What a game! The Knicks have some serious spunk when they come to play, even when they make incredibly dumb plays down the stretch. The Lakers are completely out of kilter. Luke Walton IS their team chemistry. Without him they are going to pieces. Saint Phil Jackson is losing control of that team. I think they will get it together before the season over, but maybe not. Those of who you predicted they would crumble during the road trip were right, but I think Walton's injury is the main reason.
Let me also add that I'm just about ready to say that Dwyane Wade has passed Kobe up. Kobe was very non-dominant in the 4th quarter. It was relatively easy for the Knicks to make him a non-factor. He is more talented and physically gifted than Wade but it's about performance on the court, not skillset. On the last play of the game, Kobe didn't even touch the ball and Odom shot an airball. That had to be the worst called final shot I've ever seen. They had 7 seconds to make something happen and just fell flat. I'm gonna check the Laker boards and see who they blame this time. PJ got all the blame against the Cavs. On the Knicks, I have to admit Coach Zeke deserves some credit. There is no denying he messed up the franchise with bad trades and FA signings but Zeke isn't doing a bad coaching job this season. You can tell the players would do anything for him.
while i have no idea why they didn't give the ball to kobe on the inbound pass at the end, i'll never understand people like lamar odom. he gets the pass, looks at kobe, who was probably option 1, 2, and 3 on the play, for about .2 seconds, decides he can't get it to him, and just decided to freelance even though there were still 5 seconds left to get it kobe. of course, he then does about what you would expect lamar odom to do at a big moment. he not only doesn't drive, but starts dribbling right against his shooting hand and then rises up against his shooting hand right on lee who is all over him. you could tell the shot was going to be blocked befofe he even shot it and it was. worthless play. and the rockets do this all the time with tmac and it's such a pet peeve. we'll be trying to fee it to tmac say 20 feet from the basket on the wing and his guy will be overplaying the pass. and there will be 10 seconds left on the clock and someone like luther or rafer will look for about 2 seconds and then decide they can't get it to him and just go do their own thing which is horrible. when all they have to do is reposition for about 1 second, let tmac come get the ball with still 7 or so seconds left on the clock and let him rise up for a decent shot. instead they stop looking with 7 or 8 seconds left as if the shot clock is at 1 and never look back to tmac and throw up some terrible shot. and role players on all teams do it and i don't understand it. when a play is clearly designed for the star, don't give up on it until you have to. in 1 or 2 seconds, a star can get a better shot than you can no matter how much time you have going one on one. so instead of just waiting and giving it to kobe, odom panics and throws up a shot that had no chance and effectively ends the game b/c he's impatient at a time when you should be patient. i'll just never understand it, just like teams who are up 3 with a few seconds left and leave 3 point shooters open to double a penetrator who will shoot a 2 that can't hurt them. as for the lakers, they're in a bit of a free spin and are losing to bad teams. they survived odom and kwame being out, but are hurting with walton out. they were never as good as their early season record but were not as overrated as people thought either. while they had a lot of home games, they weren't just beating weak teams. at one point they were 10-4 against western playoff teams and are still much better against the west, 17-11, than the east, 13-12, which is shocking. they should've gone 4-4 at worst and at least 5-3 on the 8 game eastern trip but only went 3-5 and now have blown this knicks game. nobody came to play in the 4th against cleveland except kobe (pavlovic outplayed the rest of the lakers combined) and then tonight kobe hits 2 ft's with a minute to go to give them the lead, then they let the knicks score, then kobe hits a jumper to give them the lead, then they let the knicks score, and then they don't give kobe the ball. the rest of the lakers have kind of fallen off lately and odom isn't what he was before the injury. the lakers are clearly not with the top 5 teams in the west, though can be when healthy and certainly won't be fun in the playoffs (though they'll still lose in the first round, too many one-dimensional role players). we don't have anything to worry about from them in terms of seeding assuming we take care of business and they're still the development of bynum from really even being a darkhorse (we're the obvious darkhorse in the west) and maybe a decent point guard after that from really being a contender.
We all know kobe can be very dominant. But Kobe's major problem is he is all ME ME & ME. Last season, he dominant the balls and scored 35ppg but the critics said he should trust his teammates more. This season he "TRY" to share the ball. He just try to prove his critics and those who doubted him wrong in the expense of his team success. Just like game 7 vs Suns last season and one game, i forgot against which team, he shot one time in the entire half. All this, show that he is very immature, he seems dont know when to dominant and when to share the ball! In his mind, he is all about proving his doubters is wrong! Kobe used to be very clutch because he has the luxury of playing with Shaq last time which he can save his energy for three quarters for last quarter heroics. I have no stats to prove and hope someone can put up some stats, but i noticed he hit less clutch shots after shaq left, maybe he feel more pressure now. Not that i said he is no longer clutch but just no the same level as before!
