Lakers suck ass

[Findog]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/bal...urn=nba,226619



Times are not nearly as troubling as a three-game losing streak would have some suggest, but the Los Angeles Lakers are in need of a significant philosophy adjustment if they are to glide to consecutive NBA les.

That last bit is important. As presently constructed, playing as we saw over the course of this three-game losing streak and as we've seen them play before, the Lakers can topple the Magic, Cavaliers, Celtics and any number of Western secondary options that might be thrown their way. As is now, they are the champs, and they are playing well enough to win the championship in June.

So once again, I'm in the uneasy position of telling you why things aren't as bad as you think they are, or for some of you, why things aren't going as well as you think they should. It's that middle ground that I can't live with myself for at least attempting to smartly occupy, and it's probably why you've never seen me on TV. So it goes.

The streak, to start. Los Angeles has lost three in a row, for the first time in more than two years. The first time since Pau Gasol(notes) became a Laker. The first time since, really, a three-game losing streak would mean anything to this team since Shaquille O'Neal(notes) was a Laker.

But they also lost to the Heat by three in overtime. That's a swing-either-way game. They were thumped again by the Bobcats, but that marks the seventh time in nine attempts that Charlotte has beaten the Lakers. The Bobcats have their number. It's over. They also won't see them again until sometime next December.

Then on Sunday, the Lakers lost to the Magic by three. Another either/or game, because as much as I credit the Magic for this win, these close games can go either way. It's usually your rooting interest that deludes you into believing otherwise.

So, clearly, this is the three-game losing streak that isn't. Or, probably, it's the three-game losing streak that really doesn't mean a whole of a lot. There wasn't anything the Lakers were doing in this streak that they haven't been doing all season.

For better and for worse.

Though Kobe Bryant(notes) has enjoyed a fantastic season and you have to love the way the L.A. has hung around the top three in defensive efficiency, the Lakers are badly underachieving offensively.

That's the "for worse," and I must remind that Los Angeles can win a championship playing exactly this way. Why they would want to, I have no idea.

Well, I know why they would want to. And it hurts to even talk about it.
It involves Kobe Bryant needlessly trying to dominate games offensively. It involves him playing the hero late, which he's done to great acclaim this season, but sometimes to the detriment of his team offensively.

Like on Sunday. He scored 18 points in the fourth quarter, but if you take 16 shots in the quarter (as Kobe did), you sure as better score 18 points. At least 18 points. How would Lakers fans like it if Jordan Farmar(notes) had a game that saw him take 16 shots to score 18 points? They'd ride him out of town, chanting something rude about "volume shooting" the whole trip out.
And then there's the worry about Ron Artest(notes), which we've had since last summer. Would he shoot Los Angeles out of games?

Early in the season, it didn't appear he would. In fact, watching Trevor Ariza(notes) head down to Houston and promptly shoot the Rockets out of game after game (or, at least, "comfortable win after comfortable win"), we'd almost call Artest's terrible shot selection in Houston "a product of the system," had we not seen him pull the same crap in Indiana and Sacramento.
Overall, he hasn't been great offensively. He's shot 41 percent this season, a little lower than his career averages, but nothing to get too worried about as long as he keeps bringing the defense. And he was worse in January (39 percent) than last month, so it's not as if he's trending.

But this is a crucial moment. Ron played great defense on Sunday, but he also was too aggressive at times, needlessly overplaying on screen and rolls, caring only about his man, taking himself out of position. Worse, he's missed 16 of 19 shots the past two games. And as Phil Jackson will tell you, a bit of pay-attention-to-me/don't-pay-attention-to-me at ude like his recent hair-style change and refusal to talk about it is often a sign of cabin fever. Jackson, after coaching Dennis Rodman for three seasons, knows.

There's no shame in that, it's just what happens. It's a long season, we all react in different ways.

So this is why it has to end now. Missing 16 of 19 shots in just two games needs to be a fluke. A blip. Something harmless to look back upon in June. Kobe, Jackson, Derek Fisher(notes) - they need to stop it.

