Kobe asking someone to make a stand with him.

[TheMACHINE]

Cry Havoc just wants Kobe to pass the ball so Artest can shoot a three pointer and mss with his 27% shooting and he wants gasol to shoot that sweet jumper he kept talking about in his posts. Then he can come in here and say "what happen to the leader of the team, you know, the Kobe with the Killer Instict who take over games".

Kobe shoots practically 50% last night, but he is selfish. Maybe one would think his teammates would grow some balls and assert themselves.

Same old same old.

[Stringer_Bell]

Kobe is right, if it takes him saying something to get his team fired up...they probably don't deserve it. The Lakers are the more talented team, but the Celtics have bunker mentality and play better as a unit. There's been a few times when the Lakers are handling the ball in tough situations looking for Kobe and was time fudging it up (Fisher and Artest in particular, 2 veterans in crucial situations scared and wanting to defer to Kobe). The Celtics haven't seemed to struggle with that as much.

I can see LA coming back, but I hope for the sake of the children that they don't.

[Giuseppe]

Cry Havoc just wants Kobe to pass the ball so Artest can shoot a three pointer and mss with his 27% shooting and he wants gasol to shoot that sweet jumper he kept talking about in his posts. Then he can come in here and say "what happen to the leader of the team, you know, the Kobe with the Killer Instict who take over games".

Kobe shoots practically 50% last night, but he is selfish. Maybe one would think his teammates would grow some balls and assert themselves.

Same old same old.

Exactly, Cry is being intellectually dishonest. ESPN/Media told him to hate Kobe and he's following the marching orders to a >t<.

[easy7]

Koby is getting ready to start throwing mofos under the train come Tuesday night after the game. I see starting to get cold and see a Silver Bullet in the horizon.

[Obstructed_View]

Kobe making a few long jumpers over and through double teams is fool's gold. Always has been, always will be. You can't count on that to continue any more than a jump shooting team can count on it. Kobe Bryant should be the ultimate weapon in the NBA for breaking down defenses, but he's happy to just chuck and chuck. That's why so many people laugh when his fans try to compare him to Michael Jordan. He's barely a tall version of Allen Iverson.

[PM5K]

At the end of the day these guys might have an excuse on offense, but what was their excuse on defense? They were too busy thinking about all the sweet shots Kobe was making?

[4>0rings]

Don't worry Kobe, the refs will stand with ya!

[TheMACHINE]

Don't worry Kobe, the refs will stand with ya!

you promise?

[Cry Havoc]

Exactly, Cry is being intellectually dishonest. ESPN/Media told him to hate Kobe and he's following the marching orders to a >t<.

You're right. That hateful media that hates him so much they listed him as the MJ for the better part of this decade.

[sabar]

Exactly, Cry is being intellectually dishonest. ESPN/Media told him to hate Kobe and he's following the marching orders to a >t<.

Surely this is a joke. All playoffs long ESPN has been ramming down our throats that Kobe is equal to or better than MJ, that he is by far the best player in the league, even when he is shooting 40% to a loss.

Exhibit A: Marc Jackson says that an ill-advised heave over a double team that miraculously bounces in is good offense from Kobe.

[TD 21]

If Bryant drop kicked the ball from mid court and it went in Jackson would tell us that it was good offense. If he strangled someone unprovoked, Jackson would tell us that that person deserved it. If he told Jackson to jump off a bridge, without thinking twice Jackson would oblige.

This guy is on a bizarre crusade to convince people that Bryant is at worst Jordan's equal, at best greater than him. I don't get it. Is he friends with Bryant and/or does he have something against Jordan? He's not from L.A. (though he lives their now) and didn't to my knowledge grow up a Lakers fan, so why is he madly in love with Bryant? Does ESPN just tell all of their on-air basketball people to build this guy up? And if so, did Jackson take that too far? I can't figure out his obsession with Bryant for the life of me. Particularly coming from a guy who played in the league. Most ex-players aren't in awe of anyone, but not Jackson, he's like a kid in a candy store watching Bryant.

Typical Bryant, putting it all on his teammates. No other all-time great would pull that, they'd talk about how it starts with them or about how they need to do more. Look at a guy like Duncan, he could have thrown up 30/20/5/5 and if his team lost, he'd put it on himself. Not this punk. He wants all of the accolades when it's going good and none of the criticism when it's going bad.

[cobbler]

You ever played basketball?

You ever played for 20 minutes at a time without getting the ball and then suddenly you're fed the rock and expected to have rhythm for a jumpshot?

This isn't about grown men needing to man up. It's about the simple fact that the human body operates on rhythms and cycles. Take that away from someone and they are going to struggle to perform any task at the highest level.

Soccer, football, baseball, you name it. Remove a player's rhythm, and it's difficult to expect them to step up. It's the same reason that managers hesitate to subs ute batters in late in a game in crunch time to get a big hit if they haven't swung the bat all game.