And the Lakers fans had the audacity to proclaim that they have a better team than we do Seriously i cannot believe Phil drew up that play for Lamar Odom to take a 20-foot fadeaway. what they should do is just shoot as soon as the ball was inbounded. if the ball rims out than they should foul and get another chance. (btw...the Laker Fans are fed up with Lamar. i think we should have a trade with them...)
why are you waiting? i think wade has clearly been better than kobe this season, and that's not a knock on kobe. wade has just been supernatural in 4th quarters and in taking over games and willing the heat to win. i wouldn't say that. he scored a few points early and then scored on 2 straight possessions in the final minute to give the lakers the lead before they ignored him on the final shot. i tend to think he tries to get teammates involved some times by being passive instead of proactive. with wade in the 4th quarter, no one touches the ball but him to start a possession, but in a good way. it works because he still passes a lot but he doesn't just give it to gary payton to create. wade either scores, draws a foul, or makes a pass. sometimes the lakers seem to get others involved by letting them have a possession to themselves. inevitably they aren't very efficient, and it hurts them. wade just doesn't give a team a reast. by taking the ball out of kobe's hands you give the other team a break. they need to find a better balance between getting role players involved and just letting them have a possession to essentially iso. kobe is definitely more talented (one of the most talented just by pure skillset to ever play) but he is not more physically gifted. maybe back with kobe was 22, but not now. wade's explosion and first step acceleration are as good as it gets. did you see the spin move dunk he did tonight? kobe can't get up that high. wade just seems to be compact and spring out of any position he is in. he can fly to the basket, jump and dunk in situations where few can, and is amazingly strong. plus i think being a little shorter helps with penetration b/c it gives him that little extra agility. only lebron has more physical gifts than wade. both kobe and tmac (and even vince carter) are freaks but just don't have that little bit extra at 28 or 29 that wade still has. that was almost as bad as the yao ming fadeaway 3 we had one time. they give it to odom while kobe is posting up on the other side of the floor? and have smush parker on kobe's side crowding the place? is phil stupid? and he let odom make the decisions at a big moment? odom panics and screwed up what still could've been salvageable, but i would put it on phil first and foremost. give it to kobe, let him isolate and rise up for a jumper. basketball 101 right there.
First of all, I've been one of Wade's biggest supporters here for 3 years. I've also knocked Kobe down a lot. But I'm hesitant to say Wade is better. It's pretty obvious now, I guess. This is the year of transition. I'm sorry, Kobe didn't impress me in the 4th quarter. He should have demanded the ball and taken over the game down the stretch. The Knicks were doing their usual late game collapse and they were fork-tender and done when the Lakers went up by 4. But the Lakers coughed this game away. I've seen only a few Knicks games but seems like each one was close and they do bone-headed stuff in clutch moments (David Lee's bobble and SF's flagrant foul on Smush). They impressed me tonight but much of their success on offense was because the Lakers stopped playing defense late. Like us, the Lakers can't win without playing solid defense. The last play of the game should take PJ off the eternal pedestal some here put him on. The man is a great coach but he's not on some other plane from JVG. In that situation, you either pass the ball in to Kobe or run Kobe to the perimeter to get the ball from the man receiving the pass. Kobe MUST touch the ball so he can attack the basket or kill the double team with a good pass. It's also being reported that PJ said afterwards that they are too reliant on Kobe at the end of games. Before commenting, I'll wait and see if the LA Times actually quotes him saying that. It would be amazing if he actually said those words. Someone laughed at the idea Luke Walton is so important, but obviously that person hasn't watched many Laker games. Walton is a much improved player this year and is probably more important to them than Odom. He is one guy on that team Kobe definitely trusts and has faith in. Kobe's feelings about Odom and Smush are pretty obvious. Watching Kobe put his head down tonight said a 1000 words. Will PJ be signing that extension any time soon?
and then people would say he doesn't trust his teammates and is selfish and cost them the win. he's damned if does and damned if he doesn't. he did take over against cleveland and his teammates got their asses handed to them. yeah, apparently the play was actually called for odom. so he's not stupid, just as unclutch as ever. why he drove right over to kobe and then back to his right when he's left-handed is beyond me. maybe you should have a plan of attack lamar and not just make it up as you go. would you trust either one in an important situation? i wouldn't.
always nice to see the media darlings lose. they seem to be lacking any kind of chemistry. too many supporting players looking for thier own shot.
