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[mjrod1985]

Very happy with the teams performance tonight...

 

[pmatic]

The Kobeless Lakers offense

Any offense dominated by Kobe Bryant becomes a blank slate when he’s not present. A few very general principles might remain, but the Lakers’ half-court offense was essentially starting from scratch. Over the weekend, Dwight Howard prescribed a slower, more inside-oriented offense as the best bet to mitigate Bryant's absence. Did the Lakers accept Howard's proposal? A few quick notes from the Lakers' 91-86 win over the Spurs on Sunday night at Staples Center:

• What kinds of shots does an offense look for and how does it try to find them? The answers to those questions provide a general sketch of a team's core identity. The Lakers on Sunday night were a team looking to work the ball into their big men on the block, and achieving that in fairly conventional ways. Early on, the vast majority of possessions were simple posts up with an entry pass from the wing in a mostly static half court. The Lakers posted up 32 times -- the Spurs eight. When the Lakers wanted buckets to ice the game late, they punched the ball into Howard on the left block one-on-one against Tim Duncan. Howard generated 15 true shot attempts out of post-up sets, scored 26 points on 9-for-15 shooting from the field and 8-for-17 from the stripe.
• The starting unit produced fairly efficient offense during its stint to open the game. It wasn't gangbusters and the ball got sticky, but the Lakers found a number of looks at close range and their presence on the floor without dynamic wing scorers had the Spurs leaning low all night. Pau Gasol couldn't find the net, but he still demanded attention down low from the defense, and leveraged that attention to find shooters (for instance, a big Steve Blake 3-pointer to give the Lakers a 2-point lead with less than five minutes to go in the first half).
• With Bryant out, Blake had to step in as the Lakers' primary perimeter creator, and it's no surprise he saw a huge uptick in usage. Blake finished with 23 points, including 4-for-8 from beyond the arc. A lot of the Lakers' stuff originated with Howard and Gasol at the elbows to serve as traffic cones for Blake. The basic strategy for Blake was to try and penetrate into the teeth of the defense and hope something materializes -- either a close-range and/or makeable shot or a passing lane to an open shooter or a rolling big. His eight 3-point attempts materialized in a hodgepodge of ways -- off a high angle pick-and-roll from Gasol, flaring to the wing for a catch in rhythm and a couple of the pull-up variety.
• The Lakers tried to create shot attempts early (e.g. Dwight Howard rim runs off Spurs misses) but they could never quite establish a pace. You have to think that’s something D’Antoni will drill home prior to Wednesday night’s game. If the Lakers are going to look for shots on the box, then they should it quickly. One of D’Antoni’s most steadfast beliefs is that the offense has the possession advantage for the first few seconds of a possession, but after the defense gets set -- especially one as well-tuned as the Spurs -- it has the edge. When the clock ticked down and the Lakers needed to create something out of thin air, they went into Howard and Gasol at the end of the possessions. Where an offense goes when it's desperate tells us a lot about where an offense believes it's strongest.
• The Lakers' half-court offense started decongest a little when they started running some corner sets on one side of the floor, while Howard set up on the opposite block. Once the Lakers swung the ball to the second side and the entry pass to Howard was made, he was in much better position to attack the rim. We can forget that Howard is an absolutely unguardable beast when he catches in close proximity to the basket. The Spurs doubled Howard on a couple of occasions in the first quarter -- defensive reads in at least one case -- but by the third quarter, the Spurs threw hard double teams at Howard on the catch as a matter of policy.
• It's not an enormous problem, but Metta World Peace has some sort of issue with delivering entry passes. Funny thing is -- he doesn't make a lot of poor ones. Yet if there's any sort of front on the post player, World Peace gets anxious. He'll bail out and put the ball on the floor. Twice in the first quarter, World Peace looked off post players -- Gasol and Howard once each. The two possessions yield was a couple of free throw attempts.
• With Gasol and Howard on the floor together, the Lakers were outscored 50-47. When the two bigs share the floor without either Bryant or Steve Nash, the Lakers are a minus-8 for the season in a smallish sample size of 83 minutes.

