Real Deal

Hey, guess who closed out the game? The lone superstar on the Thunder.

When we have the offense ready to go, I agree. When we're losing to the 1-3 Utah Jazz by ten points, and we keep turning the ball over because we have no idea what we're doing in the Princeton, we have to do what it takes to win. I'll put it this way: if we ran through the Princeton for most of the game against Detroit, we would have lost...or at least had a close game. Brown actually came out and said we had to win it...and what happened? Kobe and Dwight did their own thing, and before we knew it, we were up by 36. I realize these guys aren't the Kobe and Shaq duo of the 2000's, because those two ditched the triangle whenever the team was down (and Phil barked about this plenty in interviews, even though we won most of those games), but Kobe and Howard are incredibly tough to defend one-on-one. In the Princeton, we can't have that luxury, right now, because we aren't comfortable in the offense. Once we learn the offense, we start seeing less turnovers...then, I see no reason to ditch it when we're down 5-10 points or more. But until we see results (maintaining leads, and not seeing big deficits against average-to-bad teams), I see no reason to try and glue ourselves to an offense while having to claw back from a deficit we can overcome strictly on talent alone.

I'm not against the Princeton, for the record. I saw Adelman's Kings nearly get to the Finals with it, so as long as we have the capable passers and high IQ players, we can run it. My biggest problem is what I bolded...it's what Mike Brown isn't doing to win those games. If we're down 5+ points, we need to ditch the offense completely, and go strict P&R and ISO's. Once we build a decent lead, go back to running the Princeton. He's not doing that, though. We can't have a horrible month, have our players worn out from playing far too long, risking more injuries, then come out of the conference losing HCA to OKC, Miami, and possibly other teams. We can't afford it. We have to go out and make sure we win games, and in the process, learn a little bit of the Princeton...not try and run it with our entire bench on the floor, or giving it a go while we're down by double-digits. As someone who has coached before (and an assistant in high school), I would never do that...and I realize it's the NBA, but the idea is still bad.

If Lakers fans are basing it all on just wins and losses, then they have no room to gripe, because they didn't see that Heat team from 2010 (who started out 9-8, or something, before running off a 30-1 record...may not the exact numbers, but it was near that). I'm just simply pointing out what Brown is doing wrong...and there are a lot of things. Eddie Jordan is doing more talking during timeouts (like we saw with Kuester in Cleveland), Brown's rotations are horrific, he's declining to play a player that was brought in to give Kobe rest, and he and Jordan are pushing the Lakers to stick with running the Princeton no matter what the score is, and that's incredibly ignorant. Lakers fans know it's championship or bust. That's all we care about. Getting to the WCF's isn't enough. Kobe is near retirement, and we need one ring to catch up to Boston...that's all that runs through our heads. They may be high expectations, and I hope nobody expected us to go undefeated in the preseason and up to this point, but we are losing games because of fatigue and the offense being shoved down our throats, and the majority of that is on Brown and Jordan.

Oh please God, tell me that Jeb Bush is as intelligent and likable as his great brother. http://mappingthemystery.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/buddy-jesus.jpg

This was hilarious to me. Top rebounders in this game... Davis - 6 Williams - 6 Moore - 5 Nicholson - 5 Harkless - 5 Kirilenko - 5 Ridnour - 5 Roy - 5 Pekovic - 5 Stiemsma - 5 Shved - 4 Cunningham - 4 Vucevic - 4 McRoberts - 4 Ayon - 4 The race to six rebounds.

When we focus defensively, we lose it back on offense, because our guys are getting way too tired. Vice-versa when we try to run our offense like we do, everyone moving constantly, Brown not pulling starters when he should. I'll dive into the game from last night, specifically that game. We set out to dominate the Jazz defensively. We shot under 34% back on offense, and a pathetic 4-23 from the three. Also had 18 or 19 turnovers. We did hold Utah to under 45% shooting (near their season average), under their season average of 97 PPG, well under their 3PT average...and, well, he still didn't get it done because two things happened: 1) We ran the Princeton far too much 2) We played our starters far too much together, and overall bad rotations Kobe - 37:17 Artest - 37:12 Howard - 37:01 Gasol - 36:23 Blake - 36:04 ------------------ Hill - 22:36 Jamison - 13:48 Morris - 11:56 Ebanks - 7:43 Meeks - DNP Clark - DNP Duhon - DNP Sacre - DNP Just...no.

