lakers and height and the bully factor

kobe 43 minutes.

kobe 40 minutes in a loss to the clips...10-30 shooting

And another 1 assist game for Fisher (plus only 3 points, with 4 turnovers)

LA's starting point guard is now averaging a ridiculously lousy 1.5 assists per game for his last 8 games. Yowza.

He rates out statistically as the worst starting point guard in the league. 30th out of 30. Way to go Derek. Amazing that team cannot find a better option at that position. Might come back to bite 'em. It did tonight. Baron Davis killed Fisher tonight, dropping 25 and 10 on him. And yeah, Kobe's 10 for 30 also certainly contributed to the Lakers' woes in their 11 point loss to the mighty Clips.

Back to 1 game behind in the loss column for our crippled heroes vs L.A. and gaining a healthy lead on both the Hawks and Magic (who lost their third straight against Toronto tonight in Disneyland).

steve33

unless some douche team gives them a nba starter for sasha they got serious trouble.

Jeb - Nice to have serious trouble and still be 28-7. But if we get a (healthy) chance against them in June, it'll be banner # 18 for us.

lookin at our minutes killed my moonshine buzz

Brandon Roy: 32 points on 11 shots. Kobe: 32 points on 37 shots.

Blueprint for a Laker loss to the Blazers tonight.

Both teams played the game with essentially 7 players, although for different reasons.

The Laker's reason is that one injured starter moves their best bench player, which further exposes the weakness of the rest of the bench.

The Blazer's reason is that they have so many injured players on their roster that they cannot practice properly.

Overall, it was a night that proved that any team can win. Six of the top teams (record wise) lost. Here is what happened last night:

1. Lakers...lost to #10
2. Cavs...lost to #7
3. Celtics...lost to #6
4. Mavs...beat #9
5. Magic...lost
6. Hawks...beat #3
7. Nugs...beat #2
8. Suns...lost
9. Spurs...lost to #4
10. Blazers...beat #1

gyso

gyso

There seems to be a lot of competition this year. No team is really dominating

The top 10 teams are all capable of beating each other and even the bottom feeders can step up and beat a good team.

So far no team has been able to break away from the pack. This makes for a very interesting season and positioning for the 2010 playoffs.

dboss

dboss,

A cursory glance at the box scores of both the Celtics and the Lakers indicates some similarities.

All five starters reached double digit scoring.
Only two bench players had significant playing time.
The starters averaged just under 40 minutes PT

IMO, the game meant more (in both cases) to the winning teams and the games took on a playoff-like tightening of the roster.

IMO, Doc should not have tightened up the roster so much, a couple of our starters just returned from leg-related injuries. Rondo and Pierce should not have been subjected to those minutes. We needed to play JR and Walker more in the third quarter.

Of course that is easy to say now, seeing that we lost. Missing both Marquis and TA really hurts us if Doc won't play the young backups in a meaningless game in early January.

gyso

One question that interests me is the following. If all of the contenders are capable of beating one another, and none has become dominant, which of them LEAST resembles the version that will probably (hopefully) be ready by playoff time? In other words, which is pretty much on par with the others but also has the most untapped potential waiting in the wings (or in the medical ward)?

Sam

steve3344 wrote:Brandon Roy: 32 points on 11 shots. Kobe: 32 points on 37 shots.

Blueprint for a Laker loss to the Blazers tonight.

Steve,

Bryant took 39% of all the Laker FGA. One player taking almost 2 out of every 5 shots is staggering. For that player to also be shooting 38% on those attempts (and still keep taking them) is an example of selfish, ball-hogging schoolyard play. He's averaging 23.58 FGA/game, so far this season. DWade is only heaving up 21.1/game and LBJ is taking 20/game. So, KoME is shooting more than his comparable shooter/scorers, season-to-date, and 37 shots last night puts his league-leading FGA/game average to shame.

Furthermore, LBJ has 294 assists season-to-date, DWade has 212 and KoME only has 170. So Bryant shoots more than anybody else, but gets his teammates involved by passing for assists less than his two erstwhile statistical competitors.

Phil played his bench for 22.5% of the minutes. Doc only played his bench for 17%. Both are bad, but Doc's shortening of the bench is very unusual for him. He usually plays deeper that Phil, in general. I don't understand why Doc, with a bench as deep as ours, would shorten his bench even more when he's short-handed. I'd have liked to see JR or Walker on Joe Johnson. I'm sure he would have schooled them, but it would have let Ray focus more on his offensive game.

bob

Understatement from the LA Times' Mike Bresnahan:

"See ya, 72-10.

