LAKERS -at- WARRIORS - 12/14 - Thoughts and :-(( Ratings

[DancingBarry]

Painful to Watch Down the Stretch... This is a game the Lakers should have had. A game they probably would have had if Kobe didn't get injured.

With just over a minute left in the game and Kobe hobbling around the court with a slightly torn quadricept, Phil had to go to Ariza for Kobe defensively. The defensive switch almost paid off as Ariza had a near steal. No such luck. The Warriors scored on a tip in.

Then, on our first offensive sequence the other way without Kobe, the wheels fell complete off -- Lamar chucking the ball off the backboard while falling down and the shotclock about to expire. We should have used a timeout to set up a play or get Kobe or Farmar back in, a wasted possession with the game on the line.

The Warriors had the ball and a one-point lead with 39 seconds at that point. Baron Davis hit a three on the other end at that was the end of the Laker winning streak. The Lakers would fall 108-106.

It was painful to watch in more ways the one. Kobe couldn't defend, had no lateral movement. You just sat back and watched the Warriors take advantage of it and knew the game was lost before it was lost.

Combine that with a ton of missed freethrows, including a couple by Kobe and Fish late in the game...double ouch. The Warriors closed out the game on a 14-2 run. "It hurts because we gave it away," Bynum said.

Kobe says he'll play in the Clipper game, but he didn't look well at all late in this one. Not a good development.



Kobe -- -- "Felt like I was shot," Kobe said, describing his injury on a spin move midway through the fourth quarter (I think it might have been on the play where he got blocked). When the team's motor gets broken, we're in trouble. The question is how much trouble? He looked progressively worse as the Warriors exposed his injury late in the game. Kobe struggled with his shot throughout the night, yet the Lakers played some scrappy ball and we still had the lead. But late in the game, that all changed. Kobe couldn't D-up at all and we suddenly couldn't get stops. An 8-point fourth quarter lead was toast. The Stats: Kobe scored 21 points on 6-23 shooting (9-11 from the line), 6 boards, 5 assists and 5 turnovers in 37 minutes. The Action: He missed a corner jumper. He found Bynum on a set inbounds play where Kobe caught the pass, then alley-ooped to Bynum at the front of the rim for a throwdown. He ripped a ball from Biedrins in the backcourt and drew a foul. He posted up under the hoop, took the pass and finger-rolled over Ellis with ease. He missed a layup dribbling through a crowd, he got it back and drew FTs, he made both. He lost the handle pushing the ball out, score the other way. He tried to iso and lost the dribble right out of bounds. He missed a 20-footer. With Pietrus all over him, he pivoted several times then hit a 17-foot fade. He missed a wing three. He iso'd and dribbled out of bounds again. He attacked off the dribble and got fouled on the pass off, he made both FTs. He had 8 points on 2-8 shooting in the first quarter. He faced up and swished from the wing. He missed a three way short. He lobbed a little behind Bynum, but Drew still got it and banked in the And-1. He lost the ball on a dribble drive getting bodied a lot off the dribble. The Lakers led at the half despite Kobe having just 10 points on 3-10 shooting and 4 turnovers. He got hit from behind on a drive and drew FTs, he made both. He missed a fallaway way short. He airballed a jumper with a man all over him. Baron Davis had drilled two straight threes, then picked up his fourth foul hitting Kobe from behind. He back-rimmed a long three. He missed a reverse, then missed a wide open three. He slithered his way through defenders along the baseline, twisted and banked. He busted out and LO found him, Kobe got hacked and still scored the And-1 layup (after missing a tech), he made the FT. He sank a 20-footer, pulling up off the dribble. He attacked and kicked to Fish in the corner for the three. He got blocked on a turnaround, being double teamed with the clock low, he spun away and got swatted (on the replays, it looks like he was in pain after this). Baron Davis got a tech for a travel call, Kobe made the FT. He no-looked to Lamar on the break for a layup. He missed a wing jumper, long. Same shot, same possession, same results. He pumpfaked SJax in the air and drew FTs on the long jumper, he made one with 2:38 left. He missed a jumper long. Phil pulled him after he was giving up penetration too easily. After getting treatment, he came back in and missed a three. "I couldn't even run," Bryant said. "I will be ready to play Sunday."