Link

 

[thadangerousmind]

darrius morris played well tonight. esp on the defensive side. even though i'm not a huge fan of him, really wish he could get ~10 minutes a game regularly. could have really spelled some minutes from kb/nash

This.

 

[mrdieselfuel09]

Jordan Craig Hill ‏@jordanchill43 10m

I'm playin in da playoffs....bet dat!

Not sure how serious he is. Will be interesting to see.

 

[noblekane]

Not sure how serious he is. Will be interesting to see.

i guess he forgot how antoni works

did he forget why he was benched in the first place?

he prolly wont get no burn now that clark and jamison are on their game

im just glad jamison is finally getting minutes. boy did he hit some key shots tonight

 

[lacrimestopper]

ska, ill put a million on making the playoffs. what are we going 2 do after that..... probably nothing.

 

[nermindee]

I must reiterate what James Worthy said, you dont know anything about basketball if you dont realize what steve blake contributes to this team.
With that said, duhon can the F out!

1) Gasoft's shooting was horrendous, "most skilled big man" my @$S, eh atleast he rebounded...
2) Meeks is not a shooter, he is a volume chucker
3) Dwight is finally getting serious, even in his interviews.


lets own it on wednesday.

 

[tay1]

Jordan Hill would've been a little boost off the bench with the big three taking a rest. 

 

[geoff2005]

STEVE BLAKE!!!, Essentials must be proud of his brother

I must reiterate what James Worthy said, you dont know anything about basketball if you dont realize what steve blake contributes to this team.
With that said, duhon can the F out!

1) Gasoft's shooting was horrendous, "most skilled big man" my @$S, eh atleast he rebounded...
2) Meeks is not a shooter, he is a volume chucker
3) Dwight is finally getting serious, even in his interviews.


lets own it on wednesday.

I have notice, Meeks is not so much better than Goudelock

 

[00david00]

Dwight was so damn good on both ends

presence was def felt at the rim

 

[acbboyz84]

Can't wait to see Goudelock shoot 3 and get beat of the dribble on defense

 

[zk1mpls]

Just watched the highlights... haven't been this happy in a while.

 

[knightngale]

STEVE BLAKE!!!, Essentials must be proud of his brother
I have notice, Meeks is not so much better than Goudelock

If Dwight is gonna be the centerpiece they gotta get some real shooters or shooter/defenders like Miami has

 

[CHAOSE57]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYwXFWoZc9o

The Intro

Blake did step up. Shout out to Essential1!
Dwight looks like a different player on both ends of the floor. Love the way he mowed Duncan early in the game
Pau shot horribly but he rebounded well. I'll take it.
The bench was a big part of the game, we need more of that.
That fourth quarter got me hyped, playoffs type energy.
Duhon should never see the floor again. He should be gone with Eddie Jordan.
Jodie entertained me, dude was like a 2K player out there Good effort and boost off the bench though srs
Let's go Lakers!UNO MAS and it's back to 0-0.

On a side note, if CHill returns 100% on the playoffs and he gets benched by MDA, I'll be really pissed. We can have a young lineup with him back. And Darius should be given more burn, he makes other guards work a bit more. His offense might suck but his energy makes up for it.

Timberwolves watch tonight, C'mon Ricky help Pau out

 

[5am6oody72]

Seeing Dwight back down Duncan, muscle him out of the way and turn around and dunk in his face almost brought a tear to my eye

Blake stepping up with 23 points LOL wth. I followed him since his MD days and he's never been the most talented guy but he is definitely a gamer.

So effing proud of these guys, especially Dwight for stepping up to the challenge. Obviously I don't see us making it very far in the playoffs, but having some experience together against a tough opponent will be good for these guys. Look @ how shook Sessions was in the playoffs last year; everybody needs to get used to playing with each other in a tense atmosphere in preparation for next year when Kobe will be back.