Before the season began, long before it became apparent the Lakers would encounter trouble on the road (they are 8-5), some players mentioned a desire to chase the Chicago Bulls' record-setting 72-10 mark during the 1995-96 regular season.

Now at 28-8, the Lakers would have to go 44-2 the rest of the way to match it and 45-1 to beat it."

BobHeckler,

I think the matchups shortened the bench for Doc. The Hawks are exactly the kind of team against which guys like Scal, Davis and Williams are least effective. And the one bench veteran who could have been an athletic match for the Hawks (Tony) was sick.

Note that I specified "veteran." One reason I'm starting to wish the Celtics would find some way to trade both Walker and Giddens is so I'd never again have to hear how much they deserve chances in situations like this.

Different teams have different sources of strength. Much of the Celtics' strength (at both ends of the floor) comes through precision and fluidity—not toughness, not speed, not athleticism. When they embody precision and fluidity, they almost always win. When they don't embody those factors, they're more likely to lose. It's the cornerstone of their "success formula," for better or worse.

When the team is disrupted by injury, I think that the one priority which Doc refuses to compromise is maintaining (as much as possible) the team concept of precision and fluidity. He doesn't think of replacements in terms of sticking individuals into temporary slots because of their unique but limited attributes. He thinks, instead, of putting the combinations out there that will most maintain (or least dilute) the continuity of precision and fluidity.

On this team, those people tend to be veterans; and that's where Doc's instincts lie, even if means a shortened rotation and more minutes for some of those veterans. The safeguarding of the identity cornerstone of precision and fluidity is THAT important.

Once in a while, a player (like Rondo or Big Al) comes along in whom Doc sees elements of maturity beyond the norm. That player ascends faster. Once in a while, a player (like Powe and Davis) climbs the ladder more slowly but at least steadily enough that he will have earned his shot when a significant emergency opportunity arises.

Walker and Giddens seem to fit neither of these scenarios. They are still projects with individual skills that may occasionally impress (a dunk here, a nice defensive play there). But they apparently don't have enough of a grasp of the team concept to offer some hope they'll be able to help maintain the precision and fluidity that Doc's desperately trying to retain.

As a gross generalization, coaches tend to think of players in terms of their likely effects on the team concept—much more so than evaluating each player certain traits he possesses. It always has been, is now, and always will be all about the TEAM. (At least, I hope, where the Celtics are concerned.)

Best,

Sam

the nuggets just MANHANDLED the Lakers at staples without Melo. Dominated them in the second half.

Kobe looked old and sore in the second half. The Nuggets front line just ate the lakers. The Lakers struggle with big front lines. The Lakers struggle with quickness. They play in Portland tomorrow night.

Man the Nuggets just wore them out.

Jeb,

I didn't see the game, my comments come from the box score.

Kobe played over 39 minutes and had one of his better shooting games, 11 for 22. But here are some telling stats:

0 (zero) assists
5 (five) turnovers

With Kobe hurting, the Lakers still only had 9 players with significant minutes (Powell had 6 minutes, he would be the 10th player). Other than Powell, the other 4 subs had plus/minus ratings of -12 or worse. Their bench is terrible. The Lakers took 98 shots, 14 more than the Nugs. Artest was once again, underwhelming.

On the other side, Da Nugs cut their rotation back to 8 players, which looks like they treated this game like a playoff game. Sure, 'Melo was out, but they still had enough on the bench to pull it off. They shot 15 for 22 from 3-point land (.682) and Billups himself shot 9 for 13 from beyond the arc. That will be hard to duplicate.

Still, it is a Laker loss. IMO, the team that needs to pick up a few losses is the Cavs. They just keep rolling along, beating the teams they need to beat.

gyso

GYSO and Jeb

watched the last part of the Laker game and denver simply had an answer to any Laker atttempt Billups was nuts and probably won't go off like that again for a while.................the Lakers were tired in the end.

As for Cleveland they are tough right now and yet still aim to make a change to please the king so it appears. I ask do they really need to? And whatever the change someone goes and who nows what the chemistry factor could be. My opinion I hope the do make a change as right now they are tooo dam tough. And if I was a Cleveland fan if it ain't broke don't fix it.

They also might be peaking a couple months too soon too!

beat

beat...cleve is peaking too soon. Think last year. It wasnt just billups that went off Smith and lawson also scored at will.

The Nuggets just wanted it more. Their bigs were way more active ...Nene just beat Bynum like a red headed stepchild.

