The message from Kobe and Phil at practice Monday was pretty simple: The Lakers are looking forward to finally having four games in one week that count.
For whatever reason, only the Washington Wizards (seven) have played fewer games than the Lakers (eight), and there’s a palpable hunger to get playing regularly and find a rhythm, particularly offensively, in Laker Land.
Here are a few other notes from comments by Jackson and Bryant; you can watch their respective post-practice videos on our video page.
When collected media members are looking for comments from players and coaches, often times the interviewees can simply be prompted with a statement, as they recognize the media song and dance enough to offer a quote that can be used for a story. Phil Jackson might give you anywhere from one to 1,000 words on the same question, depending on his mood and the setting. After a pretty good question about Chicago’s Derrick Rose that emphasized his early-season numbers, Jackson’s response, with a grin, was simply: “He’s going to be a good player.” Right. So the reporter followed up, and Jackson offered: “Do you want me to be expansive? I’m trying not to be.” He did expand, however, talking about Rose’s playmaking ability above all else.
Someone asked Jackson about interesting matchups against point guards Rose and Steve Nash this week, implying that the Lakers had trouble with Allen Iverson last Friday. Always careful to clarify, Jackson explained that Iverson really didn’t play much point guard, instead operating primarily out of the screen and roll. Phil did acknowledge that the Lakers “Have to have a little better defense on some of those quicker guards.” Yup.
The Lakers do plan on Andrew Bynum being more of an offensive force as the season goes on, though Jackson explained that the big guy simply isn’t getting many touches down low due to how games have played out.
Then came a few questions about comments made by Shaquille O’Neal publicized over the weekend regarding Jackson’s role in the Kobe-Shaq interaction, not to mention Shaq’s “not ruling out” a possible return to L.A. when his contract expires after next season. Someone in particular seemed to be under strict orders from his news organization to ask everyone about Shaq’s comments, and it was funny to watch both Bryant and Derek Fisher literally laugh the question off.
Phil, however, said he was “glad to have motivated Shaq,” and asked if Shaq thought he was responsible for the Diesel’s poor free throw shooting. Furthermore, Jackson explained that those teams had a lot of fun (”a laugh and a goof”) with the circus surrounding Kobe and Shaq until 2004, when it “was a little bit tense … a tighter time for us.”
Back to hoops, Jackson said the key to stopping teams from using small lineups to spread the Lakers out was containing penetration on the perimeter. Sure enough, the Lakers worked on that throughout practice on Monday, and will be tested in that area by both Chicago and Phoenix. An interesting metaphor Jackson offered was how in most sports, opponents are trying to get to a goal, and the closer they get to that goal, the worse off the defensive team is. Hmmm. Soccer? Check. Hockey? Check. Baseball? Check. Football? Check. It of course applies in this case, though in Friday’s case that penetration led to open jumpers after the ball got kicked back out.
More from Kobe:
The loss to Detroit didn’t expose anything the Lakers didn’t know, and didn’t have any ultimate significance to Kobe: “We try to learn from all types of scenarios.”
One point he did return to twice was that L.A. needs to do better against teams like Boston and Detroit that have a shooting big man that stretches the floor from the center position when those teams go small (e.g. Rasheed Wallace and Kevin Garnett).
Finally, as mentioned in a separate post, Vladimir Radmanovic (thigh) and Sasha Vujacic (ankle) fully participated in practice and are both fine.
