Comments on: Rodney Stuckey duels with Kobe Bryant and comes out victorious

By: Max

Max — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:17:34 +0000

No fair. I can’t debate when you trump me with a Daly.

By: frankie d

frankie d — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 20:18:45 +0000

@max,
on raymond felton…
two things…
felton came into the season in bad shape. he’s apparently lost some of the excess weight, but he’s still not in great shape.
i haven’t seen him live, but he apparently is still chubby, according to people who’ve seen him up close. at my local sports bar, his knickname is “cheeseburger” because he’s one cheeseburger away from being fat.
now that has always been a problem, but it’s even more of a problem for him this year.
mcmillan’s offense is also a bad fit for felton.
portland’s offense is heavy on isolations.
so the point guard is often simply making entry passes and then spotting up for jumpers if a bailout pass is made. or he is expected to penetrate and pass out to shooters.
they run lots of isos and pick and pops, and very few pick and rolls, which is felton’s forte.
andre miller was great for the offense because he could post up on his own and get his own offense and if he got a bailout pass, he’d usually snake in closer to get a 8-12 foot shot off the dribble. and if aldridge slid over for a shot off the screen, miller would sneak under the boards, to try to rebound or pick up loose balls.
that is not felton’s game at all. he’s better in a pick and roll offense, like d’antoni’s. portland doesn’t really have big guys who dive to the basket. camby doesn’t expend that type of energy on offense anymore. aldridge has horrible footwork and is simply more comfortable spotting up for a 15 foot jumper off the screen. he almost never rolls to the basket, which is what felton is looking for his screener to do.
all in all, the miller for felton trade was a bad move, one that should never have been made. and now, felton has lost his confidence – he’s made public statements about that fact – and it’s hard imagining him turning his season around in portland.
i’d be shocked if he was still in portland after the trade deadline.

By: frankie d

frankie d — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:46:00 +0000

we’re really talking about two different things.
the question isn’t whether kobe – or any other player – is the best guy to take that kind of shot. the issue is whether you let any player of that sort – a guy willing to repeatedly take that shot with the game on the line – take that sort of shot.
that is a far different question as to whether he is more efficient than another player or whether his team is more or less efficient. the linked article touches on that issue, and i’ll take a look at the charts and numbers later.
the better issue is whether gasol or bynum or artest or the other players on the court have the will to take that shot. and what is their shooting percentage on those types of shots?
my guess is that it is far worse than kobe’s.
and that overtime shot by kobe was shockingly bad. not sure what he was thinking. it almost appeared that he thought the shot clock was different than it was. he shot it as though he thought the clock was near zero, not the several seconds he had left.
chuck daly was right. you don’t let guys like jordan and kobe beat you. daly’s philosophy worked very well.

By: Max

Max — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 18:37:17 +0000

Oh, Frankie. Prince did everything but block the shot and Kobe simply nailed an extremely low percentage shot on a night where he wasn’t shooting the ball well. Ehlo, by the way, never did as good a job and you could see him jumping right by MJ and leaving him wide open as he releases that famous shot.
Chris Paul’s teams numbers in crunch time situations has been better than Kobe’s for years for precisely the reason that he passes to open teammates no matter who they are. It’s very wrong to think Kobe will hit a higher pct of hero shots than his teammates will hit open shots and Kobe’s numbers more than bear it out. He just takes so many of these shots and people only remember the ones he hits. Are you complaining about his missed three pointer when he tried to tie the game in overtime? Here’s a link on the issue.
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/24200/the-truth-about-kobe-bryant-in-crunch-time
BTW: I feel like you had similar issues with a Joe Johnson game winner earlier in the year but I don’t like to complain when a guy hits a shot that has to have less than a 40% chance of going in unless it is executed perfectly.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:48:43 +0000

Lebron actually was a willing passer in Brown’s offense though. Kobe only is when he feels like it.

By: frankie d

frankie d — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:38:27 +0000

will never understand why coaches still go “lenny wilkins” and let guys like kobe take last second shots against single coverage.
wilkins put poor old craig ehlo out on an island against michael jordan plenty of times and jordan always plunged the stake in the cavs’ heart.
no way, no how i’d ever do what frank did and just let tay – or any single player – guard kobe on a last second shot.
i don’t care if artest or gasol or anyone else – except for maybe fisher – gets a wide open 10 foot shot…i’m going to double or triple team kobe and make him pass the ball to someone else and let someone else take that shot.
letting a guy like kobe take that shot is basically asking for the outcome that happened: a tie game and overtime instead of walking off with a win in regulation.

By: frankie d

frankie d — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:32:39 +0000

the pistons should thank kobe for being so selfish and dumb.
if he’d just stopped shooting and kept pounding the ball into bynum and gasol, the lakers would have won, going away.
but he’s become fixated on his own offense and his selfishness killed the lakers last night.
detroit had no answers for bynum. he could have scored 50 points, if kobe had deferred to him.
what is interesting is that the lakers look a lot like mike brown’s old cavaliers.
kobe running around, tossing up “hero shots” while the other players stand around and watch.
kobe assuming the lebron role in the show.
it makes you appreciate how well the old triangle offense helped to stifle kobe’s selfish instincts and how those instincts are starting to come to the fore now that jackson and his triangle offense are gone.
i always thought kobe was smarter than this…

By: frankie d

frankie d — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:24:30 +0000

i’ve been screaming for stuckey to make that pull up jumper a part of his arsenal for years. if he adds that shot to his bag of tricks and starts to use it regularly he’ll be unstoppable. he’ll immediately become a 20+ points a game scorer.
every defender has to overplay him for his drive, and he could get that shot anytime he wanted. i’d like to see him move a bit closer, maybe the middle of the paint, but that one shot, if he took it regularly, would set up every other part of his offense.
i hope he starts using it regularly.

By: Al

Al — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:01:29 +0000

Love the win, but he has to realize that he has to keep that same high energy level every night. I notice only when high caliber teams come to town he zones in and dominates, then he’s streaky. But boy last night was a great team effort and how cool was it to see Gores and his boys chillin looking bussed standing up rooting for his young squad! Lmao

By: tim

tim — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:06:53 +0000

great win. Gotta say, JJs effort and hustle on the hard traps defensively were a big part of it. One of the more exciting games of the year (only the 2nd overtime I think). Great to see stuckey nail some big shots