Lakers vs Spurs: A Game in the Iron Maiden

Yep exactly – if the game was played in only the first half – they would have won.

Where the hell was Timmy offensively?

For the Toros, Marcus Williams went for 29 points on (8 of 8 FGA, 4 of 4 3PA, and 9 of 9 FTA) with 4 assists, 2 rebounds, a block, and a steal.

4 turnovers too, but give the guy a break…..

As good as Hill played, he was nowhere to be seen in the 2nd half. He scored 1 point in the 2nd half and took a bunch of bad shots and made turnovers. He seemed to think that since he played well early that things were just going to go well the rest of the game. I’m not saying he wasn’t our best player, but he’s got to get a solid 48 minutes.

Our shooters have GOT to hit wide open threes when they are there. Duncan was out of gas…clearly he was on fumes.

Mason pisses me off… complains about getting mins and when Manu sets him up for big 3’s in the corner he can’t knock em down…

damn i miss Bruce.

Last night, I was very down. Trust me. This morning, though, I feel much better about the game.

Agreed

Man, this game wasn’t on the the schedule, but it was shown right after the Magic-Hawks game. I was happy, no ectstatic, . . . then the team imploded and subsequently lost. Meh, what a downer. Now I’m conflicted.

I felt better today, too.

Then I glanced to the side of this page and saw the headline “Lopez Leads Nets to Eighth Win of Season” and I thanked god I wasn’t a New Jersey fan.

Thanks for the recap, Wayne. Since I wasn’t able to watch the game, I now have a good sense of how the game went, without having to read through 4 separate game threads.

The Malik Hairston situation is exactly like the George Hill situation last year, when Pop played the JV over him until we had 3-1 deficit in the playoff, when it was too late. THis is exactly what is going to happen this year.

Pop you need to take Bogans and Mase out the the rotation, and put Malik in if we are going to make any kind of noise. Also Pop, Dice has been pretty bad latety you need to give Ian a real chance too.

Manu and Kobe respect the hell out of each other. Neither of them complained much at all over calls which is rare for them, or any NBA player. Every minute they were so focused, it was a fun game with in the game to watch those two. They are the two most competitive players in the NBA in my opinion.

The first half we really blew our chances of pushing the lead out far by missing open threes. On defense I thought we did great except for allowing wide open threes and Odom drives to the basket.

I don’t think this game requires too deep an analysis. Spurs played on fumes without Tony against a rested opponent that happens to be the best in the West. Hard to see how they were going to win this game. Yet they were up at the half thanks to defense and Hill. They would’ve still won had role players Bonner and RMJ (who has plenty of gas in the tank but unfortunately just stinks) could hit an open 3. A halftime lead of 13+ would’ve given the Spurs more room for error and required less doubling of Kobe, thus fewer made 3s for LA.

I’m actually encouraged that the Spurs got the looks they wanted without their biggest advantage over LA (Parker) and with TD not himself. If you reverse the restedness of the teams SA wins last night without their main advantage. We no longer need Timmy to dominate to beat LA. We need Tony and Hill to punish LA with their speed, TD to be solid (he will be when rested) and Manu to be Manu. Oh, and for shooters to hit some their many wide open shots.

We still won’t have Tony when we head to LA but I’ll be interested to see how that game is played. I expected to split these final two against LA and that opportunity still exists. It’s hard for me to judge teh guys for losing on a night they would’ve struggled to beat any team not named New Jersey.

Fantastic, to the point recap, thanks chief.

Well, there are a couple of things that I noticed along with all that was mentioned above.

1. Outside of Manu, our team’s 3 point shooters seem to be scared while they play quality opponents and/or pressured by defense. I wonder if they are doubting themselves.

2. I’m also concerned about our players corporate knowledge. Let me explain(I know it was mentioned earlier), come 2nd half, Odom with 4 fouls, our jump shots not going in, Timmeh having trouble with Gasol, the logical thing to do would be to attack them and try to put more fouls on them so we get some breathing room, but that wasn’t the case. Our old team, whether they get fouled or not, atleast would have tried. But I attribute this to Tony’s absence and I’m sure we would do better in that department when Tony is playing.

3. Our defense was soft on guys like Shannon Brown and Farmer, we were scared to get on to their face and let them shot almost open 3 pointers. Yes, I’m looking at you Bogans. I remember, a Shannon Brown 3 from the right wing. Bogans was scared to get on him. Lets forget about the missed rotation on Kobe’s wide open corner 3. That was a genuine mistake.

4. When our ball handlers(Hill, Manu) are trapped or in trouble, there isn’t anyone else that could generate offense. All our players excepting Timmeh were standing and being spectators. Yes, i’m looking at you RJ. Now I know why Lakers are deep, they have Fisher, Odom, Kobe, Artest, Farmar, Brown that could handle the ball to do something with it. We have 3, if Tony is playing. I think this would be a big factor when playoffs start.

iron maiden references — AWESOME

I suppose i’m the only one who noticed Bonner’s mostly stellar defensive effort last night? He got torched maybe twice by Odom, but he also came up with several hustle plays (3 steals, a block, and several other knockaways that dont show up in the box score). His shot was definitely off, but dont put him in the same bunch as Mason or the other complete no shows (Bogans).

RJ made one HUGE mistake on defense. Early in the game he tried to get going on offense but was off all night. Definitely tried to take it to the rack a few times though. Honestly, i dont remember seeing him much in the second half, but i do remember he missed a couple open jumpers. I think the effort was there, but not the execution. Although thats better than earlier this season…its not good enough. I still think he can do better, and i think he will do better next year. He won’t be as good as everyone was expecting him to be when he got here, but he’ll be a decent role player.

Last night, I was very down. Trust me. This morning, though, I feel much better about the game.

