I suppose we should start with Kobe: He wasn’t the explosive Kobe that strikes fear into the hearts of mere mortals. There was certainly some rust. It appeared as if he looked to pass first and shoot second, feeling his way into the offense.
All that said, Kobe did a good job of blending in to a team that has been playing well, taking the ball to the hole when the opportunity presented itself and setting guys up other times. He finished solid stat line: 23 points on 8 of 15, a team best six assists and a +8 for the night.
The best news is Kobe practiced Saturday (although sat out a scrimmage) and his knee responded well.
Defense? Friday night certainly wasn’t the best four quarters of defense the Lakers have played, but they held the Sonics to 39% shooting in both the first and fourth quarters, and that was enough.
While he racked up 30 points, the Lakers actually did a decent job of keeping Ray Allen from being efficient in getting them — for the game Allen shot 47.9% (eFG%). The Lakers did a particularly good job in the fourth quarter, when Allen went 0-6 from the floor. Lamar and Kobe split time on him in the fourth, and both did well.
However, no Laker gave Rashard Lewis much trouble as he shot 57.1%.
Feed Me! Among the things I want to see more of in the second game of the home-and-home is the Lakers getting the ball inside to the post. The Sonics, like the Lakers, were down to their third string center but they finished with six more points in the paint than LA.
Particularly, get the ball more to Bynum on the block. When they did, Bynum made some nice plays and some crisp passes, but he didn’t get as many opportunities as the first two games. They need to feed the big man, and preferably early.
Things I don’t want to see again: One of the great things about all the depth on the Lakers is the coaches are playing around with lineup combos. They should, and they should take notes.
In the middle of the second quarter, the Lakers went with a lineup of Farmar at the one, Evans and Kobe at the two/three, Radman at the four and Cook at the five. Ugliness ensued. Farmar had trouble staying in front of Earl Watson (all the Lakers did) but the combo of Cook and RadMan along the baseline were slow to rotate and provided no shot blocking threat. That’s when the Sonics went on their run. Chris Wilcox and Damien Wilkins had some of their best play of the night. I’m sure the coaches made note.
By the way, while Farmar had his off moments he also had one play in the fourth quarter where got slowed by a Wilcox pick but recovered, caught up with Ridnour and blocked his shot. You remember Smush ever doing that (not to mention Atkins)? That hustle shows why he’ll be getting more minutes down the line.
Sonics that impressed: Damien Wilkins played well, 12 points on 6 of 8 shooting, and was +13 (best on the Sonics). Also I thought Earl Watson gave the Sonics a boost off the bench.
Elyse says
I don’t remember smush blocking so much, but I do remember him getting some pretty clutch steals. And let’s be honest, those are just as nice, because no basket is scored and it is a turnover.
I am not saying I prefer smush over Bynum, but I think he deserves credit for the good defensive things he does do.
Elyse says
and by bynum, I meant Farmar
kwame a. says
smush is playing consistent ball, and that was my biggest problem with him last season, one game up, one game down, but so far, he’s playin on an even keel, i understand where chris henderson is coming from when he says smush is playing flat, but maybe that is his attempt to not get too high, or too low, and so far hes been steady, and with the talent we have, thats all we need. on a side note, im loving the smush/farmar pg combo, keep shammond on the bench, and sasha should be used at the 2 exclusivley
chris henderson says
yes, there are some things about Smush that you have to acknowledge, his steals, quick hands are one, and his ability to get above the rim for some awesome dunks shows his athletic ability.
I do think we’ll keep seeing Farmar get his minutes because of the Earl watsons of the league, he’s just that much quicker, and I love the way he fights through screens, whereas Smush gets picked and that’s the end of it. Farmar is good for the team, he’ll keep Smush motivated to improve and hustle, or he’ll wind up spending more time on the pine.
