Seriously! Kobe freakin choked in crunch time! 1st early in the 4th qtr he was playing 1 on 1 ball with lebron... and what does he do??? shoot f*in jumpers that turned into bricks! Thats why whenever ANYONE plays one on one... NO LONG RANGE SHOTS are allowed! Lebron shoots over him with 20 secs to go to give the cavs the lead. Bryant gets fould and has a chance to tie the game... and what does he do??? Brick some more shots!!! Luke steals the ball and outlets to kobe for a layup... what does he do??? misses it, ok so it was in traffic i get it.. but he got the rebound... and what happens??? Freak*n daniel gibson steals it from him!!! We were winning the game til THESE ERRORS BY OUR SAVIOR (btw kobe;s my idol... so this isnt a hate thread) were committed. So dont balme walton! if it werent for Kobe's MENTAL LAPSES then Walton wouldnt even be in that situation. Oh and btw: - 6-6 in the 1st half... 4 - 15 in the 2nd half WTF? Lebron was way under 50% in the 1st half and he ended up with 16 - 32FG's - erm... 13 - 18 FTS's??? WF mamba? Hate to say it but i wanna skip the regular season and enter the playoffs as a 7th seed with Bynum against the Suns. Lakers are damned if they lose against NYK, and their in for another losing streak when they go up against Detroit, toronto (raptors are on fiyah!) and washington.
I can see where you're coming from, but with how it ended, how can you NOT blame it on Luke? Kobe got him a good look at the end and he didn't even take it. Because of Walton, the Lakers never even had a chance to tie the game because he DIDN'T EVEN SHOOT THE BALL. Kobe may have not been great in the 2nd half, but he wasn't the idiot that forgot to shoot the ball, so I honestly don't see how it was his fault we lost.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Moo2K4 @ Jan 28 2008, 11:49 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I can see where you're coming from, but with how it ended, how can you NOT blame it on Luke? Kobe got him a good look at the end and he didn't even take it. Because of Walton, the Lakers never even had a chance to tie the game because he DIDN'T EVEN SHOOT THE BALL. Kobe may have not been great in the 2nd half, but he wasn't the idiot that forgot to shoot the ball, so I honestly don't see how it was his fault we lost.</div> yea walton is ALSO at fault... but look... if kobe played "smart" ball then he wouldt have jacked up those bricks in front of Lebron and instead looked to ADD to his assits which have not changed since the 1st half! Bottom line, if kobe didnt go cold walton wouldnt even need to shoot the ball for a game tying 3 What more embarassing is that we lost to the cavs who didnt have varejao and ilgauskas for most of the 4th qtr
I absolutely agree! I like Kobe and he is the best player in the NBA but all the crazy good things he does get trampled by the small stupid things he does. And I mean STUPID... no other word for it because we all know the guy can play and is a winner. There was no need to go into to the corner and keep pounding the ball into the ground and throw up a brick! I think Kobe has a killer instinct (which is good) but sometimes this instinct just takes over him and he gets tunnel vision. You could kind of see Kobe come undone when he started playing one-on-one with LBJ. I think what Kobe lacks is this sense of timing that MJ had. For some reason MJ could not go wrong in the clutch, weather it was a dagger shot or a pass to a teammate (Kobe does make his teammates better just not at the right times). Anyways back to work.... GO LAKERS!!!
So...I'm not sure if you guys realize this, but Kobe only shot 6 FREAKING SHOTS in the fourth. And oh by the way, he wasn't the one jacking up shots in crunch time. The Lakers were up 7 with about 7:37 to go. At that point, Kobe took three shots and made one, now his FT shooting was off (1/3), but so was everyone elses. Turiaf and Walton each split a pair down that stretch, Farmar turned it over twice and Odom missed a layup. That's just in the last 7:37. Before that, Kwame had also missed a pair of FTs while Kobe hit 6/6 from the line to begin the quarter. So quite frankly, while Kobe wasn't good down the stretch, no one was. The Lakers missed a ton of FTs in the quarter, had too many TOs, and couldn't capitalize off the miscues of the Cavs. The team lost the game, not just Kobe.
Oh my God, this is turning into LG and you're C.B.C. Blame the loss on Kobe? Without Kobe this team is the worst team in the league. There is nothing to blame Kobe on. Without Kobe in the lineup, the team sucks horse cock. The offense is dreadful. Don't you remember the 4 or so minute spurt in the 2nd quarter that Kobe got some rest? The Lakers didn't score. What about when Phil benched Kobe in the 4th for about 2 minutes? The Lakers didn't score. LeBron shooting over Kobe with 20 seconds was just luck and a good shot. He was fading away 20 feet from the rim, you can't play defense any better on that possession than Kobe did. I'll give LeBron that shot all day because as he proved even more yesterday, his jumper is usually iffy. I guess you're not allowed to miss jumpers in this league? Everytime Kobe drove to the hoop, he was hacked to death. When LeBron and Kobe were going at it, LeBron's teammates didn't stand around and watch, either. THey set screens to get Kobe off of LeBron, and that's when LeBron capitalized. When Kobe had the ball, his teammates stood their and watched. Often times when he tried to drive, he was doubled, but nobody moved. If his incompetent teammates could move without the basketball in the clutch instead of depending on Kobe to bail them out, we would have won that game. Kobe gets no blame for this loss. When he shoots too much, he gets blame...when he shoots too little, "he's trying to prove a point." The guy can't win...simply put.
