fisher is a hero in the eyes of the media and Jackson. Thats my peeve. Always has been, always will be. Double standards. Jackson is finding ways to stick to Odom on his way out the door, while excusing players for the same mistakes. He's sticking it to Bynum, Radmanovic for things he lets Gasol and Walton get away it. Really, the double standards are just not cool. Alas, thats Jackson, always will be.

[A Mad Chinaman]