Is anyone even watching this game because usually there's conversation going on during games but during the biggest game of the year there's nothing.... Anyways- my observations so far against Miami- No one on the Lakers seems to know what the hell to do out there, forcing Kobe to be more aggressive than he'd like to be. Kobe has 18 points on 12 shots but it's apparent that he's looking to pass first, if only his teammates wanted the shots. The Lakers defense, both half court and transition is terrible, and they look completely lost out there.... I'm looking for Jackson to get on them big time during the half and for the Lakers to have a huge third quarter. I see this one coming down to the wire, but only if the Lakers get a sense of identity out there....
The Lakers hustled. It wasnt enough, and they could not stop Payton tonight. Kwame missed some easy buckets. The game was within reach the entire time, the Lakers just couldnt finish. Now let look to finish strong on the road with a win at washington. The Lakers are looking good though. They played tough. We still need that 3rd option.
What a heatbreaker!!! The major difference in this game was bench play, the Heat killed our bench 34 to 10. Another area the Lakers really struggled was 3point shooting (3 for 21). I cannot believe the team settled for 21 of them, especially when they were bricking them badly. The Lakers really missed Laron Profit in this game. He would have helped balance out the edge the Heat had in bench scoring, plus gives the Lakers a better defender to use than Vujacic. The stretch of the game when Kobe went to the bench, the Heat really got back in the game because the Lakers couldn't get any baskets. The Lakers also stopped attacking when Zo was in the game. He really altered the inside presence of the Lakers offense and the team started shooting from the outside, instead of drawing fouls on drives. For the second straight XMas the Lakers have had a chance to beat the better team, but came up just a little short.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting iliv4ball:</div><div class="quote_post">Kobe went really cold in the 4th, he probably shouldn't have gone for that 3 at the end.</div> Yeah you have to give props to Payton for his defense on Kobe. It's too, bad the Lakers didn't make Payton pay for the overplay. They only took advantage of it one time and it lead to a Kobe alley oop. That play was there for them all game long, but they never went to it. Another mental breakdown was not continuing to attack DWade when he came back into the game with 4 fouls. The offense should have continued putting pressure on him and force him to bail out on a play or pick up his 5th. If you have an opportunity to get him out of the game, you have to exploit it. The final shot was a bad look, but I want Kobe taking the final shot 9 out of 10 times. No one else was really hitting from the outside so you have to put your faith in Kobe to shoot that ball and hopefully he makes it. I loved the hustle from the team overall and I really liked the defensive effort of Kwame. He played as well as you could against Shaq, and he was able to defend him without the help of a double team. Now if he could only get it together on offense and learn how to finish a basket by dunking it. I'm telling you, just make Kwame go through practice just running up and down the court and dunking it as hard as he can everytime. Make him run back and forth dunking, until he falls flat on his face from exhaustion. Have him finish with the right hand, then the left hand, then two hands. He just needs to get into the mindset of finishing with some vicious intent on the rim and his opponent.
Kobe smoked us until the fourth when Payton really took it to him. I must give it up to the Lakers though, they did fight till the end and stuck with a better Miami team. I saw Wade and Kobe gettin into it while I was there and it was an entertaining game.
Good game. Just what I expected...a close game Both Kobe and Wade struggled although Kobe managed to get 37 points and prove that he's still a bit better than Wade. Wade was just cold today. missed many free throws, even missed a dunk! Gary Payton played like a "Sonic" Payton today.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting WadeDynasty:</div><div class="quote_post">Good game. Just what I expected...a close game Both Kobe and Wade struggled although Kobe managed to get 37 points and prove that he's still a bit better than Wade. Wade was just cold today. missed many free throws, even missed a dunk! Gary Payton played like a "Sonic" Payton today.</div> That's what I said. Especially after he went baseline after posting up. It was a good game overall. And I was surprised Kobe missed 2 big freethrows towards the end.
I don't know exactly what they were jawing at, but I just heard a clip of Lamar Odom talking about it on SportsCenter and he basically said "Gary needs to learn how to talk to other men. There is a difference between talking trash on the court and talking to other men. He needs to learn how to talk another man." Obviously that's not the exact quote, but it's pretty close.
Well, here is an article I just found on the whole thing, but it doesn't give much more insight on what actually happened. <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">There's trash talk, and then there's Gary Payton's talk. Sunday, Payton was at his best -- or worst, depending on your perspective. The target of his verbal jabs was former Heat forward Lamar Odom. And Odom didn't take well to Payton's chatter. Payton received a technical foul in the third quarter for his wrangling with Odom, after which Odom winked toward his bench as if he had the situation under control. But the back-and-forth banter continued for the remainder of the game, to the point where the two had to be separated at midcourt after the game was over. Odom said Payton crossed the line of good sportsmanship with some of his comments. ''He's an extremely disrespectful young man,'' Odom said. ``I'm not going to repeat anything he said, but he's extremely disrespectful. ``It's dudes like that, that's why things happen off the court between players and their friends and things like that. He needs to watch how he talks to other men. It's a difference between competing and how you talk to another man.'' Payton said he was just doing what he normally does, trying to get into the minds of his competition. ''You just keep talking and keep playing,'' Payton said. ``Some of the players, their mentality is they want to get mad and take it personal against you, then they start thinking about you all the time. That's where my mental toughness is, because I don't care. I can talk, and I'm not going to worry about you anymore.'' Odom normally doesn't get caught up in trash talk, so this must have been some of Payton's finest work. ''That wasn't an accomplishment to me,'' Payton said. ``That's the way I am. You say something to me, I'll say something back to you. It was in fun to me. It's over with. He goes home, I go home.'' Payton actually played better after he received the technical, scoring 15 of his 21 points, and his defense on Kobe Bryant intensified. ''That's how it gets me,'' Payton said of the trash talk. ``Whenever you start talking to me and fans start getting on me, that makes me motivated more to make big shots and shut a lot of people up. That's what motivated me most.'</div> Miami Herald
We lost again! I can't believe it. It sucks. Kobe had a magnificant first half and a poor second half. Other people need to step up. The first time Kobe came off, we went down by about 11 points in 2 minutes. Kwame Brown seriously needs to learn how to shoot. He blew an OPEN layup. Kobe had Gary on lock, I don't know what happened after. Why did we keep on shooting three's when we clearly kept missing?
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">``That's something we've got to work on. So we're going to hire a couple of sumo wrestlers, we're going to bring them in and let them lean on him and lean on him and we're not going to let him just back them in. Then he's going to have to take 100 jump hooks and 100 turnaround jumpers.''</div> Yo that's hillarious you can just imagine shaq wearing one of those sumo speedos. This isn't gonna help shaq's confidence.
