Kobe's death stare to Mike Brown

[The Regime]

Mike Brown is the most incompetent offensive coach in the league. He constantly overplays the starters, his rotations are [expletive]ed up, and he doesn't utilize the bench to their potential (Meeks and Sacre should both be getting more playing time). The Princeton offense is a train-wreck. The pace is too slow, guys are out of position, and quite frankly the team isn't buying into the system. The man is supposed to be a defensive mastermind, but that hasn't showed as the Lakers rank near the bottom in most significant categories. The windows closing on him, despite the vote of confidence from Jim Buss. With the way things are transpiring I give it a month tops.

[Real Deal]

My point is that Spo did a lot of things wrong early on as well, and also did things right that looked wrong, but as the team developed they turned out to be smart decisions. The Princeton offense could turn out to be a good thing...it's not much different than the triangle, but as you know that takes a while to develop. With Nash I question it's effectiveness, but with him out it can definitely make this team dangerous, and when he comes back they will have a system which they can fit Steve into, along with occasionally breaking it off for Nash/Howard PnR's and Kobe/Howard iso's. But in order to get to the point where they have an effective, fluid offense there will be some bad growing pains. It will be worth the slow start if it starts to really kick into geat around January, and then be well-oiled for the playoffs.

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.

[Nitro]

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.

 

Ditching any offense for iso's is not a smart decision in clutch time. Miami did that for 1.5 years with the Big 3 and it cost them countless big leads and close losses. Relying on a 17 year veteran to beat tough defenses in pressure situations via iso's is a recipe for failure. It freezes out teammates and is easy pickings for a good defense. With all the versatile weapons the Lakers have in their starting 5 they should never have to resort to iso ball with any type of consistency.

 

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.

 

I believe that properly developing in the regular season is more important than record. Unless they are playing Miami, who they had little shot at beating record-wise anyway, they will always have more talent than whoever their counterpart is in the post-season. They also will have a number of guys with championship experience/deep playoff runs. Homecourt would be a nice luxury, but won't be necessary. If I were the Lakers I'd want to see the team run at full capabilities come the post-season, rather than sacrificing certain things just to get as many regular season wins as possible.

 

Not saying that I agree with all, or even most of Brown's decision. The above two paragraphs are moreso generalizations than anything.

[Real Deal]

Ditching any offense for iso's is not a smart decision in clutch time.

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.

[AboveLegit]

Doesn't get any simpler than this: When you're attempting to establish a brand new offensive system (and where two of your core players have been in one system their entire career), you're not going to spend much time working on the defense.

 

Dwight looks exactly how I pictured he'd look to start the season. Late on rotations and getting beat to rebounds.

[Real Deal]

Doesn't get any simpler than this: When you're attempting to establish a brand new offensive system (and where two of your core players have been in one system their entire career), you're not going to spend much time working on the defense.

Kobe and Drew played in the triangle for most of their careers. Last season, the Lakers looked to the "four out, one in" offense, and we ranked in the top ten on defense the entire season, finishing 6th.

 

In our first 20 games last year, we allowed just four teams to score 100+ on us: Clippers, Kings, Blazers and Bucks, all on the road. In that first 20, we allowed 91 PPG.

 

First five games this season, two teams over 100 points (three if Dallas scored one more point), allowing an average of 98.8 PPG.

 

There's really no excuse for it, in my opinion, aside from the fatigue and bad rotations.

[AboveLegit]

Kobe and Drew played in the triangle for most of their careers. Last season, the Lakers looked to the "four out, one in" offense, and we ranked in the top ten on defense the entire season, finishing 6th.

That's more of a read and react offense. You see those motion offenses all the time in college (Calipari loves running it), and really, it relies on good judgement and good perimeter play.

 

The Princeton is much, much more complex. And as I've said before, Kobe can adjust to any offense, he's that good. And to be blunt, the only reason why this years' offense is in the top 10 currently is because of how good Kobe's been.

 

I suffered through Eddie Jordan for 5 straight seasons. He's hell bent on the Princeton, and if you're bringing him in as your assistant, he'll consume the majority of each practice session working with the offense.

 

Obviously that's not the only reason why. We're not seeing a ton of energy on defense (Pau is the biggest culprit here), and the perimeter defense has been terrible. Steve Blake deserves a lot of the blame, but as with every PG's, their defensive struggles are tied to their bigs not rotating and protecting the middle.

 

Every PG, with the exception of Brandon Knight, has torched the Lakers this season. Randy Foye and Mo Williams both did it last night, Lillard, CP3, and Collison.

Edited November 9, 2012 by AboveLegit

[Real Deal]

That's more of a read and react offense. You see those motion offenses all the time in college (Calipari loves running it), and really, it relies on good judgement and good perimeter play.

 

The Princeton is much, much more complex. And as I've said before, Kobe can adjust to any offense, he's that good. And to be blunt, the only reason why this years' offense is in the top 10 currently is because of how good Kobe's been.

 

I suffered through Eddie Jordan for 5 straight seasons. He's hell bent on the Princeton, and if you're bringing him in as your assistant, he'll consume the majority of each practice session working with the offense.

 

Obviously that's not the only reason why. We're not seeing a ton of energy on defense (Pau is the biggest culprit here), and the perimeter defense has been terrible. Steve Blake deserves a lot of the blame, but as with every PG's, their defensive struggles are tied to their bigs not rotating and protecting the middle.

 

Every PG, with the exception of Brandon Knight, has torched the Lakers this season. Randy Foye and Mo Williams both did it last night, Lillard, CP3, and Collison.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. The Princeton is a read-and-react offensive system.

 

Also, being torched by PG's isn't anything new. That has been happening since Ron Harper left. It seems like Mo Williams drops 50 on us every season, and Lakers fans like Randy Foye because he usually doesn't struggle against us...for the same reason they liked Steve Blake when he was in Portland, tearing up Fisher (and then he came here, and those fans found out why he was doing so good).

 

Eddie Jordan may shove the offense down their throats, but if it's not going to work, EJ won't last long. Dwight is here for one season, as of today. The Buss family won't risk losing him this summer, and won't risk giving Kobe an option to leave in two years (rather than take less money). That's why people are awaiting the firing of Brown, and this early in the season, it won't shock me if Jordan is eventually told to move out of the way, to stand aside and watch Sloan or D'Antoni coach (and if we bring in D'Antoni, we would likely bring in Rambis for defensive purposes).

[AboveLegit]

Yeah the Princeton is read and react as well, but it requires a lot more off ball movement and screens, which is hard for a lot of players to grasp initially. Everyone has to buy into it, which makes it that much more tougher of a task in Laker Land where you're berated after every loss. It's why I never bought into this system for this particular team.

 

If anything, we'll probably just see LA get rid of the Princeton altogether before we see a coaching change. I get that the Bus Family is wealthy, but paying a coach $18 million to sit at home while bringing in another high profile coach isn't done very often.

 

And yeah, defending PG's has never been easy on you guys haha. But again, it's more of a shot at Dwight than anything else. He's just not close to 100% yet.

Edited November 9, 2012 by AboveLegit

[Sħãlïq™]

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

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