LAKERS -at- JAZZ - 2/4 - DIY Thoughts and :-(( Ratings

[DancingBarry]

Sorry, guys. Unforeseen circumstances. Couldn't cover the game. Haven't even checked the score until now. So it's DIY night. Fill me in...what happened?

[E=MC²]

Lakers ran out of gas...

[Nobody]

Lakers having the worst PG, worst SF and worst bench in the league happened. Without at least 1 or 2 additions who are capable of hitting a open shot or two, we aren't going far this year. I mean we have a starting SF that is shooting 33% overall and 17% from three. Is this real life?

[ElginBaylor]

Wow, I've never been second before. Didn't see the game. I assume all the usual comments apply.
_________________
Not a legend

[ElginBaylor]

Darn, I guess I was third. Still...
_________________
Not a legend

[SilverBullet]

Our bigs had a great night. Kobe exploded near the end, he tried to get the win for the Lakers when we're down by 15 points under 4 minutes left.

Mike Brown got ejected; double technical. He got piss over the non-call on Paul Gasol.

OUR BENCH SUCKS LAST NIGHT.
_________________
You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.

[Laker7]

DB,

Big 3 scored 20+ each. Bench was outscored 47-12. Fish and Peace combined for 4 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists.

Game was back and forth all game until the 4th when Watson led the Jazz on a 14-0 run. He was pushing the ball hard and the Lakers could not get back. Lakers only scored 18 in the 3rd and 20 in the 4th.

Jazz were very physical with us and refs lets both teams play. Mike Brown got pissed about the refs and was tossed. Slightly bumped a ref during tirade and IMO will likely be suspended. Lakers shot 10 more FT's than the Jazz but I think Brown was still upset over the calls from the Denver game.

Murphy looked like crap on D and was being scored on at will in the low post. Jazz played tight D on Glock and it bothered him.

L7
_________________
Darvin Ham is an idiot!

[TooMuchMajicBuss]

Sorry you missed the game DB - hope everything is OK.

As for the game - Ugh.. So this is what happens now that G-Lock gains respect around the league. Now the rookie wall hits, because now he gets special attention from defenses. The impression I get from this game is - shut Goudelock down and you shut the entire bench down. It feels like Murphy will NOT step up unless someone else is already on fire, and neither will Kapono for that matter. The Lakers gave these guys roster spots specifically to open up the floor; NOT to take up space waiting for someone else to open up the floor so they can find their shooting touch. If they played sound defense that would be one thing, but Murphy in particular can't defend a hardened, fossilized cow pie much less a living breathing person with a basketball in his hands.

Drew and Pau outrebounded Jefferson/Hayward/Milsap combined. Barnes gathered another 6 rebounds, outside of those 3 the Laker team had a combined total of 8 rebounds. They played tired.

Rotations were screwy too.

Anyone looking at the box score will see Kobe shot 6 for 16. I can see them concluding he was inefficient. Not so. Those 16 shots garnered 26 points, he spent a lot of time at the ft line.

So there were a lot of factors leading to the way the Lakers lost, but Murphy, Kapono, Fish, MWP, and the fact that G-Lock finally got rattled were most disappointing. Hopefully this Utah game doesn't provide a blueprint for future opponents; shut down Goudelock and thereby shut down the Laker bench. Completely.

[Shaber]

[Tim]

[gumby]

One particular problem they definitely picked on was Murphy's D last night as pointed out earlier.

So far, teams are starting to realize that his D is sub par. Some of it is footspeed, some is the fact he doesn't hustle enough, and some is just pure overall talent. Whatever the case, the opposing PF knows to take him to the hole or post up hard on him and you will get results. His rebounding as of late seems to be that way too. Not enough boxout mentality, more of a starer when it comes to the boards. Overall, they either need to give him help D or limit him from too much D on a decent PF.

As for the rest of the game, what a melt down. Hopefully this is the only hitch on the roadtrip. Still looking for a positive outcome from the Grammy trip.

Bye.
_________________
"This trophy removes the most odious sentence in the English Language. It can never be said again that 'the Lakers have never beaten the Celtics.'" -Dr. Jerry Buss (1985) R.I.P., 33 x M.V.O.

[dmills]

G-lock was a little tired. I saw his first shot and knew he wasn't going to have a good night. He'll watch film and come back better for it.
_________________
A key that has the ability to unlock many locks is a master key. But a lock that can be opened with any key is useless.

