Forget about 3 point shooting, turnovers, Artest being a dumbass. You can't let Kobe go off in the 4th quarter. Terrible job on Battier and Artest's parts.
You are honestly going to defend Battier? The worst part about Shane Battier is that every sportswriter who thinks they're a "smarter basketball fan" talks about how important Shane Battier is to winning with his so called "intangibles". Well, scratch the condescending attitude and actually watch the game, and you will notice that he is actually an average on-man defender and a terrible offensive player, the kind of player that the defender plays 6 feet from each and every posession. Do they not realize he actually contributes close to nothing when he is on the court?
it's not about kobe... you never "stop" kobe... it's beyond your control. what you can control is stupid mistakes, turnovers, and horrible shots.
Actually, I thought Ron was playing better D on Kobe than Battier. The problem was that Ron made some stupid decision on D (i.e. holding Gasol on that one play that gave them free throws, going for a steal with clock going down that turned into 3 pt play by Kobe)
They don't realize it because it isn't true. And Kobe is going to go off, he has done this to every team in the NBA. He takes over in the 4th qt. My only problem was Artest continuing to talk **** to Kobe.
We've made him have not so good shooting nights, and it's still kind of sad because you don't expect it with our "intangibles".
right...you are right and all the other people(mainly folks who know ball for a living) are wrong. who exactly is the condescending one here??
You can make 2on1a against him, traps... Lakers did it with Yao. Whatever, but don't let him score at any posesion, don't ley him shoot. That's very very humilliating.
I thought Artest did a decent job on him in the 4th except for the one play he gambled on and Kobe hit the three. What did us in when Artest trying to go one on one on the offensive end and Yao not being able to seal off one of the worsed defenders in the league. Battier was pathetic on Kobe. Kobe lit him up in the 3rd quarter.
It's not so much about Artest stopping Kobe. It's about someone (Artest, Adelman) not realizing that Artest couldn't hit a thing. We forgot about Yao (until it was too late, and way too late to recover from a Yao miss), we forgot about moving without the ball, we forgot about Landry and Scola and Brooks and Wafer, etc. etc. Kobe got in Artest's head, and Artest was too eager to try and answer. And the team let him.
The difference is Kobe can pass and doesn't turn it over like Yao. Yao is pathetic handling the double team.