20 mins? It was 8. You ever play ball? Where I come from, if someone is hot on your team you feed him until he isnt, be it 2 mins or 20, and you do the other things that get you the victory be it D or rebounding. Standing around and balming the hot guy for your inablility to step up both BEFORE AND AFTER the hot streak is anything but TEAM BALL. Maybe they need to look in the mirror first before placing blame.

You cannot be serious with the baseball anology. Pitch hitters are used EXACTLY for the purpose of getting big crunch time hits many times after not seeing the field for weeks. Geeeeeeeeeeez.

[MiamiHeat]

I don't have to say anything. NBA fans in this thread just saying the truth.

+10000000

[cobbler]

And yet, even in Duncan's most dominant years, you never saw players and the media en masse come out and wonder aloud why he didn't get his teammates more involved. You never saw another teammate in a dispute with him about touches or points scored.

Leaders lead, and they take the blame if their team doesn't follow. If Kobe isn't a leader, that's fine, but that's the standard that all of the NBA greats are held to. Kobe has earned the reputation of a player who wants the spotlight on him over the past decade in this league. Now the spotlight is on him, and if his team loses, guess what? History isn't going to remember Derek Fisher or Ron Artest as the player that was on the Lakers the two years they lost to the Celtics.

If TD had Shaq in his team he would have heard it.

[cobbler]

The Lakers problem is on offense, and if Bryant can't figure out how to make his guys better, then he deserves to lose. All he can do is score. If he was a tenth as good as he thinks he is, the Lakers would beat everybody like a drum.

Seriously, who picked Boston to beat LA? Maybe 10% of the population outside Massachusetts.

Who picked them to beat the Cavs? The Magic?

[Cry Havoc]

20 mins? It was 8.

You must have missed that entire halftime segment. So actually it was probably more like 30 minutes. I was being generous. Unless you think the pre-2nd half shootaround counts as getting your men involved in the game?

You ever play ball? Where I come from, if someone is hot on your team you feed him until he isnt, be it 2 mins or 20, and you do the other things that get you the victory be it D or rebounding.

Most of the time when I play ball and a guy shoots every shot for his team, it's not because he's good. It's for entirely different reasons. And a pickup game to 15 is a far cry from a 48 minute battle between the best players in the world. A hot player can win the game for you by himself in a rec league... it's not going to happen in the NBA.

Standing around and balming the hot guy for your inablility to step up both BEFORE AND AFTER the hot streak is anything but TEAM BALL. Maybe they need to look in the mirror first before placing blame.

You're right. Kobe should have shot MORE shots. Because if there's one thing that's team ball, it's a guy who's double covered chucking a 26 footer while fading away.

You cannot be serious with the baseball anology. Pitch hitters are used EXACTLY for the purpose of getting big crunch time hits many times after not seeing the field for weeks. Geeeeeeeeeeez.

Which is precisely why managers routinely put their hitters in throughout different games and different situations, to keep them in the rhythm so that they can see a lot of pitches. My initial point stands and is nicely illustrated by you taking issue with it. Thanks.

[Capt Bringdown]

Sounds like Kobe's setting the stage to throw his teammates under the bus should the Lakers lose the series.

[MiamiHeat]

I picked the Celtics to beat LA

and I made a post after Game 3 saying the Celtics are the better team and I got laughed at

who's laughing now

[Cry Havoc]

If TD had Shaq in his team he would have heard it.

I seriously doubt Shaq would have had a problem with Duncan if they were teammates, considering that would have guaranteed the Spurs or the Lakers about 8 les in a row.

[MiamiHeat]

Sounds like Kobe's setting the stage to throw his teammates under the bus should the Lakers lose the series.

co-signed.

[cobbler]

And you're delusional if you think any other Laker player besides maybe Gasol can EVER yell at or talk to Kobe at any point of any game in the season.

Wrong. Fish has gotten in Kobes grill many times and is probably the only one Kobe would actually listen to.

[Ghazi]

Interesting Hollinger article today on Kobe maybe being the finals MVP even if the Lakers lose.

Wouldn't that be interesting , But I think it'd be lame.

Individually Kobe has been the best player in this series.

[monosylab1k]

You cannot be serious with the baseball anology. Pitch hitters are used EXACTLY for the purpose of getting big crunch time hits many times after not seeing the field for weeks. Geeeeeeeeeeez.

yeah that was pretty bad. The whole point of pinch hitters is to be able to come through with a big hit regardless of the situation. Other than starting pitchers, there's really nobody that has to "get in a rhythm" in baseball.

[ElNono]

Sounds like Kobe's setting the stage to throw his teammates under the bus should the Lakers lose the series.

Basically. The preemptive 'not my fault' in case hits the fan in the next two games...

[cobbler]

Kobe making a few long jumpers over and through double teams is fool's gold. Always has been, always will be. You can't count on that to continue any more than a jump shooting team can count on it. Kobe Bryant should be the ultimate weapon in the NBA for breaking down defenses, but he's happy to just chuck and chuck. That's why so many people laugh when his fans try to compare him to Michael Jordan. He's barely a tall version of Allen Iverson.

Complete loss of any credibility you might have had right there.

What an absurd comment.