Lamar -- -- Quality effort from Lamar in this game. Wish we had the bonehead possession back with under a minute left where Lamar threw the ball up for grabs while falling down with the shotclock low. Phil should have called a timeout, anyway. That was dumb in more ways than one, and it puts a sour note on his otherwise good effort. The Stats: Lamar scored 18 points on 8-20 shooting (1-1 from three, a poor 1-3 from the line), 14 boards, 5 assists, 2 steals and 2 turnovers in 45 minutes. The Action: He faced up over SJax and hit a short jumper. He missed a jumper trying to beat the shotclock. He got blocked under the hoop, Drew got the miss and fed Lamar again for the layup. He lost the ball on a drive and it resulted in a layup on the other end. He grabbed the Kobe miss, spun and drew FTs, he made one. Not close on a wide open three, thankfully Ariza stole the ball to stop a breakaway off the rebound. He tied up SJax on his drive and then hit the jumpball too hard out of bounds. He had 5 points on 2-6 shooting and 5 boards in the first quarter. Aggressive attack off one dribble from the wing and he scored a layup. He missed a tough jumper from the FT line with a man on him. Active first half from Lamar and he had 7 points on a poor 3-12 shooting and 11 boards (4 offensive). He stuck a three from out top, his only attempt from beyond the arc (although he had a toe on the line on another). He somehow missed a layup hard off the glass. He hit Luke with a long outlet for a dunk. He got caught in the air and fouled SJax, he looked in pain on his left shoulder after that. Poor rotation and it gave up a dunk. He didn't box out Biedrins and gave up an offensive board after a missed FT, he tied up Biedrins and won the jumpball, though. He got stripped on an iso attack, but Drew cleaned it up with a dunk. He pushed out the break and dribbled it right out of bounds, uggh. He missed a stepback jumper short. He swished a long jumper with a toe on the three line as the third quarter buzzer went off. He attacked, slammed on the breaks under the hoop, had room to score, then kicked it out for a missed three. He scored a layup on the break when Kobe waited for him to fill the lane. He dunked when Bynum deflected an outlet to him. He tried to create off the dribble with under a minute left and threw up a prayer that missed by about four feet as LO was falling to the ground. Lamar attacked off the dribble, took contact and scored the And-1 layup with 6 seconds left, he missed the FT, he got it back and was stripped...ouch, he could have had an opportunity to tie it up had he got control of the miss.

DFish -- -- Scrappy game from Fish. Can't ask for much more. He was mixing it up defensively and finding some scoring opportunities on the other end. He was in on a couple key plays that didn't go our way, though. He gave up a hair too much space to Baron, who then killed us with a three late in the game. And, Fish also missed a FT with over a minute left. The Stats: He scored 16 points on 5-9 shooting, (1-2 from three, 5-6 from the line), he had 3 boards and 3 steals in 33 minutes. The Action: He drilled a wing jumper behind the screen. He overpowered Ellis on a drive and hit the short shot in front of the rim. He worked across the lane and banked over Ellis. Excellent reach on BDiddy's drive to help close the lane and come up with the steal. He missed a stepback jumper. He drained a wing jumper working off a Kobe screen. He drew a call on aggressive D by BDiddy, he got to the line and made both in a two-for-one situation. He had 10 points on 4-5 shooting in the first half. He got stripped in the lane for a dunk the other way. He missed a corner three, it led to FTs the other way. He attacked, had it stripped and it went right to Bynum for a dunk. He drew a moving pick foul. Good D on Ellis, getting in front of him to stop penetration, then slapping the ball loose (it led to a breakaway And-1 on the other end). Next time down, Ellis hit another jumper on Fish working behind the screen (this was about the third or fourth of those). He swished a corner three on a kickout from Kobe. He motored around a screen like a tank, took contact and drew FTs, he made both. Huge, huge defensive stop on a three-on-one breakaway, he stole a pass and it resulted in a layup by LO on the other end. He got swatted trying to get contact on a drive. His lob to Bynum was deflected for a breakaway score. He missed a tough bank with a man all over him. Huge defensive play, deflecting a swing pass and getting the loose ball foul on Harrington for FTs with 1:27 left, he made just one, however. He should have closed out tighter on Baron and we gave up a three and four-point Warrior lead.

