Heading into Tuesday evening’s contest in California’s capital city, I wanted to get an outside perspective on the Lakers from someone who’s watched a great deal of game tape.
As such, I was happy to see Kings assistant coach Rex Kalamian - who was great when we both worked for the Wolves two years ago - sitting at the scorer’s table when we walked into ARCO Arena in Sacramento. Kalamian gave me five minutes on how to attack and defend against the Lakers, which you can listen to below.
The first thing Kalamian told me was that the Kings coaches like to try and take away Kobe Bryant’s postup moves, running him off the post in attempt to make him a perimeter player. Makes sense, right?
He also detailed how the Kings will try and deal with L.A.’s two seven footers: “They’re extremely difficult to guard when they catch the ball with a foot in the paint, so we talked about tonight starting the fight early … meeting the opposing center at the free throw line when they’re running down the court and putting a body on them then.”
Finally, Kalamian added that he thinks the best way to attack the Lakers’ D is to run the pick and roll, which the Kings can do with several capable-shooting bigs like Brad Miller and Spencer Hawes.
As always, you can check back momentarily for the running diary…
