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Whoa. BUUUUUURN.
Lakers buckle under pressure
By Johnny Ludden, Yahoo! Sports
LOS ANGELES – Kobe Bryant tugged on his sport coat, squared his jaw and stared into the cameras. His eyes blazed with anger, and it was easy at that moment to understand the fury that had famously sent him on the warpath a year ago. Bryant didn’t demand to be traded Thursday night, but no one would have been surprised if he had. At the least, he had to be wondering if it was too late to get a refund on that Pau Gasol deal.
Kobe Bryant doesn’t do collapses, and yet here he was, sitting dead center in the biggest one in NBA Finals history. His Los Angeles Lakers, national favorites only eight days earlier, had gagged away a 24-point lead. Even at the midpoint of the third quarter, they were still up 20. Though Bryant was about the only Laker who didn’t seem to wither under the pressure in the final quarter, he, too, must shoulder some blame. Miss 13 of 19 shots in the biggest game of the season and you don’t get a free pass.
“We just wet the bed,” Bryant said, his scowl briefly giving way to a grin. “A nice big one, too. One of the ones you can’t put a towel over. It was terrible.”
The Lakers might not get to clean up the mess until next season. They now trail the Boston Celtics 3-1, and no team has ever dug its way out of such a hole in the Finals. This was supposed to be the coronation to Bryant’s MVP season. Instead, the Celtics have exposed the Lakers as a team apparently too young, too inexperienced, too frail to stand on the game’s biggest stage.
One play said enough. Clinging to a three-point lead with less than 40 seconds left, the Celtics isolated Ray Allen on Sasha Vujacic above the top of the key. Kevin Garnett ran over to set a screen on Vujacic only to be waved off by Allen. A couple of dribbles later, Allen was cruising by Vujacic through the middle of the lane. Lakers coach Phil Jackson had told his players to stay home on Boston’s shooters, and Gasol hesitated about leaving Garnett until it was too late. Allen finished with an uncontested layup.
As far as big-game defensive stands go, this ranked as one of the most pathetic. Not even Leon Powe’s Game 2 gallop through the Lakers was this bad.
Vujacic, as often seems to be the case with him, initially tried to blame the breakdown on officiating.
“Personally, for me, it’s hard to adjust how I have to guard Allen not to be called for a foul,” he said. “… I wanted to stay with him. I wanted to play him aggressive, but, again, there would be a foul. I kind of step back and I give him the room to operate and he went to the basket.
“Bad decision on my side.”
There were a lot of bad decisions on the Lakers’ side. Once Gasol saw Allen loose, he should have raced over to at least foul the Celtics guard, even if it meant leaving Garnett.
“My issue with the team,” Jackson said, “is we gave up too many layups.”
The Lakers have been soft throughout these Finals, and Thursday’s performance certainly isn’t going to help Gasol shake his rep. Said one scout watching the game, “He’s scared to death.”
Even before tipoff, Jackson acknowledged Gasol’s reputation. “I think,” Jackson said, “that’s one of the reasons perhaps we were fortunate enough to get him. … That perhaps he was not a center … he wasn’t tough enough to be a center.”
Bryant has reason to question the toughness of more than a few of his teammates. The Lakers played as crisp and free as they have all season in the first two quarters, sharing the ball, everyone getting shots, attacking the Celtics before they could set their defense. Lamar Odom even shrugged off his slump by making his first seven shots. Bryant didn’t make a single basket in the first two quarters and, still, the Lakers took an 18-point lead into halftime.
But once Boston picked up its defense? The Lakers picked up their vacation itineraries. Odom disappeared yet again, making just one shot after halftime.
“They weren’t nearly as aggressive as they were in the first half,” Garnett said. “It just looks like they wanted to get the ball to Kobe and let him sort of finish it off. That’s what it looked like to me.”
That’s what it looked like to everybody, Bryant included. After a season in which they exceeded even their own expectations and reached the Finals, these Lakers haven’t proven sturdy enough to stand alongside their leader when it matters most.
Nearly an hour after the game, Bryant was still simmering. He joked that it would take “a lot of wine, a lot of beer, a couple shots – maybe like 20 of them” to get over the loss. He has now dropped seven of the past nine Finals games in which he played, but Thursday’s had to rank as the hardest to digest.
“We’re hurting,” Odom said.
Bryant hasn’t abandoned hope of climbing back into the series. At least that’s what he said, vowing to put his head down and return to work.
