Archive for the 'Lakers.com News' Category

Opening Night Traffic Advisory

Staples CenterLA Live is hosting a movie premier at 6pm on Tuesday, 10/27 and the movie theatre at LA Live is having its grand opening later in the evening. Increased traffic and congestion around STAPLES Center is expected from 3-11pm.

For those attending, STAPLES Center doors will open at 5:30pm. Please be in your seat by 7pm as we will be having our ring ceremony and raising of the championship banner to celebrate the 15th NBA Championship in Lakers franchise history.

Please arrive early to allow adequate time to get to STAPLES Center, find parking and enter the arena.

Lakers vs Nuggets Scouting Report - 10/23/2009

Pre-Season Game #8
10/23/09

At the risk of sounding like a broken record (a reference for those of you still enjoying vinyl), we know that the first major threat from the Nuggets is their transition game. They do such a great job of looking up-court once they get possession of the ball. This thrust creates mismatches and puts defensive communication to the test. In the game last night there was a clear example of how they hurt us in this fashion last night. In the play, the Nuggets get the rebound and immediately get the ball to their quarterback, Chauncey Billups. Whether the first pass is up the floor or in this case after Billups takes one dribble, they always look to pass the ball up the floor to create an early scoring opportunity. In this case they got the ball to Carmelo in a scoring position and on the weakside of our defense we had a breakdown in communication. This leads to an easy dunk for Denver. We must do a better job of limiting these types of baskets.

We also saw in the game a good example of a basic sequence within our triangle offense. One of Lamar Odom’s special skills is that he can rebound the ball on the defensive end and initiate the transition. In this example he gets us into our offense with a dribble entry. One of the principles of our offense is to simply pass the ball to the first open man you see. As Lamar pulls the ball to the wing to set up the strong side triangle he sees Derek Fisher open at the top as his man has decided to play off him in order to help clog the paint. Fish gets the ball and immediately passes to Artest at the position we call “pinch post”. The fact that Fish makes a hard cut also helps keep our offense flowing effectively. On the weakside, the defender guarding Kobe gets caught “playing the play”. What that means is that he knows that Kobe is supposed to pop up off the screens and the defender anticipates this and changes his positioning. Kobe correctly reads and reacts to this mistake and cuts hard to the basket opening the passing lane for the unselfish Ron Artest to make the assist on Kobe’s reverse lay-up. This play is a good example of how some simple basketball fundamentals executed within our offense can create an easy scoring opportunity.

Lakers-Nuggets Scouting Report

Here’s a brief breakdown of tonight’s matchup against the Denver Nuggets:

We will see a familiar foe tonight in Anaheim and tomorrow night in San Diego. The Denver Nuggets have championship aspirations after taking us to six games in the western conference finals last spring. Their nucleus is back and they have a few new faces to replace Linas Kleiza and Dahntay Jones. This team bought into Coach George Karl’s challenge of playing team defense. We know we need to protect the ball or it will turn into a Nugget Dunk-fest. Chauncey Billups drives the squad and he usually starts games trying to get others involved but if he feels the team struggling to score he can and will kick his offensive game into a more scoring minded approach.

Some teams will slice and dice you with the execution of a number of playsets. While Denver has some plays that we will need to be aware of, they really want to get steals and get out and run. Billups and Anthony will look to probe the defense. There will be a lot of random screen and rolls set in order to free them and create an advantage. It is the secondary offensive thrust that we must be ready to defend. Getting back on defense in order to take away easy dunks is step one and that requires a physical effort. In order to take away their secondary or early offense we will need to communicate because there will be situations where we are not in our normal match-ups.

With two games left in the exhibition season it is time to gear up our intensity and this is a good opponent in order to do that.

Check Lakers Courtside Connection during the regular season for more extensive previews including video breakdowns.

Lakers on Twitter

With the advent of Twitter, people around the world can communicate through a short messaging service in seconds, and the Los Angeles Lakers are on board. By following the Lakers on Twitter, you can hear directly from players and management, receive real time news updates and Lakers.com content links, view behind-the-scenes photos, enter contests and more.