As for Kobe he was clearly hampered by A HOST of injuries. The latest injury Jackson is letting Kobe "play through" being a sprained ankle. Jackson is a damn fool and they are letting their best player destroy his body. I still can't believe it. Mark Bryant Jackson was callng the game and it was very sweet to hear him be forced to say some less than worshiping things about the Lakers. They just got punked bad in every area.

Kobe needs to sit out for 5 games instead he is playing 40 minutes a night. The guy aint made of steel and it is stating to show. His game is not well rounded enough to adjust to not being able to score at will and believe me when I say this he was HURTING his team last night. He refused to pass.

I watched the Lakers/Nuggets game last night.

Kobe had a good game. He scored almost 30% of all the Lakers FGs. Six Lakers scored in double figures, usually enough to get a win except for two things. Their lack of defense and Billups going off like a fire alarm.

Playing without their superstar, Anthony, the Nuggets were still able to score 126 points in a regulation 48 minute game. Sure, some of that was Billups shooting lights out from 3 (9-13) but the Nuggets as a team shot over 57%. The Denver backcourt not including Billups shot 20-for-30. Let's face it, the Lakers backcourt consists of Bryant and Brown and that's it. D-Fish, Farmar and Sasha are liabilities on defense and offense. Not including Bryant, they shot a combined 37.5% (12-32) and their average +/- was -8 (I netted their +/- (-32) and divided by the number of players (4). I'm trying to get a feel for their combined contributions as a backcourt corps excluding Bryant. I realize this is a very imprecise way of looking at it, since it doesn't account for who else is on the floor with them. I'd love someone (Sam?) to provide a better methodology for looking at this. Might be impossible since "going small", for example, weights their game a certain way and against some teams that will work and against others it won't).

The Lakers looked a little tired. Even Bryant looked a bit weary, but he summoned up his energy to fight on as usual. That's more than could be said for the rest of the team, except maybe Gasol. The entire Laker backcourt (Bryant, Fisher, Sasha, Farmar, Brown) is starting to look like one of the weakest backcourts in the NBA. They look like Bryant, Brown and a couple of D-leaguers. Remember the game against the Celts? NOBODY could stop Rondo, so Jackson put Bryant on him. That says good things about Rondo and bad things about the Lakers backcourt and last night shows the Celtic game wasn't a fluke.

The Lakers has assists on 39% of their fgm, Denver 52%. I'll leave it to Sam to put those numbers into their proper perspective vis-a-vis the Celtics, but clearly Denver played less ME-ball. As pointed out by gyso and Jeb, KoME Bryant took 22% of all the Lakers fga and had no assists. None. Zero. Zip. Bupkiss. Their offense looked like Bryant one-on-one and Gasol one-on-one.

I wouldn't necessarily make a projection based upon last night's game, though. The Lakers will play better in the playoffs and Carmelo will be back as well. Still, a Celtic win and Laker and Orlando losses made for a good evening for the Green.

bob

bobheck

Bryant scored 20 points in the first quarter and was team killingly in effective beyond that point. I concur on their backcourt. Brown is a stud and everybody else sans Bryant a bad joke. The Lakers wont win it with this team due to the lack of depth and the amazing choice to run Gasol and mostly Bryant into the olde dirty ground. I watched in amazement last night as Kobe was badly outplayed by Billups and sure Chauncey was hot outside ridiculously so. But HE RAN HIS TEAM. Bryant made bad choice after bad choice and has regressed since his game 6 in denver series on through the finals decision to pass out of doubles. Artest is no Ariza...he is a very good on the ball defender and a very limited team defender. He just locks on to his guy and ceases to see anything else.

The Lakers as i have said before many times remind me of us last year before KG went down. Ray Allen just broke Sasha. He is of no good to the team. Just a body. Fisher is in steep decline. Lakers can be had by a team with good size and quickness. Lawson is the exact kind of guy they have no answer for. If we can GET to the finals and meet them there i like our chances JUST because of Rajon. He will devour them. They have no answer. Kobe is showing great fortitude by playing hurt but Jackson is showing EPIC foolishness by LETTING him play hurt. It's hard to believe. Kobe needs to sit and heal for 5 games but Phil is so dug in on best record that I feel he feels he cant win without it. I honestly dont see the Lakers winning it his year without a move. Kobe wont make it through th season if they dont wise up. Mark my words on this one .

BobH,

Putting me on the spot, huh? Well, in looking at the assist/field goal ratio, I'd use the Lakers' season-long average as a basis for comparison. It's 55%. So even I can figure out that 39% doesn't do the job. (By the way, the Celtics' averages is 64%, and I'm sure Lakers fans would point out that the Lakers' ratio doesn't need to be as high because of the use of the triangle.)