“Takes one swing at a time,” he said, “to chop down a tree.”
But after Thursday? After he and his teammates soiled their sheets? Even Bryant has to wonder if anyone’s strong enough to help him hold the ax.
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Whoa. BUUUUUURN.
Nah, without Gasol, they woudn't even be in the playoffs. And yes, Gasol can only take them this far.
Even after a game like this, where his teammates gave Kobe a 24pt lead, they are still blaming it on them, instead of Kobe!!! Ridicolous!
You have to love Phil Jackson.
His team is losing, and all he can do is single players out and talk about how weak they are.
He is the epitome of a Hollywood stereotype. Shallow, narcissistic, and completely unable to take responsibility when something goes wrong.
Boston has a large degree of gra ude from me in making sure that he won't win his 10th ring on the coattails of his players. My god, how can this guy be considered a great coach when all he does is talk down to his own players and complain about the officiating when things go poorly?
And people want this guy on the Spurs?Vujacic, as often seems to be the case with him, initially tried to blame the breakdown on officiating.
“Personally, for me, it’s hard to adjust how I have to guard Allen not to be called for a foul,” he said. “… I wanted to stay with him. I wanted to play him aggressive, but, again, there would be a foul. I kind of step back and I give him the room to operate and he went to the basket.
So how come the Spurs looked so damn soft against these soft, soft, softer than soft Flakers?
A question that will echo down thru the years for Spurs fans I reckon
I find it funny that Spur fan is talking so much about the Lakers when his team got demolished 4-1. If the Lakers are soft what does that say about the Spurs?
They're softer!
Enter Andre Bynum and a team in their twenties and an old team in their thirties.He can call it what he wants,but this comes from the same idiots who had an exclusive story to take down the dominate USC Trojans because Reggie Bush excepted money.They are ranked#4 pre-season.
Oh the joy of watching the demolition.
It could not have happened to a better team and fanbase.
Kobe will soonand we will make room on the boat.
The Lakers outplayed the Spurs this year. That's obvious. But it's also obvious that the Spurs were just exhausted. If they had their legs, we're looking at the very least at a game 7. Spurs would not have choked away two big leads, but they didn't have the legs to keep up their level of play.
Yes that's what happens when your old
And this is what happens in the Finals when you're young and inexperienced!
Do Laker fans have half a brain? Do NBA fans really think the Lakers are a better team than the Spurs?
-Manu at 40%
-sleep on a plane after a game 7
-start on the road at LA after 1 nights rest
-Lakers get 6 days off, after a 6 game series with Utah (funny, cause its not like they dominated thier opponent to get 6 days off.)
-i wont even bring up game 4
now pllleeeease, Laker fans, show that you have any integrity within you to know that the Spurs were No where near 100% when you beat us.....
NGAF. Nobody cared when Magic and Scott went down in the Finals against the Pistons and nobody will care that Manu wasn't 100% or that the Spurs didn't get more than 1 day rest between games.
Just like no one cares that you're getting your ass handed to you now.
No one in the league has room to talk except the team that wins it all.
No one remembers how good the 2nd place finishers were. You'll just be another footnote in the Celtics run to another le.
Amen. So why don't you tell your little Spur buddies who are jerking off all over the place now that the Lakers are losing the same thing?
im able to accept defeat. the Lakers won, so be it. they beat us fair, and by that i mean they beat us without cheating or playing dirty or by the refs help.
it just sucks that manu was hurt and that the schedule sucked for us.
i just hate the lakers and everything about them. Kobe is not a genuinly nice person like the spurs guys and Phil Jackson is a classless prick of a person. everybody knows it.
bad things happen to bad people sometimes.
I am not their keeper!
Even with what I said above, I think it's somewhat satisfying to see the Lakers lose. That's what happens when a rival loses. You celebrate and talk smack, even if you didn't win. It's standard sports fandom procedure.
USC hasnt won since January 2005. 1 National le and the media overrates them dramatically.
USC has been a dominant football program for a long time now. To say they haven't done anything is pure ignorance. They were clearly the best team in college last season, the BCS is just ed up.
Besides, Ginobili was Ginobody for that series as a result of injury. basically, You guys lucked out on several things: Strange schedule, injury, and fatigue, and the infamous no call.
Softness is the last team that I'd call the Spurs, winners of 4 championships.
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