Bynum -- -- Most of Bynum's damage tonight was on garbage plays...guys losing the ball, guys missing and Drew there to clean it up. He looked superb. He was imposing himself on the game in that regard. The effort, activity and strong finishes -- all stuff that Bynum's critics got on him for in the last couple years -- was exactly what you want to see. Combine that to his post-up game when that develops and that will spell trouble for a lot of teams. The Lakers didn't give Bynum any back-to-the-basket possessions in the first half. He had one such possession in the second half. Not sure why we didn't let him post up and go to work like the last game, but Bynum worked it anyway. Props to him. Defensively, he was anchoring the paint well. The Warriors, though, tried to pull him out more with their shooters. They also had Biedrins slipping screens early, so Bynum had to watch on his show and recovers. The Stats: He finished with 17 points on 8-10 shooting, 16 rebounds (8 offensive), 2 steals, 1 block and just 1 foul in 35 minutes. The Action: He and Kobe teamed up on an oop off the inbounds, Kobe caught the pass, then threw it to Bynum going to the front of the rim for the dunk. Good D off the screen roll forcing SJax to chuck it out of bounds. Good offensive board, but he couldn't finish. Excellent activity to get to another miss, he then whipped a pass under the hoop to LO for a layup. Impressive putback dunk, taking the Walton miss and ramming it back down with both hands. He took a rebound from behind his man (just too big) and quickly banked it off the glass. That was a heck of a first quarter from Bynum, very active and he had 10 boards (5 offensive) for his effort. Good D, moving his feet and forcing Harrington to pass off the dribble drive, he later challenged his jumper and we got the miss. He challenged SJax's drive and forced him into a brick. Wow, heck of a catch on a lob pass thrown behind him, he pulled it back in and banked in an And-1 before going down, he made the FT. Next time down, wow again, he cleaned up a Lamar miss, grabbing it in front of the rim and throwing it back down all in one motion. He swatted Biedrins from behind to save a hoop. Baron got into his chest on a drive and Bynum picked up a foul. Bynum had 11 points (on 5-6 shooting) and 11 boards at the half. Fish fumbled the ball right to him in the lane and Bynum dunked. He finally got a post-up, he spun to the baseline and hit a jumphook from about 9 feet out. More cleaning up of trash when Lamar got stripped in the lane, Bynum gathered it, went up high and threw down over Biedrins (Bynum's elbow looked at rim level). He couldn't grab a Kobe return feed and we turned it over. He deflected an outlet pass to LO for a dunk before getting knocked to the floor. He took one in the family "jeeeewels" as Stu said trying to contest Baron's drive. He helped keep LO's FT miss alive, too bad LO couldn't come up with it cleanly.

Luke -- -- He's a miss waiting to happen from the perimeter right now. Very ineffective in that regard. The Warriors also tried to hide Baron on Luke defensively a few times. We took advantage of it once, but not late in the game when Baron had foul trouble...that came back to bite us. Meanwhile, the Warriors took advantage of Harrington on Luke often. Luke needs to go into the block and demand the ball with a PG on him. He settled for nothing, hanging out on the perimeter too often...very Devean George of him. The Stats: Luke scored 9 points on 1-7 shooting (0-1 from three, 7-8 from the line), had just 2 boards, 2 assists, 2 blocks and 4 turnovers. The Action: He missed a wing jumper. He forced up a quick jumper off an inbounds pass and missed. He blocked BD from behind. Matador help D and we gave up a soft And-1 to Pietrus. He missed a jumper in the lane, but Drew cleaned it up. He missed a wide open 17-footer off the two-man game. He drew FTs on a post entry, he made both. He had 2 points on 0-5 shooting. He dunked when LO found him with a long outlet. We finally got the ball to Luke who had Davis on him for several possessions and Luke drew the fifth foul on Baron midway through the third, he made both FTs. He missed an open three. He earned FTs getting out on the break and getting mugged, he made one FT. He telegraphed a soft pass to Bynum and it was picked off. Baron Davis guarding him again late in the fourth, but Luke doesn't post him up. Nice steal, getting back in the passing lane in transition, then he outlet Bynum who got it to LO for a dunk. He drew a foul with Ellis on him with 2 seconds on the shotclock, he made both FTs with 3:29 left.