My guess as well. I think Ryan is going to be the one guy they look at first, for these next four...but Christie will come out and say he's good to go, and that's going to be huge. Funny enough, Clinton and Christie are the two that keep saying they aren't going to run, but I just don't see why they wouldn't now. Hard for me to imagine ANY of the other candidates beating Hillary, by the way. The combo of Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton, helping you campaign...damn. Christie might be the only one capable of it, but I'm not even sure of that.

It's a long time away, but who do you think? I'm sure I left out many who will be considered, but I only have ten choices, and I'm posting this in a hurry, lol.

The only blame I can lay on the players would be for their turnovers, but that's due to the new offense. I don't know how many times I've seen us throw passes to players that run the other direction, or that decide to post instead of cut. But a lot of times, those passes aren't igniting fast breaks. They go out of bounds, or end up in the frontcourt, and LA gets back on the defensive end.

The Princeton can be perfect, once we learn it. Unfortunately, Nash is out...yet, we're still 7th, so I'm fine with that. The 2005 Cavaliers (with Silas) were ranked 12th, defensively. Brown took over the following year, and they were 14th. Varejao became a defensive monster, one of the most underrated in the league for years, and they rose to 4th and went to the Finals. He missed half a season the next year, and they fell back down to the middle of the league in defense. Phil's Lakers were ranked higher, defensively in 2008, 2009 and 2010...than Brown's Lakers in 2011 (last season). That's Phil Jackson, the same guy who said the best defense is a great offense. Mastermind of the triangle, incredible ego-manager, not a great defensive coach. Mike Brown is not Larry Brown. He's not Thibodeau. What has happened is simple: Brown is losing his players. He isn't teaching the offense (Eddie Jordan is), he's not teaching defense, and he's wanting them to play 36+ minutes a night, even against piss-poor teams like Utah, and he started to panic after an 0-8 preseason that was very similar to our winless record in 2009-2010 (when we won it all). He panicked when we lost a 32-point lead, down to 24 points, and asked all starters to come back into the game. He ASKS if players want to go back into the game (this is according to a sideline reporter and Mike Breen). All you're doing is telling me it's the players. Brown isn't coaching this team like a solid coach would. He's intimidated, he has no idea how to run an offense, and furthermore, he is clueless about our bench. If he would play Jamison at the four, bring in Meeks and play him (he's our best shooter, aside from Nash, and he hasn't played in the last two games at all), and adjusted lineups so our second unit had stability from at least a couple of our starters, we would be fine...instead of panicking and playing our starting five together for most of the game. You're right in saying he shouldn't be losing games with a team like this. That's the point. Are you saying that coaches can't be the main source of chemistry issues? If this team wanted to play to win, instead of run what Brown tells them to, it wouldn't be this way. They completely broke character in the Detroit game, and they were up by nearly 40 points. We are 5th in FG%, 4th in rebounding, 1st in free throw attempts, 7th in points, 8th in steals...and yet, we are 25th back on total defense. I'm trying to figure out where effort comes into play. A team with defensively-talented players doesn't play as hard as they can on offense, then take off the entire night defensively. http://hardwoodparoxysm.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/mikeborwnwhat_1.gif http://i.imgur.com/lzsH3.gif This is all he does on the sidelines, dude. All of this is why almost every Laker fan out there is calling for his head.

Funny. http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/522948_10151307896974880_611304249_n.png

Was there a difference between Mike D'Antoni and Mike Woodson? Last year's team was far different, and it kept most of its defensive schemes from 2010-11, possibly because of Andrew Bynum, to adjust to his inability to recover quickly. We had Kobe and Ron roaming all over the place, and it took a lot out of them every single game, and you could see it by 40 games in. Kobe's offense took a hit, and I don't have to tell you about Ron...at one point, all he was doing was spotting up and jogging back down the court (his injury played a part in that as well, but once he was healthy, he was doing the same exact thing). Nash and Fisher are both bad defensive players. Fisher wasn't THAT bad a few years ago, but before he was dealt, he was horrible. Gasol is still Gasol. Instead of Josh McRoberts and Troy Murphy, we have Antawn Jamison off the bench...and none of them play defense, especially Murphy. The effort is there, also. The Lakers are trying to win games, especially on defense. It's just that it's not working, and our players are sending their assignments to inactive sides of the basket, the pick and roll defense is as bad as it has ever been (even with Howard), and Brown's rotations are absolutely killing us. In fact, most of that is on Brown's rotations. How do you play a five-man roster without Kobe, Dwight, Artest, or even Gasol? At least Gasol has length to contest shots. Robert Sacre should be in a suit. Darius Morris should be in a suit. Jamison should NEVER play the three. Jodie Meeks should be playing. In addition to that, all five of our starters (four veterans, and one superstar recovering from a back surgery) played 36+ minutes last night...against the Utah Jazz. Last season, Kobe averaged 39 MPG, up from the 34 MPG the previous year, after saying that he needed the rest. All things point to Brown. If we raked in someone like Jerry Sloan, who would run P&R more, know how to rest starters, and know exactly who should be coming off the bench and in what positions...we wouldn't be 1-4. Not a chance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKo1Y2UDrcU He destroys Jim Buss and Mike Brown. Noticed he was wrong about the offensive and defensive rankings (maybe he didn't have the new numbers, or he wasn't using ORtg and DRtg, per 100 possessions).

