The Los Angeles Lakers begin their 2014-2015 basketball journey with 2 very ugly loses on back to back nights. The Lakers only lead in both games was when it was 3-2 agains the Rockets. Nice. They trailed by double digits for the entirety of both fourth quarters. Are we looking at a 0-82 season?
Jeremy Lin's stats line was nothing to write home about. Jeremy Lin didn't play great nor very bad. Was Jeremy Lin perfect? No way.
The coaching staff of the Los Angeles Lakers harped on making defense and conditioning the focal point of their training camp. Seems the coaching staff forgot to mention that to the Laker players. Giving up 108 and 119 on consecutive nights when they failed to score 100. And the garbage time in both fourth quarters shouldn't be underplayed as they got the game closer. With the focus on not shooting threes, the spacing is horrendous.
The offense also seems to flow through Kobe which is good when he scores. Unfortunately, that didn't happen all the time. Bricks to make a house. Mis-communications resulted in turn overs. Careless stuff like three second violations and passing to spots where no one is. Forcing passes into the post. Etc. Etc. Etc. Ugly basketball all around.
When will the Los Angeles Lakers play basketball vs. NBA Jam? When Kobe was on the bench. The offense was so snappy, but it was also against the teams 2nd unit.
The rotation of players on the court is also so perplexing. Ed Davis getting very limited minutes with Jeremy Lin is something that needs to be addressed by the coaching staff.
After only two games, there's a lot of blame to go around. Kobe was frustrated. Lin is being thrown under the bus after games.
I can only point the finger at a weak coaching staff and front office.
The defining game of Linsanity was vs the Lakers in 2012. THAT is the blueprint for how the Los Angeles Lakers should be using Jeremy Lin. Yet they want to run a no PG offense that constantly takes the ball out of Jeremy Lin's hands. Which is predicated by the PG crossing the half court and passing to the shoulder guy. What?! And when they try to put the ball in Jeremy Lin's hands, the rest of the 4 players just set up for isolation play and call for the ball without doing anything. Boozer and Johnson are not complimentary players for Jeremy Lin when he is looking for PnR.
With Randle's injury for the game against the Rockets, the solemn tone of the team took some attention off Jeremy Lin to an extent. But the post game vs. the Suns is very telling. So many "um"s and "ah"s.
I am going to read in between the lines of the post game vs the Suns. Jeremy Lin wants to say, let's run the offense through the PG, this triangle/princeton stuff is for college. Jeremy Lin wants to say, the PnR defense is so soft, they are making this look like Stockton and Malone. Jeremy Lin wants to say, when I call a play, my hope is that Kobe isn't demanding the ball and that the other 3 get in the right places. Jeremy Lin wants to say, can we get some spacing so Kobe and I don't run into 3 defenders when we attack the paint? Jeremy Lin wants to say, the help defense is weak and stop gambling for steals.
Robert Horry, please do every postgame analysis. Please!
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