As for the +/- thing, as you know, I will use it only when it's referring to combinations of players. (I do, however, use the same addition/division scheme you employed in deriving the overall efficiency of an entire bench by adding the individuals' +/- scores and dividing by the number of players (although technically I should be weighting the inputs by minutes played).

But my affinity for combo stats led me to go to 82games.com, which lists the top 10 combinations (in terms of minutes played together) for the Lakers this season. I divided the +/- figures by minutes played and arrived at the following ranking of combinations (the figures are points gained or lost per minute played together):

+.71 Farmar, Bryant, Artest, Odom, Gasol
+.56 Farmar, Brown, Artest, Odom, Gasol
+.54 Farmar, Bryant, Artest, Odom, Bynum
+.32 Farmar, Brown Artest, Odom, Bynum
+.27 Farmar, Brown, Bryant, Odom, Gasol
+.24 Fisher Bryant, Artest, Gasol, Bynum
+.14 Fisher, Bryant, Artest, Odom, Gasol
+.13 Fisher, Bryant, Odom, Gasol, Bynum
+.09 Fisher, Bryant, Artest, Odom, Bynum
-.25 Farmar, Brown, Bryant, Odom, Bynum

Reference: http://www.82games.com/0910/0910LAL2.HTM

82games usually runs a bit behind, so I'm pretty certain this list would not incorporate last night's game.

Of course these figures can be misleading because they don't reveal the playing circumstances. Some combinations may play mainly when the game is hotly contested, while others may be skewed toward garbage time. But I'll leave you to figure out what the patterns may mean.

In the meantime, against the Celtcs, I want to see a five of Farmar, Brown, Bryant, Odom and Bynum at all times. Phil should keep Pau on the bench.

Best,

Sam

jeb65 wrote:bobheck

Bryant scored 20 points in the first quarter and was team killingly in effective beyond that point. I concur on their backcourt. Brown is a stud and everybody else sans Bryant a bad joke. The Lakers wont win it with this team due to the lack of depth and the amazing choice to run Gasol and mostly Bryant into the olde dirty ground. I watched in amazement last night as Kobe was badly outplayed by Billups and sure Chauncey was hot outside ridiculously so. But HE RAN HIS TEAM. Bryant made bad choice after bad choice and has regressed since his game 6 in denver series on through the finals decision to pass out of doubles. Artest is no Ariza...he is a very good on the ball defender and a very limited team defender. He just locks on to his guy and ceases to see anything else.

The Lakers as i have said before many times remind me of us last year before KG went down. Ray Allen just broke Sasha. He is of no good to the team. Just a body. Fisher is in steep decline. Lakers can be had by a team with good size and quickness. Lawson is the exact kind of guy they have no answer for. If we can GET to the finals and meet them there i like our chances JUST because of Rajon. He will devour them. They have no answer. Kobe is showing great fortitude by playing hurt but Jackson is showing EPIC foolishness by LETTING him play hurt. It's hard to believe. Kobe needs to sit and heal for 5 games but Phil is so dug in on best record that I feel he feels he cant win without it. I honestly dont see the Lakers winning it his year without a move. Kobe wont make it through th season if they dont wise up. Mark my words on this one .

jeb,

I concur. Billups had 8 assists in addition to his 39 points while KoME had 0 assists. The Lakers will move heaven and earth to trade Morrison and Sasha over the next 2 weeks. Calling them dead weight is an insult to dead weight. They need backcourt help badly.

Kobe is showing great fortitude by playing hurt but also great short-sightedness. Jackson, man, I just don't get him. Sure, he's 2 games behind Cleveland for best record, but he's only 3 games ahead of Denver and Boston. If Kobe doesn't get some rest, he's more likely to drop than rise in the rankings. If he's afraid of going into the Finals without homecourt advantage imagine if Denver catches them and he goes into the western playoffs against them and they have homecourt! Bryant's averaging 2.5 mpg MORE this season than last season and 2 mpg more than his career average. Last playoffs he averaged almost 41 mpg and admitted he was bone-tired and hanging on at the end. He's a year older, he's got a myriad of injuries and he's playing more minutes and the Lakers bench is worse this year than last. That's a recipe for a breakdown late. Think about it. If Kobe plays all 82 games this season, like he's done the past 2 seasons, he will have played the equivalent of 5.3 more games this year at this higher pace than last year, when he was bone-tired. Has anybody ever heard of a player's sprained ankle getting better by playing them 39 minutes?

bob

one great thing is the nuggets believed they could beat the Lakers - now they KNOW they can. sure, Billups was from another planet, but it was a great win ... without their star, the Lakers still had no answers! the assist ratio you guys have been talking about is especially telling. Lawson is a great addition and for a rookie, is able to hang in there against some of the veterans. quick as lightning, and learning (from Billups' coaching him) all the time ... he'll only get better !
i am looking forward to the Denver-Boston game on the 21st and will be wearing a C's jersey. hoping the C's can come out of Denver with a win against what (to some) is a surprisingly successful team. i think Perk will eat Nene alive ...