http://i.imgur.com/17Zf0.gif

Kobe was shooting 60+ percent before last night's game against Utah, didn't have a single bad game, yet we were 1-3. In fact, our offense is ranked 7th right now. Our defense? It's 25th. Guess who is backing up Kobe as the two-guard? Ron Artest, who is starting at the three. Jodie Meeks isn't playing, for some reason. Jamison is seeing a ton of minutes as the backup SF, where he's getting roasted on the defensive end. Brown actually went with a lineup of Sacre, Hill, Jamison, Ebanks and Morris the other night, start of the fourth quarter. No starters, three D-Leaguers...and when the Pistons went on an 8-0 run and cut the lead to 24 points...Brown panicked and put all of the starters back in. All of last year, Steve Blake was playing a lot of SG. Brown is horrible. Give him a team with one dominant superstar, and he will ask John Kuester to call ISO's all night long, and rely on their athletic ability to play defense. Give him a team with four star players (two superstars, one franchise player, one all-star), that's up there in age, and he has no idea what rotations to send out, how to funnel players to Dwight, and how long he should play our starters before pulling them out of the game.

Going to be honest here...I'm starting to realize why LeBron James shoulder-blocked Mike Brown back in Cleveland, as he was walking back to the bench. http://cjzero.com/gifs/KobeStaresBrown.gif Thing is, this is LA. Starting 1-4 with a Lakers team that should be dominant means you're suddenly on the NBA coaching levels of Mike Montgomery and John Calipari.

Mike Brown is pathetic.

Come to Kansas, and your mind will be blown. There are a lot of blacks here that vote against him, also. To say that rednecks aren't as motivated...lol, where are you basing this out of? Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas...people believe that voting = saving the country from a terrorist trying to eliminate the word of God from existence. I live about three minutes from the state of Oklahoma, and I drive 40 minutes into it quite a bit, and around election time, in both states (Kansas and Okla), you would think everyone was receiving $500 per sign stuck in their yard, or money for every bumper sticker. What I remember is a lot of Republicans talking about how this was going to be a lock for Romney, that he had a big chance, because of new Voter ID laws being enforced...and when the election was approaching, talk was that New York and New Jersey would have less voters, because of Hurricane Sandy. Still didn't matter. I'm actually kind of shocked that you aren't putting Romney on blast. A lot of Republicans are doing that over here. Serious question...looking back, would you have selected another Republican candidate to run against Obama? I doubt any of them were going to beat Obama, but Romney sure didn't help himself on his way to a big loss.

Maybe he plans on telling the Mavericks when and where they will retire his jersey, what area they will hang it up in, how high it will be from the floor, and the EXACT PLAY THAT THE RAPTORS WILL RUN AT THE END OF THE GAME TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!11111

Definitely going to use that list for a Facebook post.

Don't bother doing that. I'll rip about 500 Kansas quotes off of my Facebook from today and tonight, if we want to go that route. Try this one, that a 42-year old crazy woman posted from my town: Rep supporters are sure great?

ECN, you were asking Dems why they were so mad after that first debate. Do you expect us to ask you that tonight? You seem like you're pissed off...not me bragging or talking shit, I'm just reflecting light on the situation.

Well, at least you have one thing going for you: Lowry as your starting PG, defending Westbrook, versus Calderon doing it. Don't forget about K-Mart, though. Last game, he had it pretty easy out there, dropped 28 shooting 8-11 (which is crazy efficient for any guard, but especially him). The way the Thunder are trying to work him into the offense, it wouldn't shock me if he put out another 15-20 on good shooting, but again, Westbrook is the anti-team right now. If he was a superstar, it would be a bit more acceptable, but the basketball belongs to Durant, and like you said, it's only a matter of time before he just comes out and tells him that.

Is Andy still the coach today?