Lakers aint gettin it done against good teams

Sam wrote:I've been in Boston all day and don't know whether anyone else posted this, but I heard on sports radio that Quis was at the shootaround today.

Sam

Sam did I hear right last night that you guys are gettin a nice dose of snow/sleet today or did I imagine that in my drug induced stupor...nyquil, flu induced stupor....

Sam wrote:I've been in Boston all day and don't know whether anyone else posted this, but I heard on sports radio that Quis was at the shootaround today.

Sam

hope that means he'll play tonite....

LAC,

All rain (and heavy at that until you get west to Central Massachusetts). Allegedly, it will turn to snow as the temperature falls.

Sam

beat wrote:Perhaps the old ketchup trick. have a small amount hidden and when you are guarding him wipe some on his jersey. Must do it so as to not be seen. Then after a few seconds (esp if he's gone by you) point it out to the ref (let um wear white tonight) he'll have to leave the game to get cleaned up as they think it was blood.

Repeat this as often as needed.

Perhaps they will run out of jerseys.

beat

beat,

Great idea, except that Cleveland's road jerseys are red.

But our unis will be white tonight. Maybe we should go for the sympathy vote from the refs and smear it on ours!

bob

Toronto just laid a 34-21 second quarter on the Lakers in L.A. to take a 58-50 halftime lead. This after the Lakers have lost three in a row.

Kobe started the season shooting 49.1% his first 33 games (368 for 749). In his last 26 games he's shot 41.2% (232 for 562). That's 80 points lower, a huge dropoff. In the Lakers last game, that two point loss to Orlando, Kobe took 16 shots in the fourth quarter alone! 30 for the game. They're killing him and his shocking shooting percentage dropoff since game 33 is an eye-opener.

Kobe is shooting way too much. It's the main reason they are much less efficient this year compared to the last two years. The other guys stand around and watch the Kobe show and the resulting lack of player and ball movement grind their offense to halt, with Kor only too happy to keep jacking up shots.


His drop-off in FG% is prety much entirely attributable to him breaking his pointer finger on his shootig hand. The problem is that he hasn't reduced his volume of shots even with the broken finger.

Even with Derek Fisher doing his best impresson of a turnstile on defense at pg, the Lakers are actually better defensively than they were last year. Their problems are mostly on the offensive side, and it all starts with Kobe shooting too much and the bigs not getting enough shots.

My only hope is that this changes when the playoffs come, but bad habits are hard to break.

It would also help if they actually acted liked they cared about the regular season, but it's clear that they don't. They treat it like a joke and coast along, with only Kobe, Artest and Fisher bringing intensity every night.

PS-

Typical Lakers tonight: sleepwalk through the first three quarters, dial up the effort and mount a 4th quarter comeback, depending on Kobe to hit a last second game-winner to beat a mediocre team. Tough to watch sometimes, alhough Kobe's ability to consistently hit game winnng shots is amazing. He obviously misses his share, but he nails so many crazy shots at the end of games that it becomes almost shocking when they don't go in.

Sky

Weve talked about this plenty. Not winning basketball and wont get it done against the comp this year. You got to hope kobe wises up no?

jeb65 wrote:Geeze I think Denver probably has the best record against the toughest teams.

i believe that's true. but they'll be without K-Mart for a while, and he anchors their D, so they may slide a bit -- it's be hard to imagine otherwise. their W/L column is worse when K-Mart is out of the line up than it is with either Melo or Billups out.

BSH - Kobe's game winners are often really remarkable. and maybe LA would relish a full series against Denver, but i'd be surprisewd if that were their dream match-up ...

regards,
Michael

jeb65 wrote:Sky

Weve talked about this plenty. Not winning basketball and wont get it done against the comp this year. You got to hope kobe wises up no?

yeah buddy. I feel like we've ben having this conversation since the beginning of the season. My only hope is that Phil has just been humoring him and letting him realize for himself (and also for Gasol to stand up and demand more touches). Hopefully that sinks in before the playoffs start, since they are already at a disadvantage b/c of their deficiencies at pg and on the bench. If they don't play team ball they are going nowhere.

bigpygme wrote:

jeb65 wrote:Geeze I think Denver probably has the best record against the toughest teams.

i believe that's true. but they'll be without K-Mart for a while, and he anchors their D, so they may slide a bit -- it's be hard to imagine otherwise. their W/L column is worse when K-Mart is out of the line up than it is with either Melo or Billups out.

