March 19th: Jackson seeks to lighten load off weary Bryant. Lakers @ Cav's today, 10:00am PST

 
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Phil
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 7:50 am    Post subject: March 19th: Jackson seeks to lighten load off weary Bryant. Lakers @ Cav's today, 10:00am PST

Jackson seeks to lighten load off weary Bryant

By KEVIN DING
The Orange County Register


To help preserve his tired legs, Kobe Bryant, right, won’t guard LeBron James today after doing so extensively in a January game.

KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

CLEVELAND – For all the maniacal offseason preparation and the usual tough talk, Kobe Bryant is tired.

Asked Saturday to compare his physical state now to other seasons, he laughed and said several times: "It's different."

"It's a lot more work," Bryant said of this season, adding he has noticed himself falling immediately to sleep lately.

So you can take the matchup of Bryant and Cleveland's LeBron James off the marquee today.

Unlike the Jan.12 game in which Lakers coach Phil Jackson assigned Bryant to guard James almost every moment of the game, this time Jackson is removing Bryant from his customary role of guarding the opposition's best perimeter player.

"They can hype all they want," Jackson said of ABC-TV officials.

"It's going to be Lamar (Odom) guarding James, hopefully."

Cleveland coach Mike Brown already kept James off Bryant and on Odom in that previous meeting, won by the Lakers, 99-98, on Bryant's three jumpers down the stretch despite a sprained wrist, and lost by Cleveland because of James' missed foul shot and missed jumper before the buzzer.
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Phil
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 7:55 am    Post subject:

Staying Ahead of Chase Party
By Mike Bresnahan, Times Staff Writer
March 19, 2006

CLEVELAND — Maybe a 42-40 record will be good enough to make the playoffs in the Western Conference, a ridiculous proposition when the season began but a likely possibility given present-day circumstances.

The Lakers, 34-33 and in eighth place, haven't won or lost more than two consecutive games since the All-Star break, but they haven't had much pressure from the teams below them.


Houston can't sustain any streaks other than losing without Tracy McGrady. Utah recently lost to Miami by 38 points — first quarter score: Miami 41, Utah 14 — and followed it up with a loss to hapless Orlando. The luster has definitely dulled for New Orleans, which has lost eight consecutive games, and Golden State, a trendy playoff pick before the season whose players don't like to shoot from anywhere inside 23 feet.

The Lakers, neither good nor bad at this point of the season, still feel the need to string together some victories.

"We're dodging bullets left and right," Kobe Bryant said Saturday. "We're losing games that we really want to get, but we're dodging bullets in the sense that teams that need to win for their own sake are losing. We can't rely on that. We've got to come out and take care of business at some point."

Cutting out a few more losses would also be a decent idea psychologically for Laker fans and, it turns out, Phil Jackson's friends.
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Phil
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 7:57 am    Post subject:

This Draft Not One for the Ages
March 19, 2006

This season's salute to the NCAA tournament has a new theme: Be true to your school, at least for a year.

With the NBA's new age rule, I'll confine this mock draft to eligible players. This will also prevent miscalculations such as in 2004, when, in a burst of internationalism, or just to be different, I had two 16-year-olds, 7-foot Yi Jianli and 6-11 Nemanja Aleksandrov, at Nos. 3 and 4.

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If you're wondering what happened to them, so am I. Actually, no one is sure whether Yi is a first-rounder now, and Aleksandrov is coming off knee surgery.

The new rules take effect just in time to keep high school players from ruling this draft, with 7-0 Greg Oden of Indianapolis as the undisputed No. 1 pick and three others who could have been lottery picks: 6-11 Spencer Hawes, 6-9 Kevin Durant and 6-9 Brandan Wright.

Instead, Oden is going to Ohio State, Hawes to Washington, Durant to Texas and Wright to North Carolina. If they're in the 2007 draft, it'll be one of the best in recent years.

In the meantime, this is what we have, with none of these players projected as a superstar.

Thanks to the five NBA people and to Frank Burlison of the Long Beach Press-Telegram, who helped me put it together. As usual, these are listed heights, so you can take an inch off.
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Phil
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 7:59 am    Post subject:

Plan for Bryant isn't cutting it
By Ross Siler, Staff Writer

LAKERS NOTEBOOK Plan for Bryant

isn't cutting it

By Ross Siler, Staff Writer CLEVELAND - Only 10 days ago in San Antonio, Lakers coach Phil Jackson talked about his desire to cut Kobe Bryant's minutes to about 36 per game to keep his superstar guard from burning out before the playoffs even begin.

Suffice it to say, things haven't worked out quite as Jackson intended.

Bryant has averaged 43.8 minutes in the five games since and has played the entire second half of the Lakers' past three games. It has become a concern as Bryant has struggled with his shot, and Jackson has conceded that Bryant is battling tired legs.

"You've got to do what you've got to do," said Bryant, who is shooting 38.5 percent the past five games. "We've talked about shoring it up, our execution a little bit, as far as how I'm used out there on the floor.

"Certain spots on the floor. Not working too hard to have to put the ball in the basket, go through two guys or something like that. It's more about moving without the basketball, catch and shoot, that sort of thing."

When the Lakers play the Cleveland Cavaliers today in a game televised on ABC, the featured attraction will be Bryant vs. LeBron James. But Jackson has no intention of having Bryant defend James, as he did when the two teams played in January.

Forward Lamar Odom will draw the assignment and Bryant will match up against Flip Murray. It is one way for the Lakers to help Bryant conserve energy, especially with the second game of a back-to-back set Monday at Boston.
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Phil
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 9:48 am    Post subject:

Lakers-Cavaliers Preview

GAME: Los Angeles Lakers (34-33) at Cleveland Cavaliers (37-29).

TIME: Sunday, 1 p.m. EST.

The last time the Cleveland Cavaliers made the playoffs, LeBron James was not even in high school. Kobe Bryant wasn't in grade school when the Los Angeles Lakers last missed the postseason in back-to-back years.

James has his Cavaliers in much better position for a playoff berth than Bryant's Lakers heading into this matchup between two of the league's top-three scorers.

While Bryant leads the NBA with 34.6 points per game and James is third at 30.8, it's the Lakers who face a tougher road to the postseason than the Cavaliers.

Los Angeles owns the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, but New Orleans and Utah are both within two games. The Lakers missed the playoffs last season for the first time since 1994, and haven't failed to make it in consecutive years since 1982 and 1983.

Cleveland hasn't been to the postseason since 1998, but would have home-court advantage for the first round of this year's playoffs if the season ended this weekend. The Cavaliers are fourth in the Eastern Conference, 2 1/2 games ahead of Indiana.

``I don't even know the last time this team was there,'' Cleveland coach Mike Brown said before Friday night's 99-84 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers. ``Everybody is talking about how we need to get a good seed and home-court advantage. I want that, too, but what I'm really concerned with is just getting there.''
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