I like Artest. I would do the trade for him over again. but the man is just a stopgap. He makes mental mistakes like gambling for that loose ball that was approaching halfcourt last night with 2secs left on the shot clock which resulted in a kobe 3. His drives to the rim can be borderline offensive fouls. and he's not a closer. for all that is wrong with tmac...he had the ability to make plays: whether it was a pass to novak or a drive. I don't think T-Mac will ever be the dominant scorer he was in years past. My suggestion is to re-sign Artest. However, we need to trade (him) to get a guy who can create in the fourth quarter that way Roy or Kobe or Paul or Pierce, etc. does.
Artest is a great player and a strong defensive player but we see why a healty T-Mac was so valuable to this team. Artest at his best does not match T-Mac as his best when he was healthy. We can win with Artest and Yao as our main players but Kobe is just tough to stop when the game is close. Turnovers and the defense the Lakers played on Yao in the second half was the reason we lost, besides not being able to hit a three.
try a dictionary... http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stopgap And the original poster is likely right, though if we can somehow find a way to reign him in, I'd like him to be more than that.
he shouldn't have tried that steal which resulted a 3... that's just 1 mistake we made last night. we made way too many mistakes down the stretch. turnovers, offensive fouls, giveup 3 point plays to kb...etc
When he's provoked,he's starting to jack up shots instead of playing team plays.Last night he looked more like a ball stopper than a leader,he shouldn't have taken what Kobe did to him after that scuffle,if he stuck to the team plan,maybe we coulda won the ball game. Ron shall know that,it's not about INDIVIDUALISM,it's all about teamwork.
I honestly think he got caught up in a kobe vs artest moment and let that match up get to his head. He needs to be more cerebral player and stop making stupid high risk plays.
The game was lost because Adelman didn't make adjustments........Yao should have been in earlier at the end of the game and Battier should have been on Kobi and not Artest. The beginning of the game The rockets were killing the lakers, what happened at half time Jackson made adjustments and the lakers came back. There should have been a response from the rockets to the adjustments made, call a time out until the balance had shifted back. At the end of games it should be: Yao , Brooks, Landry or Scola, Artest, & Battier. The play should be high pick and roll between Yao & Brooks and everyone else crashing the boards. Brooks takes the mid range shot, if he misses you have the best in the league getting the rebound.
He wasn't putting a hand up on kobe either or trying to catch up to him after getting beat. He's great at using his body so shooters get off balance or have a hard time getting into their move, but he stops after that.
How quickly we all forget the Utah game earlier this year where Artest put the entire team on his back and carried them across the finish line with a win. I agree with the comment that Artest got sucked into the Kobe v. Artest battle, and stopped playing team ball. He made a lot of mistakes last night, but we didn't lose for lack of effort from him, which is more than I can say about games we lost earlier in the year with Tmac running the show (anybody remember Toronto?). I'm not a Tmac basher, and I think we're a much better team with a healthy Tmac, but in the current state of things, I don't see anybody else in the league that leaves everything on the floor every game more than Artest, and I'm glad that he's out there. Let's not forget, there have been many games in Kobe's career where he did what Artest did last night, tried to win the game on his own, but failed due to individual play, sloppiness, and poor shot selection.