BSH - Kobe's game winners are often really remarkable. and maybe LA would relish a full series against Denver, but i'd be surprisewd if that were their dream match-up ...

regards,
Michael

Yes- the Nuggs have really played great vs the top teams this year. They have a ton of talent and grit.

But then they turn around and lose to Minnesota. They are a funny team. Tons of talent, but with a few guys (KMart and JR Smith especially) being among the lowest bball IQ guys in the NBA. Also, there are times when they don't get the ball to Melo for extended periods, which is baffling.

My hope is that Dallas ends up w/ the 2 seed and knocks the NUggets out. Lakers can (and I think will) beat the Nuggs in a playoff series, but it won't be easy by any means, and I'd rather see the Mavs in the con finals than the NUggs.

For you guys who are interested, below is a back and forth I had with a guy on my Laker board back before the trade deadline. The sad thing to me is that all of the problems I described the Lakers having back then (despite many Laker fans being in denial at that point because they still had the best record in the league) are still the exact problems that are ailing them today. Except they no longer have any recourse via trade to upgrade the team.




DOAKLEY8 wrote:

Last years record 24-5
This years record 24-6


The sky is attached and indeed not falling. Lakers will be fine.




Babyskyhook wrote:

I don't think the sky is falling, but you're kidding yourself if you don't think they have issues that need to be addressed.

While you're saying they'll be fine, consider this:


Numbers don't tell the whole story.


Quality wins at this time last year:

Boston
Denver x2, home and away
Dallas x2, home and away
Portland
Houston
2x @ New Orleans (a playoff team in 08, lotto-bound now)


That's 9 quality wins, including 3 on the road. I'm not even counting home and away wins vs PHX b/c I don't consider them to be quality wins b/c of the Lakers huge matchup advantages vs the Suns.



This year ? Well they beat Atlanta, and I guess you can throw @ Houston in there.

That's 2 quality wins.

0-3 vs Denver, Dallas, Cleveland
2-2 vs Houston and Utah


I wasn't worried about them at all last year b/c they were bringing it on a regular basis and played with a real chip on their shoulder. They were hungry and it showed. They had been humiliated by the Celtics and were playing with passion and emotion against the good teams and were clearly on a mission. Of their first 5 losses last year, only one came against a good team (a close loss to Orlando- on the second night of a back-to-back). The other four were lapses in focus against bad teams, mostly on the road. (Detroit at home, @ Indy, @ Sacto, @ Miami). Those types of losses happen over the course of a season.

It's the exact opposite this year. Their overwhelming talent advantages get them past teams like Detroit and the Nets w/ no real problems. They are 11-0 vs bottom feeders (NJ, NY, CHI, DET, GS, MIN, Clips). That's part of the reason their defensive stats look so good. They have been playing a lot of teams that can't shoot, and many of the games have been at home.

They've struggled against mediocre teams, having won at the buzzer or in OT vs Sac, Mil, OKC x2, Miami.

And they've gotten smoked by the best teams. 0-3 vs Cle, Dal and Den, even though two of those games were at home. Average margin in those losses- over 18 points. They have gotten their asses kicked by the best teams.

Last year they were 5-0 vs Bos, Dal and Den at this time, including two road wins.


This is not the same team that won a title. And I'm not talking about Artest vs Ariza.


1. Age has finally caught up to Fish.
FG% .424 (in 08), now .385 3pt% was .397- now .329 PPG down from 9.9 to 7.2
Turnovers up by almost 40%, assists down by 10%. And this is playing against a soft schedule.

2. The bench was a problem last year, and has only gotten worse. The only real difference-makers of the bench last year were LO (who was huge) and Brown. (Walton was ok in hold-the-fort situations, but he's not an impact player. same for POwell and DJ.) They got nothing out of Farmar and Sasha and are still getting, well, nothing.

