What I don’t support is changing your defense because someone is “hot” — in other words, changing the defense because he’s 8-11 or something ridiculous. Play your solid team defense and let him “regress to the mean”. I know the research isn’t fullyformed but I believe most people who’ve studied lean towards the “hot hand is a myth” side of things.

I wasn’t worried about our perimeter defense, the Rockets were just hitting 3-pointers like crazy.

What bothered me was when Houston stayed ahead in the 4th by shooting floaters in the lane. Turiaf letting a slasher go right by him, as Kobe watched instead of challenged the lay-up.

You are absolutely right. I think the real problem is coaching. The truth is non of the current assistants are defensive gurus and this lack of coaching shows. Whereas both Boston and Houston’s defensive schemes were designed by Tom Thibodeau (Can an assistant win coach of the year? – being responsible for the best record in the league and partly responsible for the second longest winning streak surely qualifies him).

When Van Gundy was fired and Thibodeau was looking for a home, I really wished the Lakers would hire him but didn’t think Phil would want a strong-minded coach in his midst.

36% on three pointers is the equivalent of 54% on 2 pointers; if the choice is between giving him an uncontested three, or giving him a more difficult 2, don’t give him the three!

Now the triangle is supposed to be a movement offense and I don’t see much movement with Kobe handling the ball. I have given up trying to figure out the on-court ideas going through the players heads because when they move Kobe does pass the ball. The only thing I can fall back upon is the coaching not emphasizing the movement enough. Phil does seem to have his favorites and he does seem to go with them in crunch time a lot – not too surprising. However, the offense does break down if just one of the players stops moving as starts observing. Is there one player who is more guilty of this than any other? and is he one of Phil’s favorites? Yes on both counts – Lamar Odom. I am not going to say Lamar is at fault for all our ills as both Phil and Kobe have stubborn streaks the size of Texas and they seem to shoot themselves in the foot far too often. But for an offense based on movement, this one is far too stationary.

I heard a comment about Byron Scott’s coaching that might be useful here. He fits a player into the rotation for about two weeks and if they can produce they stay, if they fail, they get replaced. Might we try that here, even with our favorite players?

2. Don’t go under the screen against Alston

He had a good game, but if we were in a playoff series against them, I’d still say you give him the jumpshot. He’s shooting 40% for the season and 36% on 3-pointers, this game was an aberration.