Lakers on the Ropes after 93-81 loss to Mavs
I wonder how often in the last three years the Lakers have scored a mere 81 points. How about 13 points in a quarter?
The LA Times writers took it real hard. Bill Plaschke asked “You want a scapegoat?… Gasol is, sadly, your man.” Bill, I don’t want a scapegoat. And the “reasons” the Lakers lost and looked bad doing it are several. Everyone is responsible, including Mitch Kupchak and Phil Jackson.
Bite on this: The Lakers don’t have a backup center. Theo Ratliff, acquired to back up Bynum, has missed virtually the entire season with injury and is not only a bit undersized anyway at 6’10” and 235 pounds, but he’s 38. C’mon. A team with 3-peat aspirations has to do better than that. The Lakers knew early on that they wouldn’t have Ratliff for most of the season, at least. They did nothing.
Asking Pau to move over every time Bynum sits down is ridiculous. It “worked” in 2009 and 2010 because the Lakers had the best team, and they were going to win no matter what. But even winning can’t obscure a bad idea. And it’s time has come.
Get it through your heads, Jerry, Mitch, Phil and Kobe: Pau is a special kind of power forward–a finesse player of the first rank, a shooter and a passer who can post up or face the basket. He is not a banger, okay? Because he’s smart and talented and 7-feet tall, he can get rebounds, but banging is the antithesis of his game. Asking him to play center is ridiculous. That would be like asking Kobe to play center. He could probably pull it off, being great and all, but that move is simply a desperate act.
The Lakers need a big guy who can come in for Bynum and be a center, i.e., a rebounder and a defender. That isn’t Pau. Don’t ask him to be something he’s not. Rather, fit what he can offer into the offense. Jerry Buss has OK’d the biggest payroll in the NBA and he hasn’t had a backup center all year. What makes it even worse, that kind of guy is a dime a dozen.
I hear D.J. Mbenga is available.
Scapegoating is always a bad idea. For starters, Pau didn’t have that bad a game. He was 5-12 from the field and 3-6 from the line for 13 points, with 10 rebounds. A double-double, may I point out. Sure, he had an off day. Call it a bad day. But it didn’t rise to Scapegoat Justification. He just didn’t do what Plaschke and the rest of Lakerville wanted him to do, which was to kick ass and take names. Like I said, that ain’t Pau. If Mitch Kupchak and Phil Jackson want an enforcer, they should go get one.
The team shot poorly, 41% from the field, exactly the same as Pau, by the way, Artest was 4-10, right on 40%. Odom was 3-12, Steve Blake 0-5. Barnes 0-2. Shannon Brown was 2-3. The two big shooters were Kobe (9-20) and Bynum (8-11).
The Lakers shot 10% (2-20) on 3-pointers. Or should I say they missed 18-of-20 3-pointers. Blake’s five misses were all 3-point shots.
In re Kobe, he didn’t get a single rebound in 38 minutes, which is odd. For example, every single Maverick had at least one rebound. And he had only three assists. He also missed a few shots in the 4th quarter.
Bynum looked as dominant as ever (18 points, 13 rebounds, seven offensive) but he didn’t get many touches, and thus couldn’t do enough damage. Chandler did a nice job on him in Game One but Bynum just wouldn’t be denied last night. The Lakers needed him to shoot more than 11 times. Phil, wake up.
Did you happen to notice that it was a war out there? Everyone was banging everyone else and the refs were “letting them play,” usually a mistake. Stuff tends to escalate without restraint and then kablooey. Didn’t happen in the first two games, but don’t think the Mavs are going to forgive and forget Ron Artest (suspended for a game) for smacking J.J. Barea in the face with his hand (not the forearm, as Mike Bresnahan reported in the Times). Nor was it widely reported that Artest simultaneously kneed Lamar Odom in the cojones. Loose cannon? Oh yeah.
Hard to comment on Dirk Nowitzki’s game. He looks like he was created in a lab. His father, a mad scientist played by Klaus Kinski, created The Perfect Basketball Player. Mentally and physically. He’s finally getting his due on a national stage.
Kidd plays like a kid. Right down to being erratic, making terrible plays, followed by brilliant ones. Shawn Marian looked five years younger last night. And Barea is terrific as Kidd’s backup. His drives to the hoop made the Lakers look like they were standing around. Because they were.
One thing to understand about the Lakers: Despite the subpar play that has brought them to the precipice—down 2-0 in games and now going to Dallas—and despite how bad they’ve looked, they are still capable of tearing off four straight wins and running the table to their third straight NBA title. If you thought for a minute that they are not capable of that, then you’ve underestimated them, you don’t get the Lakers at all.