Crucifido’s Corner: Warriors vs. Lakers (Games 20)

Sharing The Wealth, Splitting The Burden

That was another good game - with more signs of what this team could do in the near future (hopefully nearer than most of us thought).

When you see Andrew play like this (sure it was against a predominantly shorter team, but nonetheless, a playoff team) it does give you pause as to exactly what he can accomplish a couple more years down the road.

The best thing about Andrew’s play, or at least the plays around him, was that the team began to look for him in the post a bit. It would’ve been great to see more touches for Andrew. He’s pretty close (as in a year or so) to the point of the ball needing to run through him on a good 2/3 of the half court sets. His passing has improved enough to where several times throughout the game everyone was passing into the post and moving off of his position to either get him a clearer shot, or moving to a spot where he could hit them. Most of the movement was for Andrew to go to work in the post, which isn’t a bad thing.

For a kid who barely played basketball until he got to the pros, he showed a couple moves (in particular the change of direction on Biedrins in the first half of the game that showed some veteran like poise. Though he’s far from being a seasoned vet, having those kinds of moves in your arsenal this early, and especially for a big man, is huge. For the first time in Andrew’s career the Lakers exploited his size in the middle. The alley-oop play from Fisher to Andrew in the 1st quarter is something the Lakers should be looking to use more often. With a lot of teams going fairly small in the middle, that reach that Andrew is quickly learning to use to his benefit should be exploited.

In this game Andrew was really sharp in recognizing open lanes (both passing and driving) and mismatches. Though there’s really nobody on the Warriors that gets close to his height and strength, he saw when he had a smaller man on him and made assertive moves to get to the hoop, rather than try a soft layup or shot from 3 or 4 feet. That assertion is showing some seriously improved strength.

Even stronger were the 5 blocks he put together. That’s nothing but a bonus at this stage of career. If he can average 2 blocks and 3 or 4 changed shots, things will be looking even further up in the middle for the Lakers. His flashing defense up top was on the money as well. O.K., enough Andrew talk.

Meanwhile, Kobe played a remarkable calm and sedate game for the amount of mysterious calls not going his way. The good thing about this one was that when Kobe was getting oddly gypped by the officials, he didn’t lose his cool and let it bring his game down. Instead, Kobe got crisper in his motions. You could see a noted difference in his cuts and off ball movement. To that end, maybe the strange refereeing was a blessing in disguise. Because when that crisp motion came from Kobe the rest of the Lakers followed suit. Whether most know it or not, this team does take on the demeanor of Kobe more often than not, as most teams will do with their leader.

Kobe did a great job of looking for the post as well. There was very little forcing it into the teeth of the defense. Finding the balance more in favor of drive and kicks or using his reputation to clear the post out a bit for Andrew is another huge step forward for Kobe and the Lakers. Again, a lot of it comes with ability to trust his teammates to get the job done consistently. But the first step is Kobe playing more team oriented ball in garbage, crunch and mid-game time, which he did very well.

The co-player of the game for me (aside from Andrew) was Ariza. The guy presents an interesting element to this team. The athletic length Ariza naturally has is something that wasn’t present on this team. Not only that, he knows how to use that wingspan to his advantage. Not but a couple seconds after coming into the game, it was his quick hands and reach that got him a steal and a bucket.

Better yet, Trevor’s presence of mind is on the money for such a young player. He rarely quits on a play or a loose ball. When he did get beat off the dribble, there was a concerted effort to immediately recover by going under the defense or along the baseline from strong to weak to get board position or to make another swipe at defending his man.

Offensively, the guy makes assertive moves to the middle. With or without the ball, he seems to have more of mind to run straight up the paint to get himself more space. For better or worse, there is little hesitation in his game. That is one of his strong points, but it sometimes serves to get him out of control a bit too. He’s more of freewheeling kind of player in a pretty structured system. But if Phil lets the reins go a bit with him (and it looked last night like that happened to some degree) Trevor could make a hard to handle position at the backup small forward.

I don’t know why Lamar waited until the end of the second quarter to start getting into the mix, but the good thing was that he did. He was finally taking open shots that were set or given to him. How many NBA players nowadays do you have to urge to take a shot? It’s a rare affliction, at best, for Odom.

Nevertheless, it was gratifying to see Odom take a low post pass and move hard to the rim. Maybe getting knocked to the floor a time or two will knock some aggression back into Lamar. Defensively he did a decent job in keeping Barnes off the boards and limiting his off ball movement to high post or arc spots.

Fisher was solid, as he has been all year. Moving Kobe over to Baron was obviously the smart move and helped Derek stay in the game a bit longer than he may have otherwise been able to. Shooting wise, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Derek so self-assured in his range. There’s not as much cringing from me when Fisher rears up from that 13 to 15 foot range.

Radmanovic did something particularly well in this one. He was holding his ground on high post defensive really well. There was very little give. Too often Vladi was backpedalling before someone would even fake a jab dribble at him. In this game there was backing down off his spot. Once he got up into someone outside, he stayed up on them. Lateral mobility will always be an issue with Vladi, but for the most part he was played one of the stronger defensive games in his Laker career.

Offensively, he’s been hitting his spots better and better. That’s something the whole team can learn. If you hit your spots this season you’ll more than likely get the ball. It’s when the Lakers go away from their set half court plays that things run amok. When everyone gets to where they should be, Radmanovic especially, good things have come of it.

Jordan was again strong off the bench. Still pushing the ball even ion traffic is getting defenses out of rhythm and letting the Lakers get some shots with the Warriors on their heels.

In the future the Lakers have still got to learn to play their pace. There were little spurts there when you could see the panicked ball handling come back to the Lakers. If they play within their pace and use their offensive sets to slow the pace to where they need it, everyone (big men in particular) will have more stamina and strength to finish games off)

One more thing, long shots against a running team do nothing but play into their game plan. Long shots equal long rebounds and with the way the Lakers are one handing or tapping a majority of hard to reach boards (using two hands is awesome by the way) that’s going to hurt them in the long run.
It was another well-timed game. With Luke hurting a bit and Kwame close to recovery, being able to leave them to rest their injuries was vital. It’s really vital now that the Spurs are coming up. Like them or not, they’re the NBA’s most efficient team and the Lakers need to be sharp.

Part of that sharpness will be being able to play with confidence. Team games like this one feed that confidence to the utmost. The Lakers will need team play and controlled ball handling to make a run against the Spurs. A win isn’t too much to ask, but getting that win will mean that everyone does like they did this game – work together, hit their spots and use that strength in the middle until it gets shut down.

Sound off in our Clublakers.com forums.