I think my main problem seems to be his attitude, when he gets beat by his man, resulting in a foul charged to one of our bigs who had to rotate and cover, I watch Smush and it’s like “no biggie”, but when you see someone like Ronnie botch a pass, or miss an assignment, he’s the first one running down the floor pointing at his chest, “my bad” and you know he’s not going to let that happen again.
speaking of rotations, it was midway through the 3rd quarter against Seattle, I made mention that what the Lakers were missing then was Ronnie, his energy and hustle, cause it’s contagious. during this stretch Seattle made a run and basically caught up with us, wasting that nice lead they built up. of course, later when Ronnie came in and made the difference, I was saying “I told you so!” gotta love that guy. when you look back at our great teams, we always had that hustle, energy guy, Rambis, then AC Green, Mychal Thompson carried the tourch, (and stoped Kevin Mchale which none previous could)… I guess Fox was that guy for us, but not quite in the same way. anyway, I feel Ronnie is not just a fluke, with what he’s gone through in his young life, he’s got a great perspective on life and won’t take anything for granted. (won’t hear him ever complain about not being able to feed his family on $20 million). look at him even on the bench, he’s the teams biggest fan, no complaints about lack of PT, you just gotta love this guy. no wonder he’s the new fan fav.
what I’m really loving about this team is it’s depth, when the second unit comes in, we’ve got guys like Evans, Cook, Farmar, Ronnie, Radman, etc…and they’re playing tight, they hustle and we usually don’t lose ground, this is a real plus. I’d love to see phil manage this and build upon it so we navigate this long season and do what Phil is famous for, “having it strong at the end!”
what do you guys this about what happens when Kwame Brown is ready to come back? I’m assuming the logic here is that he has to earn his minutes…
CTDeLude says
I’m just wondering if Brown can go ahead and play the PF position. I know that’s not his best position but all his defensive assignments come from the PF position anyways. I’m looking to see if having Bynum/Brown is ever feasible at the same time. Or even Turiaf and Brown. It’ll be interesting regardless because Brown only seemed to “wake up” once Mihm went down with injury.
Bryan says
3 down, 79 to go. 82 and oh!
I don’t really know what to say about Kobe’s return. There were times I was screaming at the TV for him to pass to the open man when he forced it, and times when he passed it off when he could have been more aggressive.
What scared me was seeing the offense stall and wait for Kobe to do something sometimes. We didn’t see that the first two games, and to be successful this year, we can’t do it. Too many passes sometimes, waiting for someone else to finish it.
82 strong
Muddywood says
Kwame will play because he can defend and rebound. When healthy, he will start with Turiaf and Bynum backing him up. Where Chris Mihm fits in, I don’t know. My guess is that he moves ahead of Bynum and that Turiaf is the back up at PF. My dream line up is Kobe, Walton, Lamar, Turiaf and Kwame. Go big and make teams adjust to you. Then you can bring in small guys to match up to speedy opponents. Small ball is a fad that can be defeated by big, talented teams.
kwame a. says
muddwood, you are dead on with your point about small ball, that fad will be exposed this season, bigger teams like the lakers and cavs and clippers will put an end to that fad.
i feel that kwame actually has earned the right to start when he is active, but from there he must show that he deserves the minutes. Chris Mihm, on the other hand, is a problem. he is in a contract year and will not be happy being behind our other 3 bigs, we may want to just dump him for a draft-pick, he cannot impede bynum’s development or turiaf’s valuable minutes
CTDeLude says
Bryan…..I think you’re worrying too much. And Kobe hardly hogged the ball from my standpoint.
And does Brown really deserve the start because of last years performance? Does anyone remember he disappeared after game 4? I know he deserves minutes but he might have to adjust more than just being a starter.
Rob says
By my numbers for the last game Ray Allen’s ORtg was 113.6 while using about 26% of Seattle’s possessions. Those numbers make me think his eFG% being lower is more a factor of the work load he took on. Rashard Lewis ORtg 136.99 using 18% of Seattle possessions. Pretty sick efficiency. Chris Wilcox also did well ORtg of 121.16 for 13% of possessions. Those three are the key for the game tonight. Which should surprise nobody.
As for Kobe. His usage rate was about par for his career with the Lakers (this includes the Shaq years). 25% usage of Lakers possessions. So there was no ball hogging, period. The telling number is that his ORtg was only 100.6, well below Kobe’s normal. But what would you expect on his first game back? I’m sure Kobe will bounce back to a much better efficiency soon. Besides, this was offset by Lamar and Luke. Lamar ORtg 152.58 on 19% and Luke ORtg of 142.67 on 14%.
