He should resume the role he had in the first 3peat. Focus on defense and playmaking, then close the 4th. He no longer has the energy to dominate an entire game. Let Bynum/Gasol dominate for 3.5 quarters offensively, and take over the end. People will still perceive that it's "his" team regardless, so why not take the route that will increase your chances of winning a 6th ring?
final 2 minutes, game within 3 this year: kobe 9-38 now 10-39 i guess. edit: http://www.basketball-reference.com...&c2val=&c3stat=&c3comp=ge&c3val=&order_by=fga edit edit: now 3-13 in final 24 seconds to tie or take the lead. but that is better than 3-21.
Really? I saw some stats that Kobe's shooting percentage in the crunch is over 60% while no one else is over 40. Maybe that's not the last two minutes.
That would be the right thing for Kobe to do. But if Kobe does the right thing he would not have driven the most dominate force in the history of the game out of town. This guy is an egomanic and he will never change.
i don't know what those numbers are, but i haven't seen any sufficiently large sample size that says as much. i've yet to run across almost anyone doing a clutch breakdown no matter the criteria chosen that showed kobe breaking away from the pack, now or in the past. he may be fearless, but he still misses quite a few "clutch" shots fearlessly. the closest i can think of is the last 10 seconds to tie or take the lead stat that some site did for the last 3 years (right after b-r.com came out with the play index+ that i got my numbers from) that just coincidentally included kobe's season from 3 years ago where he went an incredible 6-11, which was his best season by miles and miles (for some reason it didn't include his 1-10 in 2002-2003, weird). and even then i think he was 9-19. and 3-14 in the playoffs back to 2001.
Good thing for the Lakers they were playing another pathetic bottom-feeder (who was without their top 4-5 players). On Thursday, we saw what happens when they play a good team.
If the cards win this game, calipari is going to have tremendous pressure on him. Questioning his ability to win the big game.
