Some welcome home from vacation, watching the loss to the Bobcats on TiVo Sunday morning then the Spurs game right afterward — two painful overtime losses. As much as we want to react to those two losses with some shakeup, we need to take a deep breath and look at the big picture. Right now […]
Lakers Analysis
Preview and Chat: New Orleans Hornets
The Travesty Just because I like dredging up bad memories, let’s talk about that Dallas game for a moment. There’s no need for deep analysis on this one, the Lakers stunk up the joint. No one should ever out rebound the team 53 to 28. Never. This could be indicative of how gassed the Lakers […]
More Than Treading Water
No Odom. No Kwame. Still, the Lakers are 7-3 in the last 10, 5-2 without Kwame. At a time many would be happy just playing .500 ball until we get healthy, this team continues to show its depth and beat expectations. And they continue to be exciting to watch. It’s all we can ask for […]
Just Be A Fan
We’ll stay cautious and level-headed, right? DrRayEye asked that after the Lakers best win of the season last night, and it’s a fair question. On one hand, my head keeps reminding me that they don’t award any NBA hardware in January; that beating Dallas in one game and in a seven-game series are two very […]
Life Without Kwame
Coming into Sacramento on Thursday, the new Laker starting five (Smush, Kobe, Walton, Cook and Bynum) have played a total of 16 minutes together this season, over four different shifts. The results: They scored 31 points shooting just 46.3% (eFG%); they gave up 38 points and let opponents shoot 57.4%; the lineup took 70% of […]
Thoughts watching Orlando
Just a collection of thoughts typed while watching the game, and a few afterward thanks to stats sent by Rob L. • All credit to Kwame, who held phenom Dwight Howard to 40% shooting (eFG%), 17% off his season average, just 8 rebounds and an offensive rating of 91.04. • Smush just seems to play […]
Player Pairs (and some other stuff)
Now that we’re 23 games into the season — and Phil Jackson has seemingly tried every possible lineup combination in his search for a rotation — that an interesting thing to do is start looking at player pairs. Specifically, what players are playing well with each other (using +/- and other numbers). For example, who […]
The Kobe Rules
It was mentioned by Ian yesterday in the comments, Dallas has developed its “Kobe Rules†— defensive rules that apply just to Kobe in an attempt to stop him from doing things like scoring 62 points in three quarters. The rules are pretty logical: try to deny Kobe the ball, be physical with him, vary […]
Third quarter D steps up
Getting statted up: Ginobili had 4 third quarter turnovers, Parker 2 as the Lakers for the first time this season showed signs that they can play lockdown defense against a contender in a crucial part of the game. It is a Phil jackson signature to finish quarters strong, especially third quarters, and the Lakers did […]
The Switch
At one point during last night’s Laker loss, color commentator Stu Lantz said he didn’t want to see the Lakers playing zone for too long because it sends a message to the team you don’t trust their man-to-man defense. I thought that sounded like a pretty good message to send, especially watching how the Lakers […]