why is kobe taking so many shots and not doing anything else? (referring to 0 rebs and 0 assists) LOL!!! ok now he gets 2 rebs as i type this is Joe Johnson killing us? (7-9fgs for 20 pts)
Get Odom that Triple - Double please!!! Kobe 33pts (50%fgs) in 30mins and Bynum 18pts (8-14fgs) in 30 mins while hopefully doing enough to sit out the 4th qtr!!!
Great rebound game for us. Kobe was a monster tonight, no surprise. Bynum could still rebound a little better but I'll take this.
Drew needs to man up on the boards. I love the points as much as the next guy, but ultimately, that's not what we need him for. We need him for defense and rebounding, and tonight his effort in those regards was underwhelming. As for Ron Ron, he's still struggling with his shot. But defensively he was nothing short of amazing. Joe Johnson scored 19 points in the 1st quarter with Kobe on him, but when Ron started guarding him he was at 21 points until the 4th quarter and completely flustered. That's something Trevor could not give us. Lock down defense.
I noticed Drew was out of position for boards a lot of the times either due to him just not being in the right spot and also because of him trying to block shots. The ones of him not blocking shots I'll take, but when he can be in position he needs to be there. You also have to take into account the rebounding from Odom (12), Kobe (8), and Artest (7). Either way, he needs to work on his rebounding more but I'll take the scoring. He's been our most consistent scorer outside of Kobe so far in this young season, hopefully Gasol gets back. But Lakers' fans need to face the fact that Bynum is not a natural rebounder. He doesn't have those basic instinct's to rebound, he is more of a scorer. That is what young players also focus on mostly, is scoring. Drew is going to continue to improve if he stays healthy, but his main focal point is always going to be offense.
If not rebounding, id like him to improve on contesting shots (not necessarily blocking them, although 2.5 - 3bpg would be sweet!) at the same time not get called for the foul
I noticed Bynum is a bit of a cherry picker last night. He prefers getting a head start on his defender and running down court for a transition basket instead of going after the rebound. He relies on Odom to secure the boards on the defensive end. Bynum only had one defensive rebound last night. This was the best game Artest had in a Laker uniform. He shutdown Joe Johnson in the second half and also shot the ball better and found his spots on the court. He finished 5-12 from the field, but two of those misses were meaningless 3 point attempts near the end of the game. That Kobe guy had a pretty good game too.
Quotes from last night ... “We picked up our intensity, and it all started with No. 37,” Bryant said of Artest. “He picked up the energy level defensively, and I told him the game was on him. I felt like the energy really changed the whole complexity of the game, and we all kind of rallied behind him.” “I really couldn’t get a good look (in the second half), and Artest wasn’t helping because he was faceguarding me,” Johnson said. “But we just didn’t have great ball movement like we had in the first half. Everybody just started playing kind of one-on-one, and that’s typical of a young team on the road. Everybody thinks they’ve got what it takes to get us back in the game.” “That all goes back to Ron and what he was able to do with turnovers and deflections,” Odom said. “That’s going to be a big part of any success we have.” A lot of props for Ron Ron. LOL at the faceguarding comment.
Yeah Bynum has always been offensively-minded. It was like this last year when he came back at the end of the season. I don't mind, he just doesn't have the perfect chemistry with the rest of the guys, but he'll get there.