[wolfpaclaker]

Kobe - Weird game from Kobe. Allowed the team to run the twin tower offense early didn't really get himself going until later in the game. Some really good scoring plays from Bryant in this game though, drew Bell in and drawed a lot of fouls. Late in the game when Utah goes on the run, Kobe was one of the only Lakers still fighthing hitting back to back 3's to get LA back in the game. Jefferson jumper ended that run/pressure though. STATS: 26 points 6-16 shooting 3-6 from beyond the arc to go with 1 assist. He was a -6


Gasol - Very good game from Gasol. We saw a little bit of everything from Gasol in this one. Outside shooting, post ups, finishing plays. Missed a few easy one's though, that was frustrating to watch. Gasol shot the ball at a lower percentage I thought because of two reasons, one was that he wasn't finishing plays around the rim hard enough and two he was taking some jumpers. He drove to the hoop on a few sequences. We saw more of Pau in the post as well. More please. STATS 24 points on 9-20 shooting to go with 16 rebounds and 4 assists. He was a -9

Bynum - Bynum scored with ease in the post tonight. He's handling doubles better as well. You could see that Utah wanted no part of Bynum tonight. Defensively though I thought Bynum did a weak job. Not only was he not anchoring consistently it seemed we gave up a lot of offensive rebounds and 2nd chance points in this one. Al and Drew had quite a few 1 on 1 sequences in this one. It was a good match up, Drew won it. STATS 21 points on 8-14 shooting to go with 12 boards. He was a -8

Peace - Not much from Peace in this game. He played enough to warrant some impact, but we didn't really get it. Got inside offensively and contested a few rebounds. Probably Ron's most useful offensive trait is that he can still post up and/or gain strong post position in box out battles. STATS 2 points on 1-2 shooting in 21 minutes. He was a -1

Fisher - Games like this are why many want a new starting PG. Fisher missed a number of jumpers in this game. Unfortunately Fish who was once a very reliable jumpshooter has struggled this year in making open shots. I think it's the offense we have him playing a lot of point guard and this is taking away from his natural SG instincts and role he had in the Tri. A pretty poor game from Fish on D as well he was letting Harris and the Jazz PG's run up the floor with ease. STATS 2 points on 1-6 shooting in 30 minutes. He was a -11

Goudelock - Tough night for Drew. Had a couple of really bad possessions early in the game when he came in. This seemed to rattle his game for the night. I'm not a big fan of him doing this much ballhandling. I think we should run more basic stuff with Goudelock coming off screens and creating that way. He had a few possessions early in the game where he basically just ran the entire clock and put up some bad shots or TO'ed the ball. He's a good 2nd round pick and has been our bench player. No worries on 1 bad night. It was due. STATS 4 points on 1-5 shooting in 18 minutes. He was a +2

Murphy - Troy had a tough night on both ends. Defensively he was letting Millsap and Favors have their way. Offensively he had a couple of open shots and missed them. One of our better offensive lineups is Gasol/Murphy as it allows Kobe to post up more. However tonight what was unfortunate is that we didn't go to Kobe in the post as much when we played Gasol/Murphy. STATS 0 points on 0-3 shooting in 17 minutes. He was a +/- of 0.

Barnes - A bit of a crazy game from Barnes. He had a nice fastbreak sequence with Goudelock, and he also fed Bynum for a nice lob/dunk play. However he missed open looks and the defense was leaving him open the entire time he was out there. Barnes needs to make those or start cutting to the basket. Lost his cool late in the game and was getting into it with one of the Lakers assistant coaches from what I could tell. STATS 5 points on 2-6 shooting 1-3 from beyond the arc in 19 minutes. He was a -11

Morris - Checked in late in the 1st Q, I believe scored on a drive. Never got back in the game. STATS 2 points on 1-1 shooting in 2 minutes. He was a -2.