Here’s more fuel for the Smush/Farmar debate. In the last game, offensively Smush got much better. Smush ORtg 109.15 on 9%. Farmar was 90.12 on 3%. As you can see Farmar didn’t get the ball much, so his drop could be due to the limited touches. But Smush has begun to find his offensive groove. As for defense, I’ll save that for another day.
Kurt says
Ray Allen had a true shooting percentage in the game of 55.6%, which is good considering he takes on so much of the Sonic offense. But he was slowed in the fourth quarter, he didn’t score a point when the game was tied late,and if we can do that I’ll talke it.
kwame a. says
Re: Kwame Brown starting. I agree he didn’t play well after game 4, but that was 99% due to a bogus rape-charge that rattled his weak psyche, but fake rape-charge notwithstanding, he was a monster on the boards and defensivley, and could get great position underneath the hoop on offense.
Kurt says
Kwame should get the starting nod when he comes back, he showed late last year he can play well within the system, defending and hitting boards. The thing is, he’s going to be pushed. Last year he got the benefit of making some mistakes and learning on the job, this year he either plays well or loses minutes. We’re deep now.
Of course, it’s easier to look deep having played four games against teams that don’t defend well. I’m looking forward to some of the tests in the next couple of weeks.
Rob says
11- I agree with you, Kurt. Most of the time with a guy like Allen you’re not going to stop him, just slow him down. And that TS% corroborates something we already knew. The Lakers can’t let Seattle penetrate the lane.
JONESONTHENBA says
I’m a fan of the big lineup that muddy wood mentioned. The Bulls last three peat and the Lakers first championship under PJ had a similar line up with all 6’7″ and up guys in their starting lineup. With playmaker such as Kobe, Lamar, and Walton all on the floor together, I could see that being a successful lineup. The question is how well that lineup could defend the pick and roll…
Rob says
Only 6 minutes in and Kobe’s already got 4 assists.!
Derek Banducci says
This experiment of playing Cook at the 5 is killing me! That said, I do think that Phil is probably doing it for a good reason. PJ’s hope is probably that Cook can learn the 5 and give us a big who can step out on the perimeter, to create some match-up flexibility in the playoffs.
Tony B. says
That lineup with Cook, Vlad, Evans, etc. was killing me. I hope we don’t have to see that again tonight.
Dan says
I didn’t see the game, but it looks like the defense wasn’t up to the task tonight.
JONESONTHENBA says
Could we please make sure that at least Kobe or Lamar are on the floor at all times. As well, Farmar has to play more minutes at the point because he’s the only one that is good at defending the high screen and roll. Lastly, where was Ronny Turiaf. I know Phil is still trying to get a feel for the line ups, but that line up with Cook and Vlad and Evans (as mentioned above) really killed it for us. We also shot waaay too many threes tonight. But I think it’s good for us to lose like this. It’s easier for the coaches to point out mistakes to the team after a loss. But the lack of Farmar and Turiaf really hurt us tonight. Kobe is going to take a few games to get back into the swing of things. And Lamar has to continue to be as aggressive as he was to start the year. But overall I still think we will stay on the winning track…
CTDeLude says
Having no proper center in there also hurt us Jones. A big thing I have noticed is we are having a really difficult time with spacing on offense. At least when it comes to getting the ball into the post. There seems to be no set plays to get it into our big man on anything but penatration by guards who dish when drawing the double. I think that’s a big no no as Bynum once again finished with great FG% but then we went away from him. In fact we did not run one clear out on his side like we did with Kobe and some other players during the course of the game. The guy is scoring and until he looks like he’s just screwing around out there we need to get the ball into him more. I understand stamina might be an issue with AB and it’s hard to have the big man in there when we’re so far down anyways but he needs to get more minutes than what Phil is feeding him. Nevermind the lineup we all seem to despise here have so far TWICE royally screwed the team in the early second quarter. The lack of true center AND either Kobe and Lamar just kills me.
chris henderson says
well so much for an 82 and 0 season…
it had to end sooner or later. but it is still a great start.
it seemed to me that the team was “too polite” tonight, trying to make 1 too many passes, should’ve just taken the shot, but felt like (if it was Kobe) trying to blend into the strong team start, and (if it wasn’t Kobe) then trying to hard to get him into the offense.
we could’ve used a bit more selfishness tonight. however, at one point I thought Kobe was going to go for a hot streak, see if he still had it in him, it was in the 4th quarter and the game was already out of reach…he did hit 3 of 4 or something like that.
and these T’s…for demonstative behavior? wtf? is this the 6th grade or what?