Turiaf -- -- Ronny got drilled by Barnes, a flagrant one with 7:29 in the fourth. He had two FTs and the ball, where he got fouled again for two more FTs. He made just one of his fourt attempts from the line in that sequence. We could have used those points, for sure. Some good energy, though, by Ronny in this game, playing back up C again. Bynum was just too good in this one for Ronny to get much more PT. The Stats: He scored 4 points on 1-4 shooting and was a poor 2-5 from the line. He had 4 boards, 1 block (should have been 2) and 3 fouls in 13 minutes. The Action: He missed a face-up jumper. Horrible shot in the post on one end, he hustled back and rejected Barnes at the rim and it led to a Laker score. He got rejected himself trying to finish. He rejected Azubuike on help D. Good crash on the offensive glass and it led to points from Vlad. Nice move, he faced up, upfaked, spun, drew the foul and scored the And-1, he made the FT. He kicked out to Farmar for a three. Wow, he got drilled by Barnes going up for a dunk and getting shoved hard from behind by Barnes (flagrant one), he missed both FTs. He got fouled again on our offensive sequence after those misses, he then made one (left three points on the table).

Farmar -- -- Good game by Farmar in limited minutes. I wouldn't minded seeing him out there on the offensive end in the final minute. I would have much rather had the ball in his hands than LO with under a minute left. Farmar organizes the offense much better and can work off the screens well. DFish's strong game had Farmar sitting, which was fine until Kobe went down on the offensive end. We missed our lead guard and that ain't Fish. The Stats: He scored 10 points on 4-7 shooting (2-4 from three), 1 board, 2 assists and no fouls in 15 minutes. The Action: He hit a wing three on his first attempt. Nice cross-court dish to Sasha on the break for a layup. He missed a wing jumper wide left. He drained a three on a kickout from Ronny in the final minute of the third quarter. He worked off the screen by Ronny, got in the lane and hit the floater. He pushed out the break, got to the rim, flipped it up and in. He airballed a catch and shoot with 1 second on the shotclock when we inbounded. How Harrington missed on a postup over Farmar, I don't know, but we survived that possession. He missed a pull-up off the two-man game, not squaring up well.

Radmanovic -- -- Late in the game, Space Cadet Vlad seemed to make his presence well known, yet he still played. I thought it was pretty obvious he should have been pulled. He had 4 turnovers in 13 minutes. Oh well. The Stats: He scored 5 points on 1-2 shooting (1-2 from three, 2-2 from the line), 2 boards, 1 block and 4 turnovers in 13 minutes. The Action: He swished a wing three on his first attempt. He charged on the dribble drive to erase a hoop. He attacked again from the perimeter and drew a foul, he made both. Good offensive board, but he hesitated too long before going up and had it stripped off him out of bounds. He didn't box out and Barnes scored a putback. He was stripped by Barnes to start the fourth and it led to a breakaway alley-oop dunk...Uggh. He missed a wing three. He was called for an offensive foul off the ball (horrible minutes at a key juncture).

Ariza -- -- Odd minutes for Ariza. Stupid. Too much Luke. Too much Vlad late when he was making mental mistakes. The Stats: He played 4 minutes and didn't score or shoot. The Action: He stopped a breakaway, stripping Ellis then turning it up court for a three by Farmar, great D. Nice reach on help D, slowing SJax so Lamar could tie him up. He nearly had a steal when he came in for Kobe, just couldn't gather it in. That would have been huge.

