Game Thread: Suns Vs Lakers Dec 10, 2013

[trojanfan12]

Agree with much of what you say Bam. I think the defense is probably what will ultimately take the longest to come around. We know this team can score points. They are among the league leaders in ppg and the bench has the highest ppg in the NBA. Adding Kobe to the mix, just makes them more potent on offense, especially once the timing is worked out.

This team was never going to be a "lockdown" defensive team and Pau was never a great defender in his prime. However, this team has shown flashes of being able to work together and at least be passable (middle of the pack) on defense and come up with big defensive plays when needed. They need better communication defensively. Lots of missed assignments and guys slow to rotate.

Ultimately, they should be fine offensively and it they can get good communication defensively, they should be okay. Deep playoff run okay? Not likely as the West is just too deep. But they can be good enough to show some potential FA's that it's not quite the dumpster fire that the haters are hoping for.

 

[wildturkey]

Personally I wouldn't even say the team had good chemistry prior to Kobe. D'Antoni practically changes the line up every 2 games so I don't want to here any chemistry/continuity issues. They just happened to play ok because D'Antoni's offense can be dumbed down to be really simple (screens and 3s baby!), and that's what he's done so far. And I don't agree at all about the offense being so stagnant with Kobe. All that nonsense is just leftover stereotypes about Kobe from the mid-aughts. LA scored 108 pts last night. The 3 games prior to Kobe coming back LA scored 106, 108, 106 and the assists totals were all even around 22 to 24 ish a game, the same as last night's game. That's a rough stat analysis, time with advanced stats could tell you more but at the very least its indicative that LA's offense is not completely hamstrung with Kobe like some would have you believe. Plus, its freaking 2 games. That's a ridiculously small sample size to make a sweeping judgement. Kobe being back is just a convenient excuse to use because they lost 2 games. If he played the exact same way and LA won, those same critics would be screaming how great the Lakers are because the team rallied around Kobe and kept on trucking.

 

[Retroram52]

I don't think so Wild Turkey. I would not have been so quick to jump on the Kobe bandwagon if they had won. I just see the ball slowing way down along with the passing when Kobe is in there. I hope I am wrong and have stated so many times. If you don't like sweeping generalizations then don't engage in them with the following sentence at the end of your post.

"Kobe being back is just a convenient excuse to use because they lost 2 games. If he played the exact same way and LA won, those same critics would be screaming how great the Lakers are because the team rallied around Kobe and kept on trucking."