In more ways than one.

Kobe, as we've warned all season, needs to take it easy. He is to be lauded to no end for his clutch play this season, for his overall season and for playing through injuries. But he is not to be lauded nor tolerated for playing at times in a style and with a level of intelligence that is beneath him.

There is no reason a player like Bryant, on a team this good, should be averaging 22.2 shots per game. That's over a shot more per game than last season, and while you may think that insignificant, it isn't. Not with this roster, this relative health and Kobe's own injuries. To say nothing of the fact that his shooting percentages are down across the board.

Not significantly, mind you, but enough. The minutes are up, too, but Kobe has to back off. He has to. For a team like the Lakers - even with that bench, even with Derek Fisher around - to be 11th in offense? That's ridiculous. There's no excuse for that, and it comes down to execution and decision-making.

Decision-making needs to be Fisher's forte, and if he's going to be getting burned on defense as much as he does, he has to stop calling his own number for long two-pointers early in the shot clock.

It's one thing to see Kobe wave off Andrew Bynum(notes) (having already sealed Dwight Howard(notes) five feet from the hoop) to try and post up Jameer Nelson(notes) 21 feet from the hoop (actually happened Sunday, terrible possession, ending in a missed Artest 3-pointer as the shot clock ran down). It's another to see Fisher call his own number time and again. He made four of his 12 shots Sunday, which was one fewer attempt than Pau Gasol. And Fisher has made only 38 percent of his attempts this season.

The execution? I put part of this on Jackson. This team comes out of timeouts and runs a screen-and-roll set instead of the triple post, the ultimate teach-a-man-to-fish/give-a-man-a-fish situation.

I know the screen-and-roll elements come within the triple post, but Jackson's been giving his team the fish all year, and I'm nervous about how it's paying off. Kobe's hit a series of game-winners, I know, but lost among all those game-winners is the fact that a few of those games shouldn't have been close enough for Kobe to have to bail out Los Angeles, and that's solely the fault of the offense.

And the flip side to that, and the Kobe-centric stuff late, is as you saw in the overtime loss to Miami or in the loss to Orlando Sunday. It's all Kobe late. And while he's Kobe and he's awesome and you think they're going in, these aren't great shots that he's taking and, sometimes, making.

The team element, the five-man offense that offers myriad options and is designed to topple any defense you throw at it? It's gone, replaced with orthodoxy. Screen-and-roll. Kobe isolated. That's not the Lakers. They're greater than the sum of their parts. Or, at least, they should be.

And they should be champs, mind you. Even playing like this, I'd have to prefer them. But they are making life way, way harder than it has to be. They're not playing lazy, they're not playing down to the compe ion and they're not "switching it on." They're not taking possessions off, unless you count making stupid, overly aggressive decisions time and again "taking possessions off."

They're just not playing as well as they should on offense, for reasons that are entirely correctable.

This isn't a rip job. I'm telling you that everything's going to be fine. It's just, as it is in anything this prominent and this significant, there are major issues that even a team as great as the Lakers needs to work on. And the Lakers know this.

Whether they decide to do anything about this is up to them.

[Findog]

http://twitter.com/CTKwasniewski

My point is this: Gasol & Bynum together just doesn't work. There's no spacing on the floor. PJ needs to start Odom and put Drew on bench.

There's a reason the Lakers made the finals twice with a Gasol-Odom frontcourt. The Lakers need to go back to it.

Horace & Luc were shooters w/ no post game & were able to create space. Bynum & Gasol lack chemistry and proper spacing.

The Lakers won at POR, SAS and at UTA with Bynum out. The focus was all on Kobe being out, but it had a lot to do with Bynum.