Vujacic -- -- Better minutes from Sasha. He wasn't getting as exposed defensively as in the last game, nor was he launching shots at the pace of the last game. He also had some strong rebounds late. The Stats: He scored 6 points on 2-3 shooting (1-1 from three, 1-1 from the line), he had 3 boards and 2 fouls in 12 minutes. The Action: Out on the break and he finished the layup at high speed. He got tripped from behind and lost the ball out of bounds, horrible miss by the refs. He forced up a jumper trying to create for himself and missed. He made a tech FT. Lamar threw a bad kickout, Sasha got to it, rose up and swished the three from the right wing. Good job on the defensive boards, batting and getting possessions. He attacked off the dribble and charged on the pass off, too OC.

Phil -- -- The Warriors took advantage of their mismatches, we didn't take advantage of ours. We also didn't go at Baron Davis late in the game when he came back in with a lot of time and 5 fouls and that cost us. The Warriors fully exploited Kobe's injury. Somehow, I doubt we would have exposed an injury on their end if they had one... I liked the idea of the offensive-defensive subs of Kobe and Ariza late with Kobe's injury, but not only did it come too late. We didn't use a timeout to get Kobe back in with under a minute left when we had the ball. Total throwaway possession. The team could have gathered themselves and set up a play instead of chucking up a prayer against the shotclock. Stu knew it, too, and was calling for it that possession several times. Ugggh... Let's get back to the start of the game: Good D by the Lakers and Bynum just gobbling up boards in the first quarter and we led 28-17. The Lakers had a 21-9 advantage on the boards... Phil brought in Ariza for the last couple minutes of the first quarter with Farmar, then kept Ariza on the bench for the rest of the half. (We brought him back in with just over a minute left. He should have played more.)... The Lakers led 54-47 at the half (shooting just 40 percent). They kept the Warriors to just 34 percent (5-17 from three). The Lakers had 13 offensive boards... The coaches thought the Warriors were missing too many easy shots and that the Laker needed to move the ball more... With the crowd behind them, the Warriors tied up the game midway through the third... Baron had four fouls, Nelson moved him over defensively onto Luke. It took us several possessions, but we finally went to Luke and picked up Baron's fifth foul with 6:34 left in the third... The Lakers coaches tried to get their players not to throw up threes and get caught in the tempo, which we were doung a bit in the third... Full court press for the second time out of a timeout. (And for the second time, the Warriors broke it.) Not sure why we do that at is leads to more up and down tempo... 94-92 lead when Phil subbed Bynum and Fish back in midway through the fourth... Another full-court pressure D sequence off a deadball and it led to a dunk late in the game. Uggh... "It was our game to win," Phil said. You're killing me tonight, Phil...

GameFlow -- LINK -- Check out the two runs in the fourth. One by the Lakers where we had the game in hand, the other where the wheels fell off.

Video Highlights -- LINK -- Check out Kobe trying to run down the court just before Ronny takes his flagrant. He can barely move. He then tries to run it off, but in a ton of pain.

[Cardom]

Phil stunk it up.

Odom stunk it up.

Kobe stunk it up.

Meanwhile, Bynum was 8-10.

[FBP Si 2000]

Bynum, 8-10, but did not box out on a key play...where Biedrins or whatever his name is got the tip-in for the 1 pt. lead.

Anyway, the game shouldn't have gone down like that when they had an 8pt lead with like 3mins to go.

[alwayslakers08]

Phil Jackson= Dumb -at- $$ at times man
_________________
"THIS IS OUR TURN, THIS IS OUR CHANCE, THIS IS OUR SEASON...THIS IS OUR CHAMPIONSHIP!" - Kobe Bean Bryant

GO LAKERS

[DancingBarry]

[Michlake]

Lots of bad stuff from the end of the game, but I was most frustrated with the amount of minutes that Luke got. Didn't Phil just say Luke looked terrible in practice and then he gets 30+ minutes.
Doesn't make sense to me, not in a game where Ariza is needed aganist a up-tempo team

[Orestes]

[FBP Si 2000]

[FBP Si 2000]

Luke needs to be benched...

[DancingBarry]

[Shaber]

Great shooting!
Luke 1-7
Kobe 6-23

Thank you very much!