I don’t feel better this morning.

I’m always optimistic. ALWAYS. But right now, I’m just a glass-half-full guy instead of a glass-eighty-percent-full guy. It’s not a subtle difference, and I definitely feel it.

I’m still rooting for the Spurs, still hoping they’ll get out of the first round (one step at a time) and still wanting them to go as far as they can. But I’m not expecting anything from them.

Hate to me a Debbie Downer (apologies to all the Debbie’s in the audience) but I just don’t think they have it this year. Even if our outside shooters light it up for a game — or even a series, there’s no sustained performance from them this year, and I can’t expect them to hit shots consistently.

This is a team that NEEDS dominating performances from Tim in order to win games, EVEN when Manu’s playing well/very well, and it doesn’t seem that Tim’s body will allow him to do it (so I’m no longer thinking that Tim’s waiting to start jumping until the playoffs) Blair seems to have hit the rookie wall, and who knows what we’ll get from Tony when we get him back.

I hate feeling this way, but if it was just a feeling, then I could shake it off. I’m afraid that what I saw last night isn’t an outlier — but what our team is actually capable of when they play elite competition.

::sigh::

Rough, rough loss lastnight. First half was great, second stunk….in a big big way!!!!!

IRON MAIDEN!!!! MY FAVORITE BAND OF ALL-TIME!!!!

But yes this was very disappointing, though the first half showing gives me some hope if we don’t play LA in the round of the playoffs.

Does anyone else remember when mason used to make open three’s?

Let’s start with San Antonio. Yes, San Antonio. I realize Wednesday night’s second half didn’t do wonders for the idea that the Spurs can make a run in the West, but check out the big picture. San Antonio has won 10 of its last 14 against a difficult schedule and did most of the damage without an injured Tony Parker. At full strength, the Spurs were good enough to the beat the Lakers by 20 in January; in fact, until Wednesday, they were ahead of the Lakers in the Power Rankings. The recent struggles of Tim Duncan are worrisome, but after 60 games of scuffling, San Antonio seems to be hitting its stride.

He is listing as the first contender to upset the west in case you didn’t get that from not having the surrounding info. You can read a copy of it for free here.

The lakers held us to 24 points in the paint. Our lowest total since the wizards game on january 2nd where we only needed 16 points in the paint to absolutely destroy them on any open look we wanted. Parker and Duncan would never let that happen in the playoffs…..or let the Lakers stop them.

A few observations from last nights game:

1) Pau did not bite on any of Tim’s moves. He knows he is athletic enough to contest or block a shot without having to guess. There are two (or more) counters to that. The first is to go into his body and suffer the inevitable blocks for the chance of getting extra foul calls. The second is to set up on the elbow to take Pau out of the paint and make Tim a passer or jump shooter. We all want a post presence, but Tim shoots nearly 50% from the elbow area and removing Pau from the paint allows others to attack the basket.
2) Manu has serious stamina issues. It isn’t that his stamina is bad, it is just that he goes all out on both offense and defense when he is in. You can see him losing his balance and shooting touch at the end of games. For all of the people screaming for Pop to put him back in the game during the 4th quarter, he had no choice.
3) Hill had a great first half because the Lakers defense was focused on Manu and Tim. With Pau doing a great job defending Tim by himself, the Lakers changed focus and shut Hill down.
4) For this team to succeed in the playoffs, we need to shoot 35-40% from 3. Nothing else will work. We still may lose (especially if the opponents shoot 50% from three).

Finally, one thing I found amusing last night. When the Lakers get beat and other teams celebrate, Laker Nation is quick to bash the team that just won. “This is just a regular season game and you are celebrating like you won a playoff series”. I was surprised at how much the Lakers celebrated last night. Why would a 1 seed need to celebrate a regular season victory over a 7 seed? Pot, meet kettle.

In every game Wayne your shot chart comes to mind when they look like they are open but have a bad % from that spot. Last night it really showed up.LA always starts slow and comes on in the 2nd and 4th where they, mostly Kobe, turn up the shots and rest turn up the defense at the same time. Ron Ron seems to be the player that really beat us last night. We for sure do not have an answer for him. On either end.

Lost in all this is just how good a defensive team the Lakers have become….

F%ck, I hate them.

Bad loss but I still have a good feeling for this season’s playoffs. I don’t care what effin’ seed we get. We’re gonna paint the world with silver and black!

Artest should have been called but I think the refs are switching to a more playoff type of calling these games. What I was really trying to point out was his whole game of playing for 36 min. with F.G. of 5-11, F.T. of 5-9 (he went to the line 9 times) for a + 16 and 8 rebounds. All of that while only being called for 3 personal fouls. Those appear to be alot of some real balanced numbers. But what to me is even more shocking are their 3 bigs Gasol, Odom and Artest go for a combined +40 on offense vs.our 3 Tim, Dice, and Bonner for a combined -21. Theirs played 121 combined minutes and ours for 84 combined min. On rebounds,our bigs got 20 and LA ’sgot 33 out of their total 40. The bigs got us. All year I have been hard on RJ and soft on Dice. No more nice…dice.

We jacked up 27 threes? Thats criminal…

Interesting stat….

The Spurs actually had one more rebound 44 to 45.

And the Spurs had 4 more offensive rebounds.

Dejuan had 6 rebounds ( four of them offensive ) in only 10 minutes !

I am so going to that Maiden show!

just now catching up to this.

1 – must drop a post in here because of the iron maiden theme
2 – was in route to SA when this was posted and never caught back up to it….but why else would i want to given how THAT game went
3 – when i hit SA, the first thing i heard on my rental car radio was…..you guessed it….iron maiden. it was flight of icarus. frankly, KZEP played so much maiden while i was in town that i feard one of the band members had died.