NBA Playoffs 09 - Page 123

On May 27 2009 07:56 il0seonpurpose wrote:
But why are they fatigued while Denver is not? I don't get it; all teams play 82 games and the playoff schedules are identical. Is it because the Lakers had to play 7 games against the Rockets?

The only person that should be tired is Kobe but he didn't seem like it; he kept trying to pull a comeback but it wasn't enough. And why didn't coach Jackson put in Kobe and Gasol earlier in the 4th? He put them in with like 6 minutes left.


Go Cavs! I watched some ESPN today and man, Cleveland is just plagued; they treat Lebron like Jesus over there

On May 27 2009 08:16 Hot_Bid wrote:
i actually think the officiating has been pretty fair in the cleveland / orlando series. for all the conspiracy theorists thinking the NBA wants to push lebron finals, the refs almost handed orlando game 2 (orlando was up 1-0 in cleveland, so if the conspiracy was true the refs would be heavily favoring cleveland). late in game 2, the refs called two offensive fouls on lebron and one traveling violation, which allowed orlando to take the lead. lebron had to hit a ridiculous 1 second left 3pointer to win, how can you possibly say the referees were biased for him? the series was 99% over if lebron doesn't hit that miracle shot.

On May 27 2009 06:17 XaI)CyRiC wrote:


Okay, that clears up your point a bit. Basically, the Lakers are tired, but it takes more than being tired to be dominated in the hustle parts of the game like the Lakers were last night. I can definitely agree with that.

However, I don't think this was one of those games where the Lakers weren't trying or weren't battling. They may have had some letups here and there, but so did the Nuggets. I think both teams were trying their best, but the Nuggets just played better. They were smarter about attacking the basket, as opposed to settling for jumpers. They were smarter about playing to their strengths/advantages by using Melo, Billups and J.R.'s driving ability to get easy buckets in the paint and force Gasol to contest shots and be out of position to rebound (and, really, if Gasol is out of the picture, the rest of the Lakers have not rebounded very well at all). They shot better from the FT line, to take advantage of their ability to draw fouls. They turned the ball over less. These are all factors that went into the Nuggets winning, but didn't have anything to do with the Lakers not trying or putting forth their best effort.

There's a difference between trying your best and playing your best. In my opinion, the Lakers' loss last night is more attributable to a lack of the latter moreso than the former. I will admit though that your point about the domination in rebounding is a strong one, and is a pointed example of Odom and Bynum's inability and/or unwillingness to box out, play defense, and rebound the ball as they should be. I don't think we can ignore Odom's injury from the HOU series and the lack of time he has had to recover (hasn't missed a single game) or all the games Bynum missed during the regular season and his continuing struggles to get used to wearing a knee brace, but at some point they have to just grit their teeth and do what their team needs them to do.

On May 27 2009 08:49 Xeris wrote:
I really don't think they've been trying their best. The amount of loose balls and rebounds that they let Denver just take doesn't equate to trying your best, and it's not fatigue. They PLAYED BADLY as well, but also they didn't try their hardest.

If they had really tried their hardest I think the game would have been more competitive. It says a lot about the skill of the Lakers though, think about this:

each quarter (except for the 4th) was fairly competitive, the Lakers were outscored by about 3-4 in each of the quarters... that's actually not too bad if you think about it. Sure it added up to ~10 point deficit to start the 4th. considering how badly the Lakers played and how many loose balls and offensive rebounds they gave up, to only get outscore by 3-4 per quarter is sort of encouraging (if you can even say that)... i truly believe that as long as they get even a smidgen more out of the role players and just play defense with a little more intensity, the Lakers should be blowing Denver out of the water.

the Lakers are playing horribly and somehow won 2 games, and barely lost 1, etc. the big problem though is that for whatever reason it doesn't look like any of the role players are going to wake up. luckily they have homecourt advantage. the scary notion is that if Clevland wins, they won't have homecourt, which they desperately need.

On May 27 2009 09:18 XaI)CyRiC wrote:


Yeah, I guess it's hard to tell for sure whether they're trying their best, but I think we can at least agree that they weren't mailing it in to the degree that we saw in the Houston series, which isn't really something that's worth celebrating since no quality team should ever do that.

It is interesting that Denver was still unable to really break open a big lead throughout the game, despite the Lakers playing horribly and losing the rebound war so badly, but I guess that can be explained to some degree by Melo's struggles. Still, I agree that it's promising that they had a shot to win the game up until the final minutes, despite the fact that the only two players playing reasonably well were Kobe and Gasol.

I think Lakers fans just have to pray that some of the role players step up and start playing something close to how they were playing in the first half of the year. I still think they're a better team overall, but they have to play to their potential to get past a Nuggets team that is playing very well.