Couldn't have said it better myself Mamba. I don't see why everyone is making a big deal about this right now. Kobe can't be expected to be perfect all the time, it's just not feasible. Why can't you cut him some slack. He's basically trying to keep this team afloat by himself right now since no one else can consistently produce for themselves. And you know, if you take Kobe out of the game anymore, nothing happens. The players on this team rely too much on Kobe. They rely on him to get them the ball in the right spot and rely on him to get them open looks. If Kobe isn't on this team, they are NOTHING. Period. End of argument. No Kobe = worst team in the NBA by a long shot in my opinion. You have to get over and take the good with the bad and get over it. Who cares if Kobe makes some mistakes down the stretch. Honestly, there's no one else on this team I want shooting the ball in the 4th over Kobe, not with Bynum being out. Hell, the only other person on this team I really trust to have the ball in the clutch is Fisher, and without Kobe, I don't think he'd be having the success he's had.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Black Mamba @ Jan 28 2008, 06:41 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Oh my God, this is turning into LG and you're C.B.C. Blame the loss on Kobe? Without Kobe this team is the worst team in the league. There is nothing to blame Kobe on. Without Kobe in the lineup, the team sucks horse cock. The offense is dreadful. Don't you remember the 4 or so minute spurt in the 2nd quarter that Kobe got some rest? The Lakers didn't score. What about when Phil benched Kobe in the 4th for about 2 minutes? The Lakers didn't score. LeBron shooting over Kobe with 20 seconds was just luck and a good shot. He was fading away 20 feet from the rim, you can't play defense any better on that possession than Kobe did. I'll give LeBron that shot all day because as he proved even more yesterday, his jumper is usually iffy. I guess you're not allowed to miss jumpers in this league? Everytime Kobe drove to the hoop, he was hacked to death. When LeBron and Kobe were going at it, LeBron's teammates didn't stand around and watch, either. THey set screens to get Kobe off of LeBron, and that's when LeBron capitalized. When Kobe had the ball, his teammates stood their and watched. Often times when he tried to drive, he was doubled, but nobody moved. If his incompetent teammates could move without the basketball in the clutch instead of depending on Kobe to bail them out, we would have won that game. Kobe gets no blame for this loss. When he shoots too much, he gets blame...when he shoots too little, "he's trying to prove a point." The guy can't win...simply put.</div> Blame one loss... not the whole season... just ONE
Apparently you also missed the part where it was mentioned that in the time Kobe spends on the bench, no one scores. And you whine about Kobe launching jumpers, well maybe his teammates should move around on offense and get open or get him open for a better look. Instead, they just stand there and watch him play isolation basketball.
To be fair there was a stretch in the game when Kobe did get caught up with a one-one-on showdown with LeBron and took some ill advised shots. However, those misses didn't cost us the game. Kobe also missed two free throws in crunch time, but those were nullified by LeBron also missing two free throws. Kobe has been unbelievable this season in his ability to read the defense and adjust his game accordingly. If he gets double teamed it's really up to his teammates to move around get open for Kobe to get them the ball. If teams are going to gamble and use one on one coverage against him then Kobe is going to get uber aggressive with the basketball and look for his shot. The Cavs stuck LeBron on Kobe down the stretch, but had two players shadow him. Throughout the game everytime LeBron was on Kobe you saw Kobe go right at him to put pressure on LeBron. If LeBron gets whistled for a foul during that stretch of the game it would have been his 5th foul and Cavs would be in serious trouble. There's enough blame to go around for sure, but I don't think you can put much emphasis on a few minutes of the game when Kobe was taking those jumpers. If you get a chance to watch the replay look at his teammates on those possessions. No one was moving around and Odom kept bringing his defender right into Kobe and just stood there which forced a double team. On the final play Luke made half-ass attempt to set a screen on Kobe's man and Kobe was forced to pass it out of a double team. We now what happened after that.
Kobe23 here's a post game comment from Larry Hughes "Nobody wanted to shoot it," guard Larry Hughes said. Even our opponents can see right through this team. PJax pointed it out with his post game comments. Our offense isn't even the issue right now. We can score 100 points on anyone, it's our defense that is struggling. The Lakers don't have Bynum back there to challenge shots and vacuum up every rebound. The Lakers aren't getting any stops when they need them to close a team out or play catchup.
