After that successful road trip I about half expected a.let down. We were not sharp and still almost won.. Against a team playing very well.
With IT and KCP screwing up at the end (and IT not hot all game) and missing Clarkson, Nance, BI, Brewer and Hart. Not too shabby considering how many of our regular players (for the better part of the season) we were down.
he had a really strong first half last night. i went to bed early in the third quarter, and the wheels must have fallen off (judging by the box score). did orl do something different defensively? i thought he was dominating the game on both ends before i checked out.
he was actually missing quite a few shots in the first half, slow start. he had like 13 points in the 3rd and was a real spark to keeping us afloat then. 4th quarter he was making some nice passes that was getting us some easy looks, then IT happened the last 4 minutes of the game and our offense stagnated again. while IT has the ability for ISO, this team works so much better with Zo or Ingram initiating the offense.
He's like a mini Randle right now with his handle often trying stuff that is hard and the level of handle only so so for that move. Randle's been doing better but you still get them. IT just isn't where he was at his peak and is forcing in the games to get there. Do that in practice.
Incredible effort! Last night I stood up and started clapping myself after this play. Then he owns up to the bad pass too.
Yeah that was one of 3 or 4 pretty spectacular plays he made on defense. Physically impressive plays. Guy has reflexes and hands like the great defenders.
He had like 2-3 clean blocks/steals called fouls yesterday. They were clearly not fouls after the replay. I know it'll slow down the game a bit, but they really need a challenge system in place. It would be stupid to have a player foul out because he didn't touch him.
Not for us they haven't. He will start getting a rep for it, and those bogus foul calls he got last night, will be blocks.
in fairness, he's a bad on-ball defender versus penetrating guards. gets left in the dust pretty easily. HOWEVA...this isn't the early 90s nba, so i'm not sure that skill is as useful as it once was--so rare that any team isos a pg for the time it takes to generate a good look. he's a fantastic team defender and is surprisingly good when folks try to post him. he should be a plus-defender for years. as he gets stronger, the lakers will be able to move him around like kidd's teams did. good things.