Worse, LO has taken a huge step back. His fg% and ppg are at career lows. From .492% last year to .417% this year. From 11.3 ppg to 8.7 ppg. Worst of all- he's not attacking the basket. He's taking twice as many 3's (which comprise over 1/4 of his shots now, more than double his old rate) even though he's only hitting at a .295% rate. Not coincidentally, he's getting to the line only half as often as he was last year. His D has been solid, as has his rebounding, but offensively, he's a disaster right now, as he spots up (or steps back) for 3's instead of cutting to the hoop for an easy feed from Gasol, as he used to do so well (and so often).

Brown has also been far less consistent than he was in last year's playoff run. I'm hoping this is just b/c Phil has used him in so many different situations this year, whereas last year he had a very specific role. I'm hoping Brown becomes more consistent again as his role and minutes become more defined. BUt for now, Brown has definitely not made any real leap from last year, and has, in fact, taken a step or two backwards.


3. Kobe is taking too many shots, and the offense has grown stagnant as a result. THe bigs aren't getting enough touches and there is no movement, no cutting. Kobe is averaging 4 more shots per game now than he was at this time last year. (23.1 vs 19.2). With a broken finger. NOt coincidentally, Pau's fga are down by 1.5, and BYnum's are down by 2 shots per game.

Kobe's shooting 3's at the worst clip in the last 10 years, but he's only reduced the amount he takes by about 12%. He's gone from .351% on 3's to .292%. I think he may have not shot as many 3's over the summer as usual b/c he was so focused on his post game, and now with the finger problem, hitting 3's is not getting any easier for him. HIs assists are also down: from 4.9 to 4.3- that's a drop of more than 12%.

I'm not proposing some crazy "let's trade Kobe" scenario, but the reality is that Kobe has always been his own worst enemy. He took on an increased scoring burden while Pau was out, but since Pau has returned, Kobe is actually taking MORE shots (by one per game) than he was when Pau was out. When he is taking 23 shots a game (as he is now) it throws the Lakers out of their offense and they become a very beatable team.

To put his 23 shots per game in perspective, that is slightly more shots than he was taking in '05-'06, when he had teammates named Smush and Kwame. He needs to get back down to the roughly 20 shots he was averaging in the two season before this. When he facilitates and sets the other guys up, the Lakers are very very hard to beat, but when Kobe is taking this many shots, it becomes a problem- especially against quality teams.


4. This team isn't hungry right now. They are sleepwalking. They keep reading their press clippings and watching highlights of last year and thinking they can't be beat. They are simply not playing with the type of energy they were last year on a consistent basis.

5. Their main competitors all got stronger over the summer. Cleveland, as we just saw, is much-improved. Boston's bench went from a huge liability to a nice asset, and Rondo is blowing up. Orlando is deeper and the Hawks' young players like Josh Smith are taking a big leap forward, plus they added Crawford (legit 6th man of year possibllity) and Teague to an already decent bench. In Denver, Melo is blowing up and Lawson has been a huge addition.

The Lakers won the title last year in a series that was much closer than it would seem. Two of their wins could have easily been losses, and they were playing against a Magic team that had a rusty Jameer Nelson just coming back from injury. The same Jameer Nelson who absolutely killed the Lakers in both of their regular season meetings when he was healthy. If Nelson had been healthy, that series could have easily gone the other way.

I'm not saying the Lakers didn't deserve to win last year. They won it and they deserved it. They were the best team, even before KG got hurt. But it's not like they were some absolute juggernaut that rolled through the NBA like the 2001 Lakers did in the 15-1 postseason. They went 7 games with Houston, and went to 6 with Denver, with two of the wins being decided by Ariza's last minute heroics. Those were close series, and Denver could have gone either way, just as the Finals could have.

So while the Lakers made a lateral move (that is a slight positive) in replacing Ariza with Artest, their main competitors either added impact players to their team (Boston, Cleveland, Orlando, Atlanta), or has their young star players raising their game to another level (Rondo, Melo, Josh Smith).

