Game notes - Apr 13, 2008
Spurs @ Lakers
- Pau Gasol is really really soft. And he’s underrated as a flopper. Too bad Manu is not playing, cause they might have settled the “who’s the biggest flopper in the league” dispute once and for all
- The Spurs are looking good on offense so far. Their shots are falling and they look a little bit like the old Spurs
- Turiaf has developed a nice mid range J, but he better not start falling in love with it, cause his bread and butter is his defense and rebounding under the boards
- He may be soft but he’s running the floor well. Gasol fits well in the Lakers offense as an opportunistic scorer. He fills well the open spaces and gets a lot of easy points when Kobe or Odom are double-teamed.
- Vujacic has a lot more balls than Odom. Each time he’s open, Odom hesitates till a defender comes and covers him. He feels much more comfortable passing the ball. Vujacic on the other hand has no conscience whatsoever. He’s shooting as if he had a guaranteed contract or something, and couldn’t be fired if he missed a shot or 10. Actually pretty much everyone on the Lakers except for Odom is beaming with confidence, and Vujacic and Farmar deserve a special mention for not being afraid of taking (and making) big shots.
- Derek Fisher put on a little show by himself with his best impersonation of Steve Kerr, punishing the Spurs each time he was left open. He finished with 14 points on 6-9 shooting in just 24 minutes.
- Lamar Odom seems to have found his niche with the Lakers: leading rebounder. As long as he’s not asked to be the 2nd option on offense, he can focus on rebounds and distributing the ball. He had the best +/- on the Lakers in 4 of the Lakers last 5 wins, and I doubt this is a coincidence.
- The Spurs missed Manu badly on offense, especially after half-time, when the Lakers D tightened up. The Spurs defense was also uncharacteristically porous at times, allowing lots of layups and dunks, but, as mentioned in my previous post, this probably has a lot more to do with age than with Ginobili missing the game.
- The Lakers owned the boards (51 to 36) and got 12 offensive rebounds. But during the game it seemed they got about 100 or so offensive rebounds
- The new Kobe vs the old Kobe: at one point Kobe missed an open shot and the Lakers got the offensive rebound and the ball got back to Kobe who had a hand in his face this time. The old Kobe would have taken that shot (and probably missed it). The new Kobe swung the ball to an open team-mate. The new Kobe took tough shots only when the shot clock was ticking down (and this game he made them all), and was content to let his team-mates share the glory. This is why the MVP voters will probably feel much more comfortable giving him the award this year (my personal choice would be Chris Paul, but Kobe will probably win in a landslide).