[Findog]

http://www.forumblueandgold.com/2010...offense-again/

On a day where Lakers’ fans sit and reflect on losing games, I think it’s also a good thing to examine what is actually possible with this team. I’ve said this before, but my outlook on what this team can achieve really hasn’t changed this season. The Lakers are championship contenders, and in my eyes still headline a group that includes Cleveland, Orlando, Denver, Dallas and Boston. To me, these six teams have some combination of the talent, experience, and coaching to win 4 playoff series and hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy in June. But, in order to get there, all of these teams would have to have some things break right.

For the Lakers, I think that means some outside shooting to show up. In the comments, Zephid gave us all a little reminder that this theme isn’t too different from last season:

Hmm, let’s look at some numbers.

Player A: 20%, 28%, 35%, 34%, 35%, 32%, 48%.
Player B: 50%, 30%, 33%, 20%, 33%, 35%, 51%.

These are the monthly splits for the 3 point shooting percentage of each player, with the last number in each row being that player’s percentage in the playoffs. Player A is Trevor Ariza; Player B is Lamar Odom.

Moral is we were plagued by poor shooting all throughout the regular season last year, too, but these guys turned it on when it counted. Outside shooting is our Achilles’ Heel, but it is not a certainty that it will down us in the playoffs. I’m not saying I know for certain that these guys will turn it on come April, May, and hopefully June, but I am saying that it is a distinct possibility, one that shouldn’t be lost in all the “woe-is-me.”

I would add to those stats that the one player that didn’t have a down year (last season) shooting from 3 point range was Fisher. Sure, we all remember the horrid slump that Fish went through at the end of last season where he shot 25% on threes in April and 20% in May. But if you look at his game log from last year and look at his month by month percentages, you see 50%, 43%, 44%, 43%, 38%, 42% before that late season fall off and then you see a 44% in June. This year, that has not been the case for Fish as he has struggled like everyone else. And with Fish joining the others with inconsistency behind the arc, our overall offense has been much less efficient. But, putting that to the side, I agree with Zephid in that it is still quite possible that the Lakers shooters find their way in the post season and make some shots. Is that likely at this point? That’s a question that each fan or analyst can answer for themselves. But I don’t think it’s too optimistic to think that with better execution and tighter, team specific game plans, that we’ll see improvement in the playoffs as the minor details get beaten to death in practice and the film room where the exploitable tendencies of the opponent are focussed on mercilessly.

One other quick point on this Lakers team. The ball can move better and I expect it to as the regular season comes to a close and the playoffs begin. A lot of that will rest on Kobe’s shoulders, but what else is new? Kelly Dwyer has an excellent take on what he’s seeing with this current Lakers team, and I suggest you go read it (seriously, go read it). Besides the even handed analysis that Dwyer provides, I would only add this: the Lakers are in search of balance on offense. The players know it and I think the coaches know it too. When it comes right down to it, there are factors that I think will aid in achieving this balance but the players that are available to play must execute the offensive sets better – that is how balance will come.

I know it’s easy to point fingers as fans. It’s even easier when the players (seemingly) start to do it themselves. But just know that Pau is not wrong when he’s saying that Kobe could shoot less (just like Dwyer’s not wrong when he says the same thing). But in order for Kobe to shoot less and for the team to not rely on his shot making so frequently, the ball needs to move more. Not only into the post, but out of the post as well. And not only from the strong side post to the strong side wing, but from the strong side post and wing to the weakside wing via skip passes and ball reversals. The ball must change sides, pressure releases must make themselves available by getting open, and it all must happen faster and with less hesitation. Players are holding the ball and sometimes that’s because they’re probing the D too much and sometimes it’s because the weakside man isn’t open, but those are correctable things and I think with some greater emphasis on those areas we’ll see a difference.

[Double-Up]

Another great thread...

[Findog]

I found you Findog!!!!

I don't have a goatee.

[Findog]

Another great thread...

Nothing personal against the Lakers and their fans, they're just sucking the ass they're supposed to suck.

[RocketsBlood]

keep taking 30 shots Kobe lol

[Findog]

Findog I found you!!!!!

ok

[Tom Slick]

I found you Findog!!!!

So naldo man is now stocking Findog?

