Kyrie Irving isolation, Kobe defends

[Real Deal]

Gotta post this, because I remember Kobe entertaining Kyrie's idea of a one-on-one game for charity (from last season's USA basketball practice), lol.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaR380j_04k

 

Aside from this, and Kobe's 42, it's all I could take away from another bad Lakers game.

[The Regime]

But Kobe doesn't play defense anymore...

[Nitro]

I didn't see the game, but I heard he was defending CJ Miles most of the game, and he lit up the Lakers for like 28pts.

 

After a great start to the season defensively, he's been pretty bad the last 2 games I saw him play, and many Laker fans who have seen this recent stretch of games seem to agree.

[Real Deal]

I didn't see the game, but I heard he was defending CJ Miles most of the game, and he lit up the Lakers for like 28pts.

 

After a great start to the season defensively, he's been pretty bad the last 2 games I saw him play, and many Laker fans who have seen this recent stretch of games seem to agree.

Ron was on Miles a lot, also.

 

Kobe is helping too much...and he's not young enough to recover. A lot of Lakers fans blow it up, though, when they see him gamble once or twice a game. When it happens, suddenly, he's the worst defender on the team.

 

Sadly, I'm not really sure if he's going to be able to stay on his man, and that the help defense will have to come from him and Howard, primarily. We know that Artest is going to be our best on-ball defender, not much help from his side since he'll be defending the Durants and LeBrons (and Artest is struggling, make no mistake about it)...and our PF (Gasol), PG (Nash, Blake, Morris, Duhon), and our two best bench players (Jamison and Meeks) are all pretty bad defensively.

 

We just can't get back on defense when we make OR miss a shot. Teams push the ball. That has been a problem for years, really, and the big reason why we haven't reached the WCF in the last two seasons.

 

There are a lot of times that Kobe walks away from his man to make sure a pass doesn't go into the post against someone like Jamison, or camps so a PG doesn't destroy Duhon or Morris to the rim. He doesn't get back in time for the three. However, we defend the three-point line 6th best in the NBA, so that's not really that big of a concern, him giving up a three in the second quarter of a game...although Lakers fans think we're missing the playoffs and will be a lottery team this season.