Rob says
It was interesting in the fourth when the Lakers went on the run to close within 11 or so. Phil subbed out Vlad and brought in Lamar. That effectively killed the Lakers run. Vlad had started to get going, and Lamar never found his rhythm all night.
But the real story is too many turnovers converted to points and sloppy D. Ya win some, ya lose some.
Bryan says
22. I agree with the “too many passes,” that’s what I was trying to say before. how many times did you look up to see 3 seconds or so on the shot clock? And there’ve been a few 3-second calls on us offensively, as a big man thought a shot was about to be taken (as did I).
Walton looked great tonight. Bynum continues to impress. But why did they play so few minutes in the loss? 26 and 19 respectively. Maybe it’s an early season, everyone’s not in game-shape yet thing. Or Phil not wanting to rush Bynum. But I’d like to see a more steady rotation (And as has been noted a few times above, to not see the unproductive rotation).
81 and 1 is still respectable. 1st place in the Pacific.
DrRayEye says
The Lakers scored enough points to win–and lost by 17! That says it all for me. Others will count the turnovers, shooting percentages, points in the paint, fouls, rebounds, etc.
I just turn my attention to the Smusher-not that all defensive problems come from Parker. He’s just the guy that turns team defense into playground defense. He often watches his guy go by and either heads for the basket (for a possible rebound/stop) or heads the other way for a possible breakaway. Sometimes, as the guy goes by, he reaches in for a possible steal. With him as an MIA, others start to improvise, but it usually sounds more like “white noise” than a good jazz combo.
Last night, Smush’s humpty dumpty teammates fell so hard during his time on the court that even Framar’s “horses” in the fourth quarter couldn’t put humpty together again.
Paul says
It’s clear. The Lakers need to feed Bynum more often and play better defense. Some of this lies on Phil. The Smush free lineups that he uses don’t involve Bynum. Try a lineup with Farmar and Bynum in at the same time and see what happens.
kwame a. says
i have to disagree with the argument that smush was the reason our defense was swiss cheese. if i remember right we were playing well in the first quarter with smush and andrew, but when smush got a ticky-tack 2nd foul, our defense collapsed and never recovered. Offensivley, when we took Bynum out, we lost our rhythm and never regained it, leading to the turnovers that were a combination of sloppy play and sonic fouls.
Craig W says
I agree Smush was not our only defensive problem.
Our team has a rather tender psych (as do most young teams) and I think Phil has to take this into consideration in his rotations – he hasn’t had much practice with lots of young players. I would suggest that his wholesale substitutions in the early 2nd quarter may work for experienced veterans (and maybe us later this year), but right now they completely destroy our continuity and our players can’t adjust. I would request he substitute a player at a time and leave the group to integrate that player for a couple of minutes before putting in someone else. This coud start earlier in the 1st quarter because he does want to rest the starters.
Kurt says
Not to try to say defense shouldn’t be a concern, but that was one bad game against a very good offensive team. This can be used as a learning tool by the coaching staff — both for the players and themselves with regard to lineup combos — and the team can move forward from it. I think all I know for sure about the point right now is Shammond is not the answer.
kwame a. says
damn, shammond williams looks awful, and flip murrary, who signed for the same amount with detriot, looks good
Burningjoe says
Team D Stunk….period.
Bryan says
Just wondering: Ray Allen is 100% healthy and can shoot better than most people on the planet. Why did Seattle not put Kobe’s knee to the test and just attack him?
If I was an opposing coach, I’d go right at the superstar who just had surgery and isn’t in game-shape yet.
Smush’s d isn’t the problem. Seattle just did a better job in game 2 of spreading the floor and preventing Bynum/Odom/Walton from collapsing on every penetration. That’s why it’s so tough to win both games of a home-and-home set.
81 and 1, here we come.
Kurt says
This will be part of the Miiny preview, but I’ll mntion it here — right now the Lakers are 27th in the leauge in defense, but you have to take that with a grain of salt. Seattle and Phoenix are three of the four games and they are powerful offensive teams. Things will look better as we face lesser offensive teams. At least I hope.