Kapono - Jason was brought in because he is one of better pure shooters in the NBA. Unfortunately he hasn't been for the Lakers. We are really hurting with our bench. The guys brought in are supposed to be good shooters (Murphy is another). If they can't even do that, we're toast. He had some bad defensive plays in this game as well and didn't make his open looks on O STATS 0 points on 0-2 shooting. He was a +2

McRoberts - McRob sighting. Seems to have lost all confidence in his game. Didn't bring the same energy either. Only played 1 stretch but wasn't able to contribute anyway. I'd like to see more pick and rolls when McRoberts is in the game. STATS 0 points on 0-0 shooting. All zero's for McRob, he was a -1

Mike Brown - You need to show more composure as a coach. Getting those technicals only hurt the team and increased the bleeding. If you're going to get thrown out of a game, you need to do it early where the T's don't hurt as much and your team has enough time to get back into it. Not when your opponent is on a big run. Tactically I thought we made some mistakes. One we didn't see much of Bryant in the post in this game - even with the Gasol/Murphy lineup. We need more of that. Two, I thought he didn't get on his bigs for not being physical. He talked post game about Utah's physicality yet didn't give McRoberts PT nor did he get on our bigs to play harder. This is a team that needs to win games through playing hard, physical defense and outrebounding opponents. Too many points given up to Utah on 2nd chances tonight. Outrebounded 50-42. I think we needed to see more of McRoberts in a game like this and we needed to maybe even use more of Ron as he's capable to box out, something Utah was exploiting.

[AceFresh]

[gumby]

Good summary Wolfpac. Props.

Bye.
_________________
"This trophy removes the most odious sentence in the English Language. It can never be said again that 'the Lakers have never beaten the Celtics.'" -Dr. Jerry Buss (1985) R.I.P., 33 x M.V.O.

[Rick12322]

The team lost for 2 reasons:

Fatigue from b2b
Utah was allowed to foul more than the Lakers.

Drew shut down Jefferson until the second half when some spurious ticky tack fouls were called. That gave Jefferson enough confidence to score three times against him. Drew stopped him on the other attempts.

Pau couldn't stop Milsap who went on a run in the first half. When Bynum went out for a rest, Pau couldn't stop Jefferson. The 2nd half Pau did a better job on Milsap who settle for missed jumpers.

Our guards were ok in the first half but succumbed to pressure in the second half. Part of the pressure was being constantly fouled without calls.

Murphy, Glock and Kapono failed to hit open shots which kept the paint crowded. They doubled Bynum on the pass, and on one sequence Kobe had the ball and faked a pass to the doubled Bynum, the defense shifted and Kobe went for the throat. Great play by Kobe, but if I remember right he was fouled with no call, which was par for the course for #24.

On offensive rebounding, I noticed the team often runs back in transition on shots where there are 3 or for Jazz already in front of the rim looking for the rebound. That means we're taking bad shots, and failing to get inside. Part of that is due to having the shooters go cold.

Defensive rebounding, a lot of rebounds are missed from tired legs(b2b), and tipping the ball instead of getting up higher to secure it. It was clear Bynum was fatigued and guilty as charged of not moving toward the ball in the second half.

Barnes made a nice cut, but in traffic which Bynum missed, but he scored anyways after missing and getting the offensive putback.

Drew made a great no look pass to Pau over his right shoulder for an easy layup. It was probably the most exciting pass he's ever made.

Barnes tried to return the chippy play back to the jazz, but the refs wouldn't let him.

Ron played his usual fundamentally sound defense, but didn't have much to show for on offense.

Sorry, this is kind of in the order the memories came, not the most organized but those are the thing I remember.

[Allday]

Lol at mb comment about him needing to show more composure. For years I have been reading here that pj was a corpse and that he needed to get more engaged
_________________
If lakers don't win ring lets hope it's the Brons of miami

[wolfpaclaker]

[ChefLinda]

Wolf, nice DB homage. Thanks.

[mhan00]

We got screwed by the refs down the stretch. Second game in a row, and highly frustrating. Pau got blindsided, yes, but live it looked like Watson got mostly arm as he knocked the ball free and then he basically just threw his body into Pau to knock him off balance to secure the ball. That's a foul regardless of how unaware Pau was that Watson was coming. That one play just killed all possible momentum for us and gave it squarely to the Jazz.

I am happy our team had as much fight as it did though, since this was a tough back to back for an older team. You could clearly see the fatigue as many shots just fell short (all of Pau's jumpers, his two floaters/hook shots in the lane, most of the Lakers jumpers) but the Lakers found a way to control most of the first three quarters before imploding in the fourth with the help of some very questionable calls. But in the end there are no moral victories, and a loss is still a loss, and this is a highly disappointing one.

[chazz]

[shansen008]

[RVCdesigns]

DB, we have a major hole at the SF position. Our 1 has been improving but the SF rotations has been disappointing.

[Raijin]

[Laker7]