Kobe Discussion: shark swimming / #prayforthesharks (664)

Doc Brown wrote:Please be a sign of things to come....

Kamenetzky Brothers ‏@KamBrothers
Happy to hear Kobe talk about cranking up HIS defensive intensity w/the hope it trickles down. To me, that's the #1 key to improved D. AK
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If Kobe starts defending with tenacity consistently again...our perimeter defense would really improve. Because it's not as though he doesn't know how to play defense, he literally just decides not to most of the time and it kills us. I really hope he's committed to doing it every night now

he was solid. oh and by the way if he had a bad game tonight and lakers lost then there were much more posts in this thread . all these haters would ve saying constantly bad things but lakers won so the haters a little cooled off haha

Doc Brown wrote:Please be a sign of things to come....

Kamenetzky Brothers ‏@KamBrothers
Happy to hear Kobe talk about cranking up HIS defensive intensity w/the hope it trickles down. To me, that's the #1 key to improved D. AK
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I hope this is true. His defense today was so much better.

KB24 wrote:Kobe is starting to pile up crappy shooting games...its a signal that his legs are starting to fade.
Whether he makes 15 of 30 shots or not...for the sake of the team and for the sake of our rhythem it would make sense if he would make a bigger effort to get others involved rather than bail them out himself because longterm...this never works in order to win the championship.

The bold is a great observation. It happened last year when we relied on him for such heavy minutes. He's been averaging around 38 minutes since the Brown era; we need to curb that down to 32-33 minutes if we could. Nevertheless, MDA alluded to this by saying the only way Kobe is going to get his minutes reduced is the way it happened tonight; building comfortable leads in the 4th quarter and resting Kobe for long periods and using days off to get his rest. Mitch even alluded to this in an interview recently; we need to manage Kobe's minutes.

Unfortunately, when you're losing and Kobe is the only one giving you production, it's hard taking him out because you try to increase you're chances winning. That's why your poing is key; Kobe getting others involved and using himself as a decoy. Additionally, with Steve handling the ball & initiating the offense, I think that will allievate Kobe and also assist in keeping his legs fresh if we make the playoffs...

Kobe shot the ball well, passed the ball, didn't force too much, I loved his game overall...14 shots, I love it.
Also, he got his rest!

We are a deadly team when Kobe plays like he did tonight. I'm convinced that if Kobe drops down to about 22 ppg we will be tough to beat. Kobe has to decide what's more important: Winning #6 or leading the league in scoring. Can't have it both ways at this stage of his career.

CarolinaLakerFan wrote:We are a deadly team when Kobe plays like he did tonight. I'm convinced that if Kobe drops down to about 22 ppg we will be tough to beat. Kobe has to decide what's more important: Winning #6 or leading the league in scoring. Can't have it both ways at this stage of his career.

I completely agree.

We already won this game after 1st quarter with Kobe having 5 assists and D12 shooting almost perfect.

CarolinaLakerFan wrote:We are a deadly team when Kobe plays like he did tonight. I'm convinced that if Kobe drops down to about 22 ppg we will be tough to beat. Kobe has to decide what's more important: Winning #6 or leading the league in scoring. Can't have it both ways at this stage of his career.

agree 100%. games where hes locking in and focusing on d are games where we look good. he using more energy on d and thus less on shooting and more on setting others up. he had 23 points on 9/14 shooting. if hes facilitating and the team is shooting well then he doesnt need to shoot more. he can choose good shots and shoot efficiently. hope he keeps up the intensity on d and shot selection.

CarolinaLakerFan wrote:We are a deadly team when Kobe plays like he did tonight. I'm convinced that if Kobe drops down to about 22 ppg we will be tough to beat. Kobe has to decide what's more important: Winning #6 or leading the league in scoring. Can't have it both ways at this stage of his career.

Do you seriously think this is a debate that rages in his mind? Do you really think this is a decision that he's making either consciously or subconsciously?

therealdeal wrote:

CarolinaLakerFan wrote:We are a deadly team when Kobe plays like he did tonight. I'm convinced that if Kobe drops down to about 22 ppg we will be tough to beat. Kobe has to decide what's more important: Winning #6 or leading the league in scoring. Can't have it both ways at this stage of his career.

Do you seriously think this is a debate that rages in his mind? Do you really think this is a decision that he's making either consciously or subconsciously?

I hope not, because there's no way the scoring title is Kobe's goal. I'd love to see him be able to play this way all the time too, but we don't play the Cavs every game, and Kobe isn't going to make 11/14 shots every game. 5 other guys aren't going to put up double figures every game, we have needed his scoring a ton this season to even stay in games. Really though I would love to see Kobe focus more on defense first and maybe let Nash worry about the offense, but we shall see, a lot of times Kobe has to score, and he's too old to kill himself on both ends all game

^ I'm with you. I think Kobe needs to focus more defensively and allow Nash to run the show more often. Unfortunately Nash isn't able to run the show as much because teams are usually hyper aggressive against his pick and rolls.

When that happens, he has guys go to certain spots and he just puts the ball there if he can, but our guys haven't gotten that familiar with that yet.

Watching Kobe this game, all I can say is FINALLY!!!!

This is the type of play I've been looking for from him all season. In fact this the best game he's had in some time.

