Short Thoughts on Kobe's Heroics

SHORT THOUGHTS ON KOBE'S HEROICS

Jan 30, 2012 by Patrick Minton

When the Lakers beat the Timberwolves last night, ESPN, NBA.com, and the Twitterverse were all abuzz about how great Kobe was. And don't get me wrong, Kobe was good last night; it's always impressive when a shooting guard snags as many rebounds as the other team's star power forward. But I'm definitely going to have to agree with Stop-n-Pop on this one:

Despite what your memory may tell you about Kobe Bean Bryant's late-game "heroics", Mike Brown and the Lakers did their damnedest to hand this game to the Wolves. It was obvious from very early on that Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum could get whatever they wanted whenever they wanted against the Kevin Love/Nikola Pekovic front line. Instead of sticking with this very clear strategy (Mike Brown has recently stated that he wants to move Pau around throughout the game to keep opponents "guessing"), the Lakers saw Kobe jack up nearly 30 shots for his 35 points. On a night where Pau had 28 points on 15 shots and Bynum 21 on 14 and when the Wolves had no option but to run out the stick figure Anthony Randolph against the titan Bynum....well, again, it's pretty hard to think of a way that the Lakers could have played this that would have made it harder for the Wolves to climb back into things, even on a terrible shooting night.

My goodness, if there's a Most Increased Selfishness award this season, Kobe's going to win it. You know what was happening a lot during that pivotal 18-point comeback? Andrew Bynum was sitting on the bench a lot and Kobe was shooting a lot. The box score doesn't really do justice to how much Bynum was dominating people inside, throwing his weight around and wreaking havoc (as evidenced by his 7 FTAs on 14 FGAs vs. Kobe's 2 FTAs on 29 FGAs). And the next time the Wolves and the Lakers meet, if you guarantee me that Kobe will put up 29 shots and that Pau and Bynum will combine for 29 shots, I'll take the Wolves by 7, because Kobe won't go 5-for-9 from downtown very often.

I'm not a Kobe hater (although, honestly, I might become one by the end of the year if he keeps this up). I'm saying Kobe could be so much better if he'd use his ability to beat his defender to pass the ball when the help defense collapses on him. Yes, I know he's above average in assists. He could easily increase those assists. As a coach, the players I always hated trying to motivate were the ones who were satisfied with being "good".

Right now, Kobe is good. He could be great. And from an a standpoint of athleticism and skill, it's truly impressive the numbers he is putting up when every team is just throwing defenders at him. But individual accomplishments do not win games. Basketball isn't diving. Style points aren't worth shit.

Categories: Andrew Bynum, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Los Angeles Lakers

Andres Alvarez

I always get wary of the line "The box score doesn't really do justice..." I mean the simple case is we can look at the following. Kobe (1.21 Points per FGA, 0.69 FGA per minute, 42 minutes played), Bynum(1.5 Points per FGA, 0.39 FGA per minute, 36 minutes played) Pau (1.9 Points per FGA, 0.36 FGA per minute 42 minutes played) Bynum was clearly very impressive, even more so for Pau. So we can ask why we weren't they shooting more or in the game more (in Bynum's case)? I mean given the age difference we can also ask why Pau and Kobe played 40+ minutes while a younger Bynum was in for 36.

480 days ago

Patrick Minton

Dre, you know I am as wary as the next guy about this. But if you were looking at the box score you might conclude that Bynum just kept getting set up for assisted dunks and such. But if you were watching you knew that nearly every basket was from him sealing his defenders well, catching the ball on the low block or mid-corner-post, and making a strong move to create contact and getting great position vs. defenders that had zero chance to block his shot. Similarly, you might think Pau's buckets were all low post scores, but they were nearly all from catches in the high post/key, where he had far too many passing options and (again) defenders who can't really contest his shot thanks to length, and he simply drilled one mid-range jumper after another.

480 days ago

Andres Alvarez

Patrick, I'll sound callous "I don't care what it looked like via the box score." I don't need to go check Synergy or watch a replay. The Lakers were able to get two players to put up 30 shots at a very effective rate. I don't care if it was team work or individual skill. Why would they limit that? I mean if Pau was shooting Granny shots from three and scoring at that rate he'd be getting the ball every possession from me.

479 days ago

Jon Kim

I have recently found your blog and enjoy it! Thanks for the good content. for this article, Mike Brown's inability to properly use his players is what concerns me. He's getting paid $4.5 million a year and he doesn't know the basic theory of "feed the hot hand." I wonder how much of this has to do with Kobe and his 5th all time scorer landmark. Also, even if Kobe were to pass after defense collapsed on him, it's not that easy of a pass to make to the weak side when you have hands in your face, especially if the other team is aware of it. They will focus more on the passing lanes and increase his turnover count. He could pass to his PG/SF but they are so deficient in those positions that there would be no ball movement after that, they would just pass it back to Kobe. This is the job of the coach to create the proper player placement to bring the greatest chance of a 100% FG, but if he's moving Pau around to create opponent confusion, what about your own team's confusion?

472 days ago

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