Comments on: Lakers vs. Pistons Live Blog powered by nomuskles

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:06:59 +0000

Little while ago I read an article that pointed out that today’s NBA training camps and Exhibition season don’t offer all that many full practice sessions on the court.(May be bad memory but I believe there were only 8 full on-court practice session in training camp for Rockets,for example.)
It might be interesting to find out from anybody who attended Laker Pre-Season practices what Phil and Co. worked on. If he assumed that w/no real new faces,everybody had the Triangle concepts down,the team might have spent more time on the D and running the break than they did working on the Triangle. If this is what happened,it explains why the offensive sets look so poor. Phil wanted to get the D in in camp and take care of the offense during the season.(Whereas in the past,new players meant focusing on teaching the Triangle and working on D during the season.)

By: Craig W.

Craig W. — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 05:36:46 +0000

Last night’s game started with the Lakers shooting jumpers and continued that way throughout. It seemed like Phil just let things develop and didn’t get real upset with the Lakers not running the triangle. Perhaps he wants an example to refer back to when talking about our half court offense and he was getting frustrated with the team’s tendency this year to ignore the triangle in favor of individual talent. After all, the triangle is supposed to be our backbone and we should always be able to come back to it. It seems this year the triangle is an old habit we are trying to ignore.

By: the other Stephen

the other Stephen — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 05:05:39 +0000

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-36-57/Shaquille-O-Neal–My-Fights-With-Kobe-Bryant-Were-Orchestrated-by-Phil-Jackson.html

okay…?

By: exhelodrvr

exhelodrvr — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:52:49 +0000

10) Yeah; he’s been a coach somewhere out East for several years

By: MacBSlick

MacBSlick — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:49:21 +0000

“They took Pau and Andrew off easy baskets by muscling them off their spots,” said Jackson.

“We could play their ‘bigs’ straight up, which allowed us to focus everyone else on the perimeter guys,” said Prince. “We knew if we could control their ‘bigs,’ we would win the game, and we did.”

Seriouly what can the Lakers do to stop these kind of games? No way should Drew at 285 and Pau at 270 be pushed around by Brown and Wallace like they both were last night. Very frustrating to watch it happen again. I thought Pau should have had at least 30 and 15 last night against Wallace and Bynum was just plain slow and completely overpowered by Brown (of all People). I mean if our two Bigs are going to let players push them around were going to get torched over and over again. Something has to change with the way these two think. You cant teach toughness and heart i know that. But Whats it going to take for these two to push back once in a while? I know we have some great BBall minds on this blog. What do you guys think Phil should do at this point? Is it just a “experience” factor? Drew yes Pau not really i guess.
Id like to hear some of your responses to our Bigs getting “Muscled off their spots”
Was this the reason for so much one on one play last night? what do you guys think?
Thanks All

By: j. d. hastings

j. d. hastings — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 23:11:50 +0000

Complete non-sequiter: Apparently OSU’s men’s bball coach is the brother in law of the president elect. Good to keep in mind when they get a mysterious 50-10 free throw advantage against UCLA in the PAC 10 tourney next year.

By: Brandon Hoffman

Brandon Hoffman — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 19:10:55 +0000

Detroit played a nearly perfect game. They did a really good job of countering LA’s traps.

Fish and Kobe got us off on the wrong foot by forcing shots that didn’t need to be taken.

Drew and Pau didn’t get enough touches.

The Lakers never really got in a good rhythm.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned with last night’s game, which I’m sure Phil will hammer home before Tuesday.

By: Darius

Darius — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:40:05 +0000

Kwame A.,
I noticed Drew not being in good position on the baseline as well. Our traps simply were not there against the Pistons. Part of that was that the initial defender was not doing a good job of shading the offensive player and directing him to the trap, but the second part of that was the strong side big not closing down the baseline effectively and shutting down the penetrator. I remember one play in particular where Prince went baseline and Bynum didn’t step up effectively, letting Prince get all the way to the basket and do that reverse two handed jam on the other side of the basket. Needless to say, our defense was not sharp against the relentless dribble attack of the Pistons. Sure, Detroit hit a lot of shots (and I know that can lead to more frantic close outs and the want to crowd the ball handler more; both of which lead to easier penetration) but we still need to play with more discipline and energy on defense. Last night it just wasn’t there. You can’t win ‘em all, I guess.

By: kwame a.

kwame a. — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:32:54 +0000

Went to the game last nite, couple of thoughts

1. The Pistons spread us out well. They ran the high screen and roll with AI and either Sheed or Kwame. What I was impressed with is how they got the ball into the middle of our defense. This was the first game a team consistently comprised our defense in that way.

2. The Pistons made lots of shots, I was amazed at some of the ones Tayshaun and AI hit over our defenders. They did get a fair share of open looks off penetration, but they made shots too, credit to them.

3. Darius touched on this after a different game, but it was really evident last night- the ball dies too much in the halfcourt with the starting unit. Not only Kobe, but with Pau as well. We need to move the ball more in the halfcourt. A big part of the problem was simply not making shots.

4. I was a little disapointed in Drew Bynum’s lack of discipline and focus on defense. He floated over to a position where he was slowly attempting to double prince on the strong side. This let Kwame gain deep position and ge easy hoops on ball reversals. This was partly Bynum’s fault, but the team as a whole did not rotate well. Of course, rotations look slower when the other team is making its shots, and spreading out our D.

5. The Lakers will be alright. This will be good tape to show them to keep them from getting to hight on themselves.

By: harold

harold — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 11:29:34 +0000

I was half afraid that Kobe was gonna pull it off. He was damn close with all that activity all of a sudden, showing up on the game cast on nearly every play.

But this was also Detroit’s best games so far, where everything worked out for the best. If Detroit keeps this up, they’ll really tire those celtics.