 

[5am6oody72]

Seeing Dwight back down Duncan, muscle him out of the way and turn around and dunk in his face almost brought a tear to my eye

Blake stepping up with 23 points LOL wth. I followed him since his MD days and he's never been the most talented guy but he is definitely a gamer.

So effing proud of these guys, especially Dwight for stepping up to the challenge. Obviously I don't see us making it very far in the playoffs, but having some experience together against a tough opponent will be good for these guys. Look @ how shook Sessions was in the playoffs last year; everybody needs to get used to playing with each other in a tense atmosphere in preparation for next year when Kobe will be back.

 

[finallyfamous]

Just win one more game. Or Utah loses. I don't care

 

[darthska]

[quote name="ACBboyz84"]Can't wait to see Goudelock shoot 3 and get beat of the dribble on defense[/quote]Why?

 

[CHAOSE57]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbElswih6kg

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQCV6cuVXig

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfIe-iXiEzA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF_rPDwLmBQ

 

[darthska]

[quote name="5am6oody72"]Seeing Dwight back down Duncan, muscle him out of the way and turn around and dunk in his face almost brought a tear to my eye [/quote]He WILL have a stretch of games where he is consistently called for an offensive foul when he does that, and that will be a real testament to Kobe's influence on Dwight, seeing how he handles that. Will he whine and pout like a little baby, or will he play through it?

 

[trynafeelmink]

So is Nash done for the season?? i have heard nothing about his injury

 

[ct3]

Jodie Meeks need to buy some VC and fix his lay up and shoot in traffic attributes

I LOL'd

 

[CP1708]

Seeing Dwight back down Duncan, muscle him out of the way and turn around and dunk in his face almost brought a tear to my eye

Blake stepping up with 23 points LOL wth. I followed him since his MD days and he's never been the most talented guy but he is definitely a gamer.

So effing proud of these guys, especially Dwight for stepping up to the challenge. Obviously I don't see us making it very far in the playoffs, but having some experience together against a tough opponent will be good for these guys. Look @ how shook Sessions was in the playoffs last year; everybody needs to get used to playing with each other in a tense atmosphere in preparation for next year when Kobe will be back.

I saw it the first two plays of the game that Duncan had NO CHANCE against Dwight and I was callin it out on Twitter. BigMike was givin me crap, talkin about "it''s the first quarter, blah blah blah" and I spent the rest of the game pointing out every single time Dwight blew by him.

Another something for everyone to note, Pau defensively played most of the game on Duncan, until the final few minutes when Dwight was switched onto him. That is what we call, an adjustment. To who gets the credit, I can not say. Maybe MDA, maybe Pau, maybe Dwight, I don't know, but at least someone is actually adjusting. We did not see a lot of that with that bum we had before MDA. (Not Phil)


We potentially could have a FULL week off if we don't have to play vs Houston. That game, I hope we see Morris and Goudelock play 48 minutes. Ebanks and Sacre too.


It KILLS me that Ebanks won't work. He is EXACTLY what we could use, some youth/length out on the floor, quick feet, a defender, someone to bother and chase around shooters, and he won't give us anything. I'm so pissed at that. He could help out against Durant perfectly if only he earned his paycheck. God damn it E.

 

[licensed to ball]

[quote name="5am6oody72"]Seeing Dwight back down Duncan, muscle him out of the way and turn around and dunk in his face almost brought a tear to my eye

He WILL have a stretch of games where he is consistently called for an offensive foul when he does that, and that will be a real testament to Kobe's influence on Dwight, seeing how he handles that. Will he whine and pout like a little baby, or will he play through it?[/quote]

That's true. In todays officiating, those power moves can go either way
It's a shame because last night we caught a glimpse of what Dwight could do to defenders if he was allowed to lower his shoulder and pound it in.

But the league has gone soft. They'll probably call those all offensive fouls in the playoffs
I hope not.

Because he looked like a beast on a mission last night.

 

[darthdeezy]

Jazz will win their last two.
Lakers will get balled up by Harden and the Rockets on Wednesday.
Offseason thread Wednesday at 10pm pacific time.

I'll start it off.