They play the Cavs Thursday. No team in the NBA is looking more forward to the All-Star break than the Lakers. One more comment: I thought the refs favored the Lakers late in the game. The Knicks players did a good job of controlling their emotions and focusing on the task at hand. A couple of the foul calls were unfair, IMO. Another comment: If you believe anything Jonathan Feigen says on the radio, the Lakers are in deep trouble. Kobe & Phil are at odds, Kobe is brutal to Smush Parker, Phil is fed up with Odom and may not want to return, blah blah blah. I still think they will get it going when Walton and Kwame come back. They will be a factor by playoff time. http://www.latimes.com/sports/baske...1,660344,print.story?coll=la-headlines-sports Lakers spiked at the finish Curry's dunk gives Knicks a 107-106 victory, the fourth loss in a row for L.A. Last shot is designed for Odom, who comes up empty. By Mike Bresnahan Times Staff Writer February 14, 2007 Bad times for the Lakers: Home was just as unsuccessful as the road. Instead of discovering victory after a long, mostly unhappy venture through the Eastern Conference, the Lakers stumbled across something much more unsettling Tuesday at Staples Center: their first four-game losing streak of the season. Lamar Odom continued to struggle and airballed a 21-footer at the buzzer as the Lakers fell to the New York Knicks, 107-106. They have one more game, Thursday at home against Cleveland, before the All-Star break. They are now 30-23, a mere three victories ahead of their pace through 53 games a year ago. It was an off night all around for Odom, who was scoreless in the first half and finished with 12 points on five-for-12 shooting. Kobe Bryant had 31 points, and his 11-foot leaner gave the Lakers a 106-105 edge with 29.9 seconds left, but it was short-lived. Quentin Richardson missed a three-point attempt at the other end, but David Lee got the rebound and Jamal Crawford found Eddy Curry for a dunk with 7.1 seconds to play. After a timeout, Odom inbounded the ball to Ronny Turiaf, got the ball right back and failed to shake Knicks forward Lee before getting off his unsuccessful attempt. "Diagramed for Lamar to get to the basket," Lakers Coach Phil Jackson said. "He couldn't get there though." The last shot, for once it seemed, wasn't called for Bryant. "It was time to go somewhere else, look for an easy shot," Jackson said. Said Odom: "Got a good look, took a step back. Just missed. David Lee did a good job of contesting it. He might have gotten a little piece of it." Jackson, normally a conservative, emotionless figure on the sideline, was animated and angry throughout the second half. With the Lakers trailing by a point with 25 seconds left in the third quarter, Odom took a rebound after a Knicks miss, dribbled the length of the court and failed to hear Jackson whistling for him to stop and set up the final shot of the quarter. Jackson then stood for several seconds, his hands in his pockets and an irritated look on his face. Jackson subsequently yelled at Odom during a timeout and was again notably upset midway through the fourth quarter, spiking a crumpled piece of paper to the court after Steve Francis made a three-point shot to give the Knicks a 95-91 edge. "Our guards had a hard time containing their guards and they were getting middle penetration," Jackson said. To a man, the Lakers were glad to be home after fumbling their way to a 3-5 trip. Consecutive losses to Detroit, Toronto and Cleveland made them want to get back that much quicker. "Shangri-La" was how Bryant expressed it ahead of time. Bryant didn't get a chance to play against the Knicks two weeks ago in New York because the league had suspended him for a game. The Lakers lost, somewhat predictably, 99-94. Bryant made nine of 20 shots Tuesday and had four assists. The Lakers did get a pocket of good news regarding injured center Kwame Brown. Out since Dec. 31 because of a severely sprained ankle and deep bone bruise, Brown said he felt better and could return earlier than an established timetable of three to five more weeks. Brown has been told to wear a medical boot for three weeks, but he hopes to get it off earlier. "It feels better than the three weeks, so I'm going to talk to the doctor right after All-Star break and see if I could try to scoot that up a little bit," Brown said. Not all the news was good for Brown, who acknowledged trying to "rush a little faster than we should have" after first injuring his ankle. There was one other issue. "[I'll] just try to go out there and shoot as much as I can and feel the ball because I already can't catch, so if I wait this long and not touch the ball, you're going to see something special," he said. Lately, the Lakers haven't demonstrated anything special. "Right now, we've got to grip up a little bit and just get one," Odom said.
