If Kobe is going to take a bunch of contested 17-foot turnaround J, you let him do it and live with the results. In the long run, you prefer these kind of shots to layups or open 3s, but sometimes he's good enough to make several in a roll (and that's what happened last night). I have no complaints about the defense last night.
Bud played solid D last night. Kobe is just Kobe. There is a reason why many still consider him the best. If Bud keeps this effort up and becomes more consistent with his shot, then he will make me eat crow. Until then, my jury is still out.
I guess you just looked at the final box score last night instead of actually watching the game. Neg rep for you. Bud guarded Kobe in the 1st part of the 1st quarter and again in the 4th quarter after Lee strained his calf. In the 1st quarter when Bud was guarding Kobe he was very effective forcing Kobe into a bad shooting percentage, missing some shots (using the Battier hand in the face technique) or forcing him to pass. Bud was also very active on help defense down in the paint on multiple occassion which is how he got recieved his second foul (blocking a Pau Gasol shot along with Dally). Lee came into the game about 2/3's into the 1st quarter and began guarding Kobe at that point. Lee was much much much less effective guarding Kobe when he game in as he began sending Kobe to the charity instantly multiple times. Lee had a couple of good plays in the 1st half including the put back and an assist on a fast break but his defense was very shaky and not as effective as Bud's. Kevin Martin opened up the 2nd half guarding Kobe not Bud and was acutally all over Kobe and in his face on multiple shots. But like Lee the refs bailed out Kobe on some shots with very questionable calls. KMart picked up a series of fouls and Lee once again took over guarding Kobe towards the second half of the quarter with little success until he hurt his calf. Bud again picked up Kobe towards the second half of the 4th quarter with little success as there was a stretch that he and Kobe traded in your face shots but by this time Kobe was obviously on fire. Matt Barnes and Ron Ron were beyond pathetic in this game. Both had poor defense and worse offense. Bud easily outplayed both. Ron can no longer stay in front of his man so now grabs and tries to out physical players, the head lock he put on Bud to prevent him from getting a rebound was not called when in fact it should have been a technical at the very least and happened in plane sight.
He also showed twice last night that he could put the ball on the floor and take it to the rack once while Kobe was trying to guard him.
Ron has just turned into some strange characature of himself. He is no longer usefull to a basketball team. He's defense last night trying to guard wings was beyond pathetic. He has little abiltiy if any at all to stay in front of his man.
The Lakers defense is terrible, has been for the last couple of years.... The Rockets missed a ton of wide open jumpers - If KMart hits his usual percentage, I think they win that game. Either way, CBud is proving he can play and I am happy that the perception on this board is going in the right direction. DD
McHale said the Rockets weren't trusting each other enough on D. I think he meant our guards were trying to help out defensing the bigs and playing too loose in the 4th quarter. At the end, we couldn't stop them scoring in the paint, and we let them shot open 3 as well.
Yeah, his defense was not just improved or ok last night it was really good. He was the Rockets best wing defender last night. On the occassions he guarded Barnes or Ron they were completely shut down. Barns I think scored on a lay-up going to the basket early in the game when Bud was guarding Kobe and I believe the rest of his few points were scored at the end of the game while Bud was once again guarding Kobe. Does Bud look bigger this year? There were times that I thought he looked as tall as Scola.
Barnes is a crap offensive player (always have been) & Ron Artest is a SHOT player in the 2012 Vince Carter, Jermaine O'neal, & Ben Wallace mold. These guys have the star's names and D-league level game now.
Agreed. Lakers shot 52% to our 42%, shot 20 more free throws, outrebounded us by 15 and the game was STILL close. Not sure if that says more about the Rockets or LA, but I didn't think our game plan was bad. Aside from Kobe being Kobe, Blake and Murphy had 3 timely 3's that really saved the Lakers during our runs. Still haven't felt like we have been seriously outclassed yet in any of our games. Played some stinkers, but it's early.
Sorry, but the jury is still out. Bud played 3 awful games and now 2 decent ones. That does not annoint him as our sf saviour in my eyes. I hope he is the new Bud, but he has to show consistency (same as TWill). Ideally both players will be consistently good players for us sometime this season. If either of them are not then try and get what you can for them.
This is just wrong Rterry, he played 2 games of very few minutes, and his production suffered because of it, played a good 3rd 4th and 5th game. And in the first two games his D was good, and he only shot the ball 8 times total..... I mean talk about picky, I am not sure what folks expect out of the 4th option on offense? He has been a steal of a 2nd round pick and is by far the best SF on this team. Not great, but pretty danged good. DD
There were good players coming out of the 2nd round....even Allstars.....Boozer.... We don't have an allstar yet ....maybe Lowry so of course we want players to take it to the next level ASAP so the expectations are little higher than normally it would be PS The 3rd game against the Grizz was a nice quarter.....but overall he played below average....0 assists 0 rebounds....low steals 11pts