It's not a coincidence that we blew them out tonight. With Kobe focused on D, that inspired his teammates to focus in on D. That is what we've needed for Kobe all season, that type of leadership. It was beautiful to watch. FINALLY!!!

I just hope it's not too late.

We had a sizeable lead otherwise he wouldn't have passed the ball so much and frankly I dont care if he does or not. Like Stu said the game situation and Lakers flow dictates his play if he feels the players are making their shots and good results are coming out of it he'll stick to it, if we're in danger of losing grip of a game he'll try to take over or shoot more if hes having a red hot shooting game. Dwight was turning the ball over like crazy tonight, we had 20 for the game, if it weren't for our defense we wouldn't have won tonight. We had a sizeable lead thanks to Kobe's D and the team's overall D. IF guys are making their shots early instead of turning the ball over or bricking open shots Kobe will continue passing the ball. IT really dictates from game to game iMO and thats a correct approach

^^^^ It never works though so it's still important to maintain a certain balance when the whole team is struggling to shoot the ball ....

Both parties are responsible , Kobe for going into 1 on 5 mode and his teammates for staying passive and passing to Kobe on every possession

unfortunately a lot of the time the team doesnt make their open shots so kobe has to keep shooting instead of setting other people up

Even after all of these years of watching the Lakers and Kobe Bryant and posting on Laker message boards i am *STILL* surprised when i see "fans" complaining about Kobe Bryants amount of shooting.

LET IT GO

Kobe is *never* going to change. Not for you. Not for public acceptance. He only wants to win and his track record of excellence suggest that his method is successful.


He isnt going to play "your way" .

EVER .

Kobe played great D and did facilitate, but it's not like he didn't score or shoot this time, like some people are saying.

Yeah sure, by boxscore it's just 23 points and 14 shots, but that is his usual performance. The only difference is that he had a bigger rest on the 2Q, he unusually rested on the 3Q (foul trouble) and didn't play on the 4Q.

And, by the way, I don't think that's a problem.

I do agree he has to play better D (he did tonight, and props to D'Antoni for putting him as an on-ball defender), but I really have no problems with him scoring, actually, Kobe scoring has been one of the few bright points of this nightmarish season so far.

CarolinaLakerFan wrote:We are a deadly team when Kobe plays like he did tonight. I'm convinced that if Kobe drops down to about 22 ppg we will be tough to beat. Kobe has to decide what's more important: Winning #6 or leading the league in scoring. Can't have it both ways at this stage of his career.

Kobe doesn't care about a scoring title, if he did he would have won it last season by playing his last game but he didn't give a crap. Kobe doesn't care about individual accolades anymore. I don't know why people think that.

Jazzygirl205 wrote:

CarolinaLakerFan wrote:We are a deadly team when Kobe plays like he did tonight. I'm convinced that if Kobe drops down to about 22 ppg we will be tough to beat. Kobe has to decide what's more important: Winning #6 or leading the league in scoring. Can't have it both ways at this stage of his career.

Kobe doesn't care about a scoring title, if he did he would have won it last season by playing his last game but he didn't give a crap. Kobe doesn't care about individual accolades anymore. I don't know why people think that.

because some people don t understand kobe. he didn t many differnt things then he did previous games the difference was guys hit their shots and played d. that s it . it wasn t totally a different game he played . guys just hit their shots to allow kobe be the facilitator and have a solid game-if the guys didn t hit their shots then we would ve been see more of kobe trying something but infact this time guys hit their shots kobe could focused on d espicially halfcourt d which isn t that bad from lakers when you have d12 in the middle. so to say kobe did completely differnt things then the other games is just not right.

CarolinaLakerFan wrote:We are a deadly team when Kobe plays like he did tonight. I'm convinced that if Kobe drops down to about 22 ppg we will be tough to beat. Kobe has to decide what's more important: Winning #6 or leading the league in scoring. Can't have it both ways at this stage of his career.

That depends upon how he's getting 22 ppg. If Morris and Jamison are scoring 16 and 14 points a night and Kobe doesn't have to play in the 4th quarter like he did last night, then you have a point. Kobe scored 23 points in 28 minutes last night. He's averaging 38 minutes this season, hence 30ppg.

Kobe had only 1 assist after the 1st Q. Funny people thought he passed the ball alot

So crazy how he's perceived based on how we win/lose he isn't playing any differently now than he ever did (this year or last year especially)...its simple he'll keep dishing the ball if guys are making their open shots and try to facilitate and move the ball around.

Magic Skywalker wrote:Kobe played great D and did facilitate, but it's not like he didn't score or shoot this time, like some people are saying.

Yeah sure, by boxscore it's just 23 points and 14 shots, but that is his usual performance. The only difference is that he had a bigger rest on the 2Q, he unusually rested on the 3Q (foul trouble) and didn't play on the 4Q.

Great point, a lot of people seem to be missing that.

If he had played the fourth or even the rest of the third like he usually does, then he ends up probably with 30 points on 18-20 shots or something like that.

The Rock wrote:Kobe had only 1 assist after the 1st Q. Funny people thought he passed the ball alot

So crazy how he's perceived based on how we win/lose he isn't playing any differently now than he ever did (this year or last year especially)...its simple he'll keep dishing the ball if guys are making their open shots and try to facilitate and move the ball around.

totally agree