The Lakers have no young player making similar strides in his game.


And speaking of the 2001 Lakers. They were the most dominating team in post-season history at 15-1. No other team was close. They made very few changes, then barely got by the Kings in 7 games in '02. If not for that Horry 3 at the buzzer, we wouldn't be talking about the 3peat era. The next year, despite obvious holes in the team, no changes were made, and the team lost to the Spurs in the 2nd round.

So when you sit there and patronizingly say, "The sky is attached and indeed not falling. Lakers will be fine", you should think about what went wrong in '02-'03: when people were saying the exact things that you are saying now while they drank their kool-aid and said the Lakers were invincible.

The only thing constant is change. The Lakers competitors have all gotten better, while the lakers (with Fish aging, Odom regressing, and Brown becoming inconsistent) have gotten worse. considering that there was only a small margin of error to begin with that separated the lakers from the other teams, that gap has now closed. THey won't win a title this year if they fail to address some of their issues.

The Lakers need help at PG and on the bench. Kobe needs to facilitate more and shoot less. And the entire team, especially BYnum and LO, need an attitude adjustment/ wake-up call.

You are fooling yourself if you think otherwise.

BSH -

looks more and more like Mavs can't lose, and like you're apt to see them in the #2 spot you were hoping for. without K Mart (he of the "low b-ball IQ"), the Nugs will suffer.

and yes, they've definitely been inconsistent against weaker clubs, playing down to the level of competition, just as you say ... and just like we've seen some of from both your Lakers and our beloved Cetics.

all these teams need to "get" that there really isn't a light switch you can throw when things get dicey - you've got to go after it all 48 minutes, and every game. the .500 teams and below are just gunnin for the top clubs, and the top tier teams have got to be ready to be tested by young clubs out to make an impact at our mutual expense.

nice reprint of your post with another Lakers fan, by the way. you certainly make cogent points outlining the flaws and concerns you see. thanks for posting it here.

best regards,
Michael

Michael-

My buddies and I have been calling the Lakers "team lightswitch" for much of this decade. I originally thought it was mostly due to Shaq, but I am now thinking it starts at the top with Phil trying to pace his guys through the regular season grind and then gain momentum down the stretch heading into the playoffs.

It makes for a not-so-compelling regular season, but I can't argue with Phil's results, seeing that he's had three different squads that all three-peated, and that outside of the two key players on each team, there was a lot of turnover on the rosters of each team, so each three-peat squad was different than the others.

Anyway, it seems like the Cs are in the same lightswitch mentality. I'd be mighty happy if they both turned it on and met in the Finals again.

As for KMart, even though he makes some incredibly dumb plays (that foul on Kobe late in game 5 last year was a doozy), the Nuggs really miss his defense and chippiness when h's not on the floor. I think they've got a worse record w/o him this year than they do w/o Melo or Chanucey.

Glad you got a kick out of my Laker exchange. I tend to have regular battles with the guys I refer to as the "kool aid drinkers", who simply can not see anything ever being wrong with the Lakers and who will declare you as somehow not being a fan if you dare criticize the team.

Hey I'm the biggest fan of them all. I want to win more than anyone, but as such, I am also the first to declare their flaws because I want to see them addressed, so they can be put in a position to win. It's too bad LA's flaws haven't been addressed yet, and some of the options (upgrading at pg and on the bench via trade or FA signing) are no longer available.

I'm reduced to hoping Farmar has a Jerome James-esque contract-year playoff run, that Fish only seems washed up, but will magically rediscover his shooting stroke in the playoffs, and that Kobe will realize by mid-April that they can't win unless he facilitates for the others instead of taking 30 shots a game. Let's just say I was a lot more confident about this team last year.

I knew they were the best team last year and that they would win it all. This year ? I'm hoping.

Kobe has one field goal and five turnovers with five minutes left in the first half of tonight's matchup with Phoenix. That's brutal.

Lakers are a dirty team

Nice win by LA last night at Phoenix.
LA will be where they need to be for the playoffs.

tjmakz wrote:Nice win by LA last night at Phoenix.
LA will be where they need to be for the playoffs.

