here's the video. hope the mods can just insert / merge this with the 1st post. I don't know how it will automatically show the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpTWXmfLVU8
Yeah. That's right. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wpTWXmfLVU8&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wpTWXmfLVU8&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Battier may be the best defender against him. That's like Kobe saying "other guys let me score 30 pts, but Shane only lets me have 25 pts." We still need a star SG to compete in the playoffs.
Kobe may still get his points with Battier guarding him, but his efficiency usually goes down, as he does not get to the rim or free throw line nearly as much. This is why Battier was much better against Kobe than Artest. Artest gambled for steals and muscled up against Kobe, which allowed him to get in front of Ron and get to the rim or draw fouls on other players.
People think scoring is everything. It's sickening. Shane Battier guarded Kobe so well that he took a lot of his passing away. It disrupted Kobe from helping his teammates get better shots and it disrupted the whole triangle offense. There is a huge reason why the Rockets were able to win without Yao and Battier came up huge in the defensive end.
who was guarding kobe in the celts and pistons finals? I think shane does a good job mainly because the rockets as a whole funnel him to the middle and tell shane to not give up drives. Shane does a great job of contesting shots, but mobe still gets his avg with the same shooting %. People used to say maxwell defended jordan the best until he was on a team that wasn't a good defensive team. First chance, jordan dropped 50. You put shane on memphis or toronto and kobe's numbers will go through the roof. Wesley did a good job on kobe when he was a rocket too.
even brandoy roy treated him like a little kid. kobe straight up murdered him everytime ron was on him.
shane does do a great job v. kobe, we can't take that away from him. but it's also the defensive philosophy that we play. kobe usually struggles v. the rockets in general since JVG took over. the worse i've seen kobe performed in the playoffs, however, is that 03-04 finals v. the pistons. he was TERRIBLE v. tayshaun prince. straight up shut down.
prince is a smart defender like battier but with more quickness and a longer wingspan. Not terribly shocking he would have success against Kobe.
but i think it was more the feud v. shaq that killed kobe. he wanted to show he can carry a team by himself despite shaq and thus he forced a lot of the action in that series. that was why he struggled mightily in that series v. prince. battier is ONE of the VERY FEW players who can "contain" kobe.
agreed. Kobe could have been more effective against prince had he opted to post him up more often. That is why Battier is one of the best in the league on Kobe. He's knows how to properly contest shots and keep Kobe in front of him, but is big enough to not let Kobe back him down in the post.
I kinda disagree. I've seen kobe many times back shane down and shoot a 8ft jumer. I don't think the fued with shaq had anything to do with his poor performance either. The bottomline is if you don't make kobe play defense, your defense won't matter in the end. Against Boston and Detroit in the finals, he had to play defense full time. That's takes a lot of energy to try to score and defend. He's no different in that aspect. He had to chase Allen and rip through screens and picks and then had to score over pierce, posey, and prince. That's very hard to do and even if battier defends him the best, kobe gets to rest on defense and save his energy for the 4th.