[Orestes]

Bynum did play a lot of minutes tonight, maybe he was just worn out by that time. Could also be that he wasnt involved mentally with the way the game was being played at that point. He wasnt getting involved on Offense since the Lakers were playing a little too much GSW style, which led to fast breaks and up tempo play that didnt allow Bynum to get involved defensively either.

[FBP Si 2000]

[Orestes]

[DancingBarry]

Just box out in the final minute, please. Doesn't matter whatever else was going on.

Bynum played a great game, should have gotten more than one back to the basket opportunity, but that was surely a bad play. Not the reason we lost...Phil had about half a dozen of those on his plate.

[RYZ]

Thanks, DB.

Not good news about Kobe, but honestly, what was his excuse for the first three quarters, to say nothing of the last two weeks. He looks either horribly fatigued, or mysteriously injured, but either way, he needs some time off, which isn't promising considering he's only played a couple of games over the last week. I've never ever seen him routinely miss rim/backboard/ et al. like he's been doing lately, and he seems years removed from the DPOY candidate he was a month ago.

If you needed just one reason why a ball dominant PG would help this team, look no further than the ball being removed from Kobe's hands, and thus removing a massive amount of bad shots. This would allow Kobe to hit for probably 5% higher because Kidd would be creating the shots for Kobe instead of the quintuple pump crap Kobe's creating for himself, all the while sparing Kobe the insane amount of energy he expends trying to get those shots, and crating better defensive transition balance to boot.

Walton clearly took the summer off from basketball. Another case of somebody contented by a new contract. Discouraging.

Phil right now is making as little sense to me as he ever has, and that's saying a lot. Forget that Sasha continues to see the light of day when he doesn't belong on an NBA roster, but where in Hell is Ariza? I'm not even talking about rotations, regular minutes, which # guy he is off the bench: when the other team has a perimeter player get hot eg. Monta Ellis, you get Ariza on his posterior pronto. No ifs, no ands, no buts, nothing... you just do it immediately.

Just days ago he spoke of resisting the temptation to play Nellie's game when GS goes small. So what does he do tonight? He sticks Bynum in the storage shed on a night when he was swallowing every board within 15 feet of the basket, and positively on his way to a career evening. His recent coaching is farcical.

[TACH]

PJax should of went to AZ earlier... do the whole put him in for D, take him out on O. Kobe couldn't move out there, no way he was going to play D on any of the Warriors...

[kups]

[FBP Si 2000]

[DancingBarry]

TACH's video highlights added.

[DazedAndConfused]

I was at the game tonight. Bynum was unreal on the glass, nobody had an answer for him. My god this kid is gonna be scary good in a few years.

I was really disappointed in the way Phil coached this game. He put Luke in for way too long and Ariza got almost no playing time. This is unacceptable, Luke was having a very bad night again and Ariza could have really helped out on defense. We needed to close that game strong with defense to stop the GSW push, but instead he brings out one of our worst defensive stoppers in Luke Walton. Poor decision making, Kobe getting a groin injury at the worst time cost us this game. GSW has nothing to be excited about other than winning a game they should have lost. We are a far better team than they are and we will beat them more often than not. Think about how amped they must have been for this game, after losing 9 straight they play @ home with a fully healthy squad. And they barely squeak by us after trailing for almost the entire game by 5+ pts.

We said at the outset if we could go 3-1 against Denver, GSW, SAS, and GSW again that we'd be in good shape. We just did it. Nothing to be ashamed of guys, we were bound to drop one of those games and it's a shame it had to be this one but that's how the cards fell tonight. We'll blow out the Clips on Sunday though and have a good momentum going into that huge roadtrip.

[Klone_dd]

The Lakers rely on Kobe to close out games, but when he got hurt, someone else needs to step up. More and more, we find that that person definitely isn't Lamar, but Phil keeps letting him try. This game was a reminder of the 3 game losing streak. The Lakers showing an inability to execute during crunch time.

JoFar and Bynum, the young 'uns, and the scrappy vet Fish played really well.

[DancingBarry]

[DazedAndConfused]

[limchrc]

Nice recap. Hope Kobe's injury is not serious.