They are missing a team fire, especially on defense, and they look slow. I just wonder how much longer Kobe can blame his team and everyone will act like he is a good leader.
For example this part of an ESPN write up after this game:
Kobe Bryant lit into the team after the Christmas debacle, telling a room full of reporters how he wasn't going to stand for his team's disinterest and to deliver his message he would "beat it in [his teammates'] heads until it gets through."
It was the type of rhetoric that shaped the stories written by national columnists and the scintillating sound bites that led SportsCenter, but all of Bryant's barking fell on deaf ears.
Did they miss the part where Kobe played badly in all these games? Or last night where he obviously tried to take over and hogged the ball and completely failed to bring his team back into the game by mostly just jacking up long range shots? Maybe Kobe should listen to his OWN barking for once and trust his team. But of course Kobe does no wrong and he has always been the model team mate...
Pau Gasol thought the ball should have ended up in his and Andrew Bynum's hands more often.
"We have to take advantage of our size," Gasol said. "That's one of our main strengths of this team and we go away from it, we don't utilize it. It's again, not being smart."
Gasol and Bynum combined for 7-of-12 shooting, which is one less shot attempt than the 13 misses Bryant had in a row from midway through the first quarter until late in the third, the longest empty streak of his career in a single game.
"I just need to put the ball in the [dang] hole when I need to," Bryant said. "It's my responsibility. It's my job and I got to do it."
LOL at that stat on Gasol and Bynum only getting 12 shots and Kobe missing 13 in a row at one point. And then Kobe says he needed to just make his shots... I think you are missing something Kobe. Maybe you should use what won your team a title last year.
The Spurs game was interesting because the Spurs' stars didn't even play well besides Parker. And it marks another game where the Lakers got dominated inside, this time by Dejaun Blair. Kobe responds by trying to jack up shots instead of go to his teammates. I'll be inteested to see when the media starts to rightfully blame Kobe for a lot of this instead of act like his team is letting him down.
Here is what Phil had to say:
"If I was playing, I probably wouldn't pass him the ball the next time," Jackson said, explaining how he would have handled it as a teammate.
Good stuff. I don't want to jump the gun but we have seen Kobe deteriorating over the last season and this one certainly looks to continue that trend. I think he is falling off and as he selfishly tries to simply take more of the team on his back as they struggle because of him he will only make it worse. When he got all up in George Hill's face for boxing him out legally I was so happy to see Hill get up in his face back and not back down from Kobe. No one is scared of you on San Antonio Kobe. I'm really enjoying these Laker struggles, that is for sure
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-oKNhXvEjgAnd of course they T up Hill, who did nothing wrong on the play.
Topic: Do The Lakers Miss The Machine? (Read 16840 times)