Are you stupid? Kobe shot 13-32 with Battier defending him one on one, very few double teams. He took 32 freaking shots and got a rediculous amount of phantom superstar calls. Battier was built to defend Kobe. Think before you spew this nonesense.
Wafer didn't play better defense on Kobe. Kobe got every shot he wanted when Wafer and Barry were on him. He just missed some easy shots that he usually makes...
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME BATTIER WAS HOLDING KOBE AND DID A GREAT JOB BUT HELL, KOBE IS KOBE... WAFER DID A GREAT JOB OF MAKING KOBE PLAY DEFENCE BUT IF WAFER LACKS ANYTHING.... ITS DEFENCE! BUT HE HAS SO MUCH TIME TO GROW. I WANT THIS GUY ON THE TEAM PERM!
Im going to be honest with you. When Kobe uses the man Yao is guarding to do a pick and roll he ALWAYS gets a shot he wants cause Yao won't smother him. If you noticed when he did that with Chuckie's man, Kobe paid for it.
Totally Agree. Mental breakdown and bad drawn play caused us the game in the last 20 seconds, but the refs killed the other 47mins and 40secs of the game. Not even prayers will save those daymn refs from going to hell.
you can't guard kobe any better than battier does. he stepped up today even though he's still not full speed yet. that said, if kobe is going to score there's really nothing that any one person can do to stop it.
This is one of the biggest myths around. Go look at Bryant's stats against the Rockets before Battier arrived and then go see Kobe's numbers since Shane has been here.
I cringed when i watched Wafer play defense on kobe. He just doesn't get what 'get around the screen' means.
Exactly. Good offense ALWAYS beats great defense... When you are a player like Kobe, it really doesn't matter who is guarding you when you get that kind of feeling. The thing if, if Wafer was guarding him, he would take him to the basket. Battier forced him to take jumpers, and that 3 at the end... It was an excellent defense, Shane got his hand right in Kobe's face. But good players are supposed to make some tough shots, right? If he didn't make it, we would say Battier is the best...
Battier played good defence against kobe the whole game. And its kind of a case of if Kobe hits - we would have threads like battier's Defence is overrated etc etc.. and had Kobe missed that last 3pt'er, we would see threads like "Batman shuts Kobe down-awesome D etc.." Kobe is who he is a exceptional closer, that shot was about 3 steps behind the 3pt line and our D was all over him, he misses - they foul us we win (if rafer wasnt shooting the free throws )
A lot of Kobe's points came on pull-up's. If he's settling for those you know you're playing him well. I don't fault Battier at all for what happened in the 4th quarter. By definition, his defense was superb. He did everything a good defender can do except literally blocking EVERY shot which is humanly impossible. Sometimes there's simply nothing you can do when a guy like Kobe gets hot and starts making impossible shots.
What I don't understand is why the heck did Yao stand inside the painted area and backing down his defender when we needed a 3 pt shot? Remember how SPurs in similiar situation had Duncan standing at the 3 pt line and made that game winning shot? I was hoping Adelman would draw up something like that for Yao. Matter of fact, what they should of done was have 5 guys standing at the arc and just shoot. I think what adelman was trying to do was using Yao as the pivotal man on passing the ball to open shooter. Lakers were just too quick on closing out our guys. Alston missing that free throw was big, this is second time brooks missed the clutch shot.
I don't think anyone could guard Kobe with that 3. 35 feet jumper with a hand in his face. We see that a lot from him. Houston had a very good game until the end we blew ourselves up. Rafer missing 2 KEY KEY free throws. AB made a bad play in the last possession. If the refs would stop favoring the Lakers, I'm sure the outcome will be very different.
I don't care who was guarding Kobe he is going to get what he wants, but i want to know why the Wafer didn't get the ball in the fourth quarter? He was our t-mac last night and he played so well that they should have given him the ball and let him work. It worked all game and then in the 4th alston wants to take over!!! Thats bull
To play a team with players like Kobe, Lebron, Wade ...you just have to answer back on the offense end. Those guys would always score points , if they are not lucky, they will get helps from the refs.
it's near impossible to guard kobe in the fourth. the man is just so clutch and relentless that he will find a way to score on you one way or another. end of story. whoever said battier is overrated is an idiot
man. if we simply had mcgrady or artest (not necessarily both) we could have won this game. both teams banged up, though.
i saw what OP was talking about. maybe its just coincidence that kobe missed his shots against wafer and he heated up like he always does in the 4th when battier happened to be on him. and i understand that von wafer doesn't have the reputation of battier when it comes to defense. but outside of this game, von wafer also kept paul pierce in check when we made our run against boston and ended up winning that game, and also played some good D on kevin durant. in fact, several times in the boston game, in the 4th q when von wafer was on him, pierce either was forced into a tough shot and misssed, or decided to pass out and avoid going at von wafer (which is counterintuitive to the notion that von wafer is a weak defender since paul pierce should be able to score on him easily). i think his fundamentals may not be where battier's is, but he is a better defender than he is given credit for and i don't think he is trusted enough by the coaching staff. like someone else says, elite players know how battier is going to guard them (ie he'll never try to block your shot, just impede your view, so if you know where you are on the court you can shoot with relative confidence) and throwing von wafer at them gives them a different look. regardless, i think wafer definitely should've been more involved in the 4th quarter, on both offense and defense. him not even getting a look in our last few possessions, when he was by far our hottest shooter and biggest 3 pt threat, is inexcusable.
Sometimes I don't understand what Rick is thinking. Why not stick to the game plan that had been working all game, go to Wafer on offense and let him guard Kobe on defense? It may have been more Kobe just taking over at the end of the game, but come one Rick stick to what was working earlier in the game. Also, someone posted that Wafer had 0 shot attempts in the final 5 minutes, 0, are your serious, that is unacceptable. The guy that has kept you in the game, thus far, barely even touches the ball in the final 5 minutes. Ridiculous.
