lol who can? Martin did great, give him credit where credit is due. I don't see Scola getting this much heat for his defense the way Martin gets slammed on this board.
First of all, I LOVED Martin's effort on D tonight. I think this is the HUGE difference in Shane guarding Kobe versus Martin guarding Kobe. Martin was more about contesting the shot, whereas Shane has always been about making Kobe take the shot he doesn't want. Many of the times Kobe got bottled up was when Shane was guarding him. Niether of them can stop Kobe from scoring 50 any given night, but Shane is more of a position defender, forcing Kobe to the help. Martin is more apt to move his feet to stay in front, letting kobe get wherever he wants, then getting up high to contest the shot. Both methods equally ineffective though, as the results were the same. Love him or hate him, gotta tip your hat to Kobe.
Excellent post, I think a lot of folks need to understand that when we complain about Martin's defense, it has more to do with his effort then his technique. Last night he gave effort and it showed, to often he gets caught up in a scoring frenzy and doesn't give max effort. If your not a good defensive player then it's very important you give it your all and make something happen, he to often does not but last night he certainly did.
I was ready for you durvasa just to get my ariza shouldnt have been traded jab in :grin:. Ariza did a very good job on kobe because of his length and athleticism. Now, if you listen to alot of people on this board, ariza defense was overrated and lee is a better defender. Lee is too small to contest kobe. When kobe wants a good shot on shane, he knows shane will give ground to prevent a foul.Trevor was the best defender and he's doing it in new orleans. He shut durant out in the 4th qt last week.
Hear, hear... Many members forget how terrific Ariza was after the Martin trade, when he was able to play his natural s/f position. Lee is good, but his overall impact, especially defensively, is not greater than Ariza's, mainly because of what you said: length. Folks complain how short and unathletic we are. No wonder, we keep on shipping them out when we get them.
I would have to agree that he did a decent job and gave effort. Even battier can't guard Kobe. A little better but not by much when u take into acct his scoring...
I've said it here too many times...that moves seem to be made isolated from the whole; just done piece by piece with little to no consideration of building a team....but instead, just assembling pieces.
I can explain that trade: 1. $$$$$$$$$$ 2. $$$$$$$$$$ 3. $$$$$$$$$$ 4. Shipping Ariza and defense to a team in the same division? A blatant tanking move. Morey won me by this trade.
So now we should have kept Ariza? I don't know about you but I consider $17M or so for defensive specialists (Battier, Chuck, Ariza) to be just a tad bit pricey. If you're so worried about defending Kobe then you have a lot to learn. Kobe is Kobe -- nobody really ever 'defends' him well. I'd rather live with Battier's methodical approach, staying uptight on him and getting burnt than I would see Ariza and his length out there trying to do the same all the while submarining this team on the other end of the court.
Yeah, Rockets are not losing big but on the track as expected. I don't see the failure here. Yao's season ending injury, Miller's huge injury, AB's huge slump are all positive signs.
I was at the game last night and throughout the game (especially in crunch time), i was questioning why martin was playing Kobe straight up. The simple answer is that Shane provides so little offensively that Martin is the best option, but even when Battier was on the court, he didn't spend much time on Kobe. You could see Kobe licking his chops every time he saw an opportunity for Iso on K-mart. Yes, some people are saying Kmart "held his own," but it seemed to me Kobe was scoring at will, and whenever Chuck or Ppatt came over on help, that obviously opened up the court. At least Kobe "only" put up 30. That said, we didn't have much of a choice with our line-up and K-Mart had a great scoring game. I don't know why AB was getting all the touches in OT. I hope we keep K-mart and trade AB -- pairing Kmart with another offensive threat could be great.