I was just looking at the Nuggets-Lakers box score for the first time. Gasol got 17 rebounds, including 9 offensive (more than the entire
Celtics team sometimes grabs). There's little question in my mind that, when one considers both the pros and the cons of the given
player, Pau is what's driving the Lakers more than Kobe is. Because pro basketball is very much influenced by matchups, the name of the
game against the Lakers is very likely matching up with Pau.

I also notice that Nene and Chris Anderson played 57 minutes between them, and that means they played together at times. I wonder how that went. Moreover, Nene fouled out (I don't know how long before the end of the game) with a -12 and Anderson wound up with 15 rebounds, one personal foul and a +26. Although I don't like the +/- stat for looking at individuals, I'd certainly like to know more about the Nuggets' dynamic in dealing with Gasol.

Sam

Sam wrote:BobH,

Putting me on the spot, huh? Well, in looking at the assist/field goal ratio, I'd use the Lakers' season-long average as a basis for comparison. It's 55%. So even I can figure out that 39% doesn't do the job. (By the way, the Celtics' averages is 64%, and I'm sure Lakers fans would point out that the Lakers' ratio doesn't need to be as high because of the use of the triangle.)

As for the +/- thing, as you know, I will use it only when it's referring to combinations of players. (I do, however, use the same addition/division scheme you employed in deriving the overall efficiency of an entire bench by adding the individuals' +/- scores and dividing by the number of players (although technically I should be weighting the inputs by minutes played).

But my affinity for combo stats led me to go to 82games.com, which lists the top 10 combinations (in terms of minutes played together) for the Lakers this season. I divided the +/- figures by minutes played and arrived at the following ranking of combinations (the figures are points gained or lost per minute played together):

+.71 Farmar, Bryant, Artest, Odom, Gasol
+.56 Farmar, Brown, Artest, Odom, Gasol
+.54 Farmar, Bryant, Artest, Odom, Bynum
+.32 Farmar, Brown Artest, Odom, Bynum
+.27 Farmar, Brown, Bryant, Odom, Gasol
+.24 Fisher Bryant, Artest, Gasol, Bynum
+.14 Fisher, Bryant, Artest, Odom, Gasol
+.13 Fisher, Bryant, Odom, Gasol, Bynum
+.09 Fisher, Bryant, Artest, Odom, Bynum
-.25 Farmar, Brown, Bryant, Odom, Bynum

Reference: http://www.82games.com/0910/0910LAL2.HTM

82games usually runs a bit behind, so I'm pretty certain this list would not incorporate last night's game.

Of course these figures can be misleading because they don't reveal the playing circumstances. Some combinations may play mainly when the game is hotly contested, while others may be skewed toward garbage time. But I'll leave you to figure out what the patterns may mean.

In the meantime, against the Celtcs, I want to see a five of Farmar, Brown, Bryant, Odom and Bynum at all times. Phil should keep Pau on the bench.

Best,

Sam

sam,

Was asking Bill Russell to block a shot "putting him on the spot" or just asking him to do what he does so well? Just like Russ, you delivered.

I understand what you're saying about weighting of minutes, but it occurs to me (on a very simplistic level) that, barring injuries that force players to play more than they otherwise would, the minutes thing should work itself out. The more effective players (either in general or in specific matchups opportunities) will get more minutes and the less effective ones will get less as the coaches substitute based upon what they think is best and we'll see that in their +/-. I know that a player who plays twice as many minutes should count twice as much, but if the bench as a corps plays about the same number of minutes/game (and Odom is usually the only frontcourt bench player with any significant minutes) then the backcourt bench's effectiveness should be somewhat representative, no? I'm not talking about Brown's effectiveness vs Farmar's, I'm talking about how well all of those players fill all the roles expected of a backcourt bench. Some games Brown will get more minutes because of matchups and other games Farmar will, but over the course of the season your bench is getting it done or it's not.

Considering Jackson's playing Kobe as much as he is I'm starting to wonder about his judgement a bit, but the less harsh view of him may simply be that he's playing Kobe so much because he knows how bad his backcourt and would rather have a 70% Kobe than a 100% bench.

bob