[mavs>spurs2]

that guy does look like a bootlegged findog tbh..

[redzero]

So naldo man is now stocking Findog?

Is that some kind of sexual euphemism?

[Tom Slick]

Is that some kind of sexual euphemism?

It's how mother ers spell stalking.

[Kyle Orton]

I see easy to spell words like "stalking" and I misspell the out of em!

got.

[mavs>spurs2]

I retired the Suck Ass threads, got.

get owned !

[Rogue]

I ain't mad.

nope you never get really mad, all the furies occurring on you are totally pure feigns TBF as well as your griefs which are totally crocodile tears. You just pretend mad sometimes so as to justify your fatuous septic dumbness, you dumb cluster .

[TheMACHINE]

nope you never get really mad, all the furies occurring on you are totally pure feigns TBF as well as your griefs which are totally crocodile tears. You just pretend mad sometimes so as to justify your fatuous septic dumbness, you dumb cluster .

the poll is right. you aint funny.

[redzero]

the poll is right. you aint funny.

For a moment, I was wondering why Findog was posting like a complete re , then I saw the username.

[Rogue]

the poll is right. you aint funny.

i'm not looking funny now because there have been bags of funnier guys emerging on this board who are jolly entertaining, especially Lakers clots.

[Rogue]

For a moment, I was wondering why Findog was posting like a complete re , then I saw the username.

at least the re is complete which ain't as bad as someone born a cretin with a deficient head.

[Rogue]

Lol 123-61, futhamuckas

[redzero]

Lol 123-61, futhamuckas

Aw, thanks. I was afraid you almost forgot.

[Rogue]

Aw, thanks. I was afraid you almost forgot.

At least i've never forgotten the rule of thumb that i should dig my face into my gf's cleavage when i cannot help but speak engrish, the same rule you always manage to ignore.

[Rogue]

Isn't there a thread about you no longer being funny? Let's see, I get threads of people begging me to come back to give life to this joint, and you get polls about not being funny.

people cannot live without gots whom they believe are the reclusive pagans that make themselves feel more fitted in this society. it doesn't matter if you're just being such a got though. The only thing lame is the pride you hold for being such a person, which makes you extremely pathetic.

[JamStone]

I'm curious if people think Dirk Nowitzki has become a selfish ballhog during this current Mavs streak and the winning has either masked it or justified it.

During the 12 game win streak by the Mavs, Dirk has put up:

21 FGA
7.25 FTA
2.9 APG
in 39.1 MPG

In roughly that same stretch since coming back from taking a few games off, that selfish ballhog Kobe Bryant has put up these numbers in 8 games:

21 FGA
7.6 FTA
5.9 APG
in 40.4 MPG

Kobe gets called selfish, win or lose and regardless how he plays. Dirk takes as many shots and almost as many free throws and gets fewer assists in fewer minutes. Has he become a selfish ballhog similar to Kobe during this Dallas win streak and the winning is just hiding that fact? Is it that there simply isn't nearly as much obsessive venom for Dirk as there is for Kobe? Just curious. I haven't watched many of those Mavs games.

[Muser]

I'm curious if people think Dirk Nowitzki has become a selfish ballhog during this current Mavs streak and the winning has either masked it or justified it.

During the 12 game win streak by the Mavs, Dirk has put up:

21 FGA
7.25 FTA
2.9 APG
in 39.1 MPG

In roughly that same stretch since coming back from taking a few games off, that selfish ballhog Kobe Bryant has put up these numbers in 8 games:

21 FGA
7.6 FTA
5.9 APG
in 40.4 MPG

Kobe gets called selfish, win or lose and regardless how he plays. Dirk takes as many shots and almost as many free throws and gets fewer assists in fewer minutes. Has he become a selfish ballhog similar to Kobe during this Dallas win streak and the winning is just hiding that fact? Is it that there simply isn't nearly as much obsessive venom for Dirk as there is for Kobe? Just curious. I haven't watched many of those Mavs games.

What are the % numbers?