Comments on: Preview & Chat: Lakers & Cavs

By: Kurt

Kurt — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 07:26:27 +0000

New post up.

By: Josh

Josh — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:51:10 +0000

Horrible, frustrating, embarrassing game. This aggravates me to no end especially because it’s the Cavs. Totally soured my Christmas mood for the next hour or so…took an entire Procol Harum concert on DVD to clear the red mist away.

Kobe and Artest were the only Lakers who showed up and acted like the game mattered to them, period. As far as I’m concerned, for effort alone, they are above reproach in this game. Kobe’s gripes with the non-calls were totally legit- even the color announcers looking at replays saw multiple times that Kobe got jobbed in the paint. It wasn’t his jawing that cost the game- it was stunningly poor play from Pau, Andrew, Fisher, Odom, Brown, Farmar…Vujacic came out in garbage time and had more of an impact than Brown or Farmar.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:36:28 +0000

Re PJ: I was reading LATimes.com just now and he related it wasn’t a well played or well officiated game.

He’s partly right because the Lakers obviously played quite poorly (the Cavs played just fine). But, to imply the Lakers lost due to officiating is a total cop out, if that’s what Phil’s trying to do.

More helpful would be to own up to what really happened: The Lakers stunk up the joint!

Now, to be fair, the Lakers may be lacking motivation, since they are running away from the West …

By: phineas

phineas — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:32:40 +0000

But seriously, how do we get Hinrich?

/edited

/petty, bitter, stupid, not totally our problem today (I know), simply feel like whining.

By: Brian Shaw

Brian Shaw — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:13:41 +0000

i think we need to make a trade to bolster our bench
Today’s game showed yet again our bench just does not stack up against the contenders. At a point in the game, the cavs were outscoring the Lakers bench 19-2. Jamario Moon singlehandedly almost outscored the entire bench today. perhaps we should go after a shooter… [edited for trade speculation]. Our bench is in desperate need of some kind of offensive lift. Neither Odom nor Farmar (who i think are the two key leaders of the bench) have done a good job running the offense when the starters are off the floor. Maybe when Luke eventually returns the bench might improve but still i think a trade like this could really help us in the long run against the the contenders (Denver, Boston, Cleveland, and Orlando) which all have better benches.

By: namotuman

namotuman — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:11:00 +0000

i had an instructor in school and he was notorious for a famous quote…”if it looks like S#!T it ain’t gonna pass”…….well…i need not say anything more….

By: Tyler

Tyler — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:09:26 +0000

Also, all the talk about the bench being the only weakness is total crap. The real weakness is AWFUL 3 point shooting which kills the rest of the offense.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:07:31 +0000

Ron Artest played the laziest off the ball defense I’ve seen anyone play on Lebron ever. Consistantly he let Lebron get open and get position without putting up a fight. Watch Lebron’s big first half dunk. Ron isn’t even picked on the play, yet isn’t even in the picture during the dunk. He stands at the foul line and watches the ball. Lebron is in the air before Artest turns to notice that he had cut.

By: Zephid

Zephid — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:05:17 +0000

A couple of things really stood out to me.

1.) Off the ball movement
I’m pretty sure the Triangle offense is predicated on off-ball movement and spacing, and our team sure didn’t have a lot of it today. I saw a lot of trying to force the ball into the post; this led to a number of easy turnovers when guys like Delonte West and Jamario Moon just jumped up and intercepted the entry pass into the post. The triangle has built-in releases in case the post pass is not there, but our guys just held onto the ball way too long, eating up the shot clock, and then forced way too many bad passes.

Similarly, the Cavs off ball movement was superb, which got a lot of open dunks for Lebron, Hickson, Moon, and Varejao. Guys like Artest, Kobe, Brown, and Farmar got killed on off ball screens and back door screens. Then, our bigs were either too slow on the rotation or weren’t in the proper position to help. Pretty sure it wasn’t Mike Brown, but somebody on the Cavs coaching staff deserves some credit, because the Lakers seemed genuinely unable to adapt to these off ball movements.

2.) Post Play
On defense, Shaq really punished Andrew. Out of anyone in the league outside of Kendrick “Babies for Breakfast” Perkins, I think Andrew has the best chance of taking on Shaq 1v1. But, Shaq repeatedly got good position in the post and made Andrew pay with a plethora of dunks. And as always, the activity of Varejao was difficult for Gasol and Odom to handle.

On offense, both Bynum and Gasol got manhandled by Shaq, Varejao, and Big Z. Andrew was definitely not aggressive in his post moves, which given his ineptitudes with passing, made his post game very inefficient. Part of the blame goes to the perimeter guys for not properly spacing the floor, but when Andrew gets the ball, he needs to show Shaq he’s the boss now.

Pau, on the other hand, seemed really bothered by Big Z. A number of his shots were blocked/altered near the rim, and his mid-range shot looked even worse. This is a game where we really needed Odom to bring some energy (much like the game in Cleveland last year in February), but he just didn’t bring it on the boards or on defense.

3.) Pace
The Lakers played way too slow. Our front court is somewhere between 4 and 500 times faster than the Cavs front court, and we didn’t take advantage of this. The only guy who had a couple of good post positions was Artest, and that was when he was pissed for not getting fouls called for him. However, our backup guards, like Farmar and Brown, forgot that when you push the pace, that doesn’t mean you should take the first open look you get. Farmar and Brown both put up some pretty awful shots in semi-transition, where I would’ve preferred for them to wait for help and get it into the post.

4.) The Triangle
To the Lakers: Run it. Through Pau. A lot.
That’s all that needs to be said.

By: jeremyLA24

jeremyLA24 — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 05:51:52 +0000

I see a lot of people posting that kobe had an off shooting night but in my opinion, unless you expected him to shoot like 81pt kb than he did the best he could do as a leader of the team. He had to force the issue because everyone else either seemed scared to be on nat. t.v or were baffled by clevland’s length and intensity. I had no problem with kobe taking over when he was on a team full of scrubs and I have no problem with him doing it on nights when his team wants to act like a bunch of scrubs. These games are what prove that kobe is far above all other competitors. He stayed on the court until the final minute and 1/2 and gave his best every second of it.

Snoopy2006- I enjoyed your thread quite a bit and to prove I’m not a kobe cheerleader, I completely agree that his downfall to this game was kobe’s annoying “fist flinging.” You’re right on the money saying that it set off the momentum and even made it hard for me to hope for a come back when the leader of the team made it seem impossible to get past the officiating.