Kobe is really ing good.
disagree. it kept kobe in check for long stretches and he wasn't able to get his teammates involved like he did in previous series.
the spurs lost this series because their offense stagnated at the absolute worst times. not because of how they defended kobe.
If you've ever played basketball you know that this is nowhere near dirty. Every player in every league, whether it's high school, college, professionally, , even MIDDLE school do this. It's just something that happens.rip is a winner. but he does this to him.
Nobody can guard Kobe.
Wow stupid.
Pop's gameplan against Bowen was flawed.
he relied too much on the bowen factor. We should have thrown different defenses (not one on one guys) but mix in some double teams off Kobe, force him to be facilitator at times, etc. Taking a chance off someone not Kobe, is better than allowing Kobe himself to throw up any thing.
Kobe did whatever the he wanted. Sloan did a better job at defending Kobe and had a better gameplan than Pop. Pop had too much confidence in Bowen, and even though Bowen keeps us from relying on double teams, Bowen can't stop Kobe. He's not as young as Battier.
Pop got outcoached. It's obvious in the fact that, we lost in the same exact way in game 1 and game 5, all Kobe had to do was wait and then take over in the clutch. Kobe needed to see more double teams. He can get any shot he wants, the other four players cannot.
Without Manu's aberration, we would have gotten swept with a team that was good enough on paper to make the series go seven games--given the opportunities we gave ourselves in the second half. I don't understand why we thought we had to keep a double digit lead by taking 40 percentage shots instead of continuing with points in the paint. We never solved the issue of offensive droughts.
Outside of the second half of game 5, Kobe's offense did not win this series.
The defensive gameplan was good enough to beat the Lakers...handedly. The offensive execution wasn't even close.
Yep Bowen wasted his effort on Kobe which he had no chance against. He should've guarded Odom.
Bowen is the best defender on Kobe, with Battier a close second. I agree with other people, if Bowen played too physical with him, he would have been in foul trouble the whole series. I won't mention several non-calls against Bowen, because it's moot at this point. There is no other defender on the Spurs roster who would have come close to defending Kobe well. Udoka....please! Ginobili would have been abused...Duncan couldn't leave the paint to go out and guard Kobe. Finely.....LOL! Barry is far too slow....so Bowen was the best option.
Kobe will get his no matter who guards him. San Antonio should've done to us what they did to New Orleans. Let Paul get his and shut down Stojakovic (Odom or Radmanovic)
you could be right.
Prince guards Kobe better than Battier.
Laffo at Battier guarding Kobe well. You do realize Kobe has dropped 50+ on Battier more than once right.
Kobe gives Bowen a taste of his own medicine and he's one of the only cats that dictates to Bowen. He muscles him, hits him, and doesn't allow Bruce to ride him. It's not that the Spurs wanted Kobe to be a shooter, Kobe simply isn't the same shot-jacker he used to be and understand better than anyone how to play against Bruce Bowen.
That being said, Bruce played well this series. He did force Kobe into some tough decision-type situations and if Kobe only gets to the line 11 times in a 5-game series, you did your job. Kobe just played smart basketball and was able to get to pretty much any spot he wanted to, tks for good screen n' roll offense with Pau. Kobe respects Bowen and I'd bet he'd tell anyone in a heartbeat that Bruce is without a doubt his greatest challenge, defender-wise. You could see the respect after the game: Bruce was beating on Kobe's chest and seemed to be encouraging him to go get the O'Brien trophy.
The Spurs need to get more athletic and it'd be really nice if they could land an athletic 4 or 5. They'll be back though... same pain-in-the-neck Spurs.
This is why it no longer makes sense to carry the liability of Bowen when anyone can invite Kobe to shoot.
I guess Ron Artest is dirty too. Moreso than Bowen because he pulls down peoples pants...............GMAFB
A lot of shirt pulling goes on in the NBA, check out Tim whenever he makes a move on someone, his jersey mysteriously stretches. As for Bowen's D on Kobe, it was the game plan, blame Pop, they didn't want him to go to the line, seems from that angle Bowen did one uva job. What's all the complaining about?
Dude up there nailed it but I will add.
Kobe is the MVP on the #1 seed Lakers so there is no way he doesn't get the call anytime BB tries to hold defense. Therefor he lays off a little, gives him room to juke the out of him and dunk it all over Duncan for the 654th time in his career.
IMO The should of just trapped Kobe and doubled him a lot of the time. Put finley and bowen on him ocassionaly and let radmanovich take those shots b/c they'res not gurantee he'll make them plus in one game he had a bunch of open shots that he missed.
Again, if no one on the planet can guard Kobe, why play Bowen?
He makes no one work on the other end, and all he has is the occasional baseline 3.
The alternative is what? Putting Finley or Barry on Kobe who both have no chance of guarding Kobe? In that case, Kobe will score 40+ easily and you'll get 5-10 more points on offense, maybe? The defense was fine, you just needed more offensive production from Ginobili.
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