Lakers don't win that game if Channing Fry didn't have to sit it out because of a suspension. They have played an extraordinary amount of games vs teams missing either their best player or a very key one.

la is very beatable. This is not last years team. They look unmotivated and unhappy on many nights. Ariza was a better fit. Artest is trying and a very good on the ball defender but Ariza was a disruptive team defender that gave them whatever they were needing on o on a different night. Kobe is diminished from last year...and has been playing waaayyyy too many minutes. He cant finish in traffic anymore much like pp. He is still lethal but nowhere near as lethal.

I wont be shocked if they dont make the finals. I wont be shocked if they win it. But I feel pretty strongly they are nowhere near as brutal as last year.

cowens/oldschool wrote:Lakers are a dirty team

yep- the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of this season's Lakers is the old Detroit Bad Boys.

Gasol= Mahorn

Odom= Lambieer

Fisher= Dumars

Bynum= Rodman


You are so right on with that one.

babyskyhook wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:Lakers are a dirty team

yep- the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of this season's Lakers is the old Detroit Bad Boys.

Gasol= Mahorn

Odom= Lambieer

Fisher= Dumars

Bynum= Rodman


You are so right on with that one.

In a recent SI poll of 173 players ranking the dirtiest, LA's placed two in the top five (Artest #2 and Kobe #5):

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/1003/dirtiest.nba.players/content.1.html

steve3344 wrote:

tjmakz wrote:Nice win by LA last night at Phoenix.
LA will be where they need to be for the playoffs.

Lakers don't win that game if Channing Fry didn't have to sit it out because of a suspension. They have played an extraordinary amount of games vs teams missing either their best player or a very key one.

Hey Steve- bitter much ? Do you want a little cheese to go with your whine ?


Channing Frye ? That's pathetic. He doesn't even start for PHX. They went on their recent run after BENCHING him. Not a coincidence.

If it was Nash or Amare you'd have a point, but Channing Frye ? Please.

That would look like me saying the only reason the Cs won the other night is because they played the Pacers. You play who you play in the NBA. And every team loses guys to injuries. Or maybe you didn't notice #24 on the bench for LA when Boston came to town.


And outside of getting the Cavs w/o Mo Williams once, and Denver w/o Melo once (both games which the Lakers lost), please give some examples of the "extraordinary amount of games vs teams missing either their best player or a very key one". I can't think of any, so I can't wait to hear them.

This isn't the NFL where you are playing 16 games, and getting the other team's backup QB 8 times makes a huge difference in a season.

Lakers have won without Kobe, Gasol and Bynum at various times this year. Part of the game is to play through injuries and overcome adversity.


I am the first one to admit the Lakers' flaws, and have documented them frequently on this board. And I was one of the first people saying they weren't as good as their record back around Christmas, since they were benefitting from a home-heavy early season schedule vs a lot of weak teams (NJ, NY, etc).

But they're certainly not where thy are because they've played an "extraordinary amount of games vs teams missing either their best player or a very key one".

Or perhaps you can enlighten me as to which games comprise this "extraordinary amount" ?

Hey Sky

If you play finesse we'll call you "soft" when you play gritty your dirty...ha!

No winning huh? Hellz I have no ideal who will win it this year. 3 team race out west 4 team race in the east. Good to have ya here buddy.

jeb

Sky,

Good point on about the Lakers starters missing earlier in the year. I was chopping at the bit with Steve's post. You beat me to the response and probably said it much better. I didn't hear anyone saying the only reason the Lakers lost some of their earlier games is because Gasol or Kobe was sitting out several games. Remember how many games Gasol missed? At least when Gasol was out, most of their games were at home.

Jeb,

Very, very good and honest post. I remember when everyone on the other site 2 years ago was always saying the Lakers were softer than....I don't know what. Rightfully so. So now they try to get tougher and are called dirty. Fine line between dirty and physical. I have seen some dirty plays the past two years from the Lakers. Does that make them a dirty team? Is Denver dirty or just a physical team? I think of dirty when they first come to mind, but that is probably because I am use to them getting physical with the Lakers.

Can't win for losing.

MG