Here’s our current Lakers Twitter Roster, featuring Lamar Odom, Derek Fisher, Sasha Vujacic, Jeanie Buss, Mike Trudell and the Lakers master account, all of whom you can follow on your personal Twitter page.

Click here for the full Lakers Twitter Roster

Proviso East High Backboards

During a coming-soon podcast we did with Shannon Brown’s father Chris, we learned that during Shannon’s freshman year, his father received a call from Proviso East High School asking him to come on down to the Maywood, Ill., location.

When Chris, a police sergeant, showed up, he saw that his son had smashed one of the school’s backboards with a dunk. Yeah, he was a bit concerned about the prospect of paying for it, but he couldn’t deny a bit of pride crept in.

As it were, Proviso East - home of Michael Finley, Doc Rivers, Reggie Jordan, Brown’s teammate Dee Brown and others - saw a 6-foot something freshman, not a visiting monster like Dwight Howard, smash the glass.

Apparently a 44.5 inch vertical helps?

Stay tuned later this week for the podcast.

Parade Photo Gallery

Lakers TeamMiss out on the Lakers 2009 Championship Parade?

Don’t fret … The NBA Photos crew was on hand to snap up some of the finer moments.

CLICK HERE to view the gallery put together by Lakers.com.’s Ty Nowell.

Exit Interview Central

09_interviews_central_top500If you’re reading this blog entry then you’re probably aware of the 16 previous post that deal with the team’s exit interviews and post-season pressers. Along with that we’ve got video of every player, along with Mitch Kupchak & Phil Jackson, talking about the season that was and the upcoming off-season. Check it all out at Lakers.com’s Exit Interview Central.

Game 6 Scouting Report

090529denauto1

In games this late in a series a coach will dust off a play here or there to use to try and get a quick/easy bucket and turn momentum in their favor. While the core of the Denver offense is still screen and rolls with Billups and post/isolations with Carmelo, they used some high post actions on occasion to try and catch us off guard. The generic term for this type of offense is “ucla” and Denver calls it “Auto”.

To read the full Scouting Report go to Lakers Courtside Connection.

Pete Carroll Twitterview

57422918Do you know what a Twitterview is? I didn’t either until about an hour after I got done doing one with USC Head Football Coach Pete Carroll. As the name would imply it’s an interview done over Twitter (if you don’t know what that is click here). It’s that simple.

Before the Lakers Game 5 peppering of the Rockets, Coach Carroll put out a message saying “going to the @lakers game tonight! will any other tweebes be there too?”

Carroll seemed excited for the game so Lakers.com reached out to see what he thought about that evening’s matchup. He was nice enough to sit with us for 30-minutes for a little Twitter back-and-forth.

Obviously the constraints of 140-characters make for a unique kind of Q & A.The purple text is Lakers.com, the cardinal text is Coach Carroll.

Hey Coach @PeteCarroll, so you’re coming to the game tonight, who are you most excited to see play?
@lakers farmar coming off the bench!

@PeteCarroll A UCLA guy? Wow… after a tough loss, what do you tell your young athletes heading into the next game?
@Lakers we’ve got to go right back to what we know… always compete and do what we do best… last game’s over, it’s about the next step

@Lakers is lamar playing?
@PeteCarroll @RealLamarOdom went through shootaround but is a gametime decision tonight

@Lakers phil is the master of game 5s… the crowd is going to bring it, it’s going to be rocking tonite… you agree?
@Lakers i hear jack is pumped for the game… yeah?
@Lakers if lamar can’t go, we expect to see kurt rambis out there

@PeteCarroll The crowd will definitely be pumped up for tonight’s game, do you caution your teams against coming out too excited?
@Lakers never–they’ve got to get as excited as they can get… feed off the crowd and the emotion

@Lakers by the way, jeanie buss is the best nba executive
@PeteCarroll Did you know that Jeanie is on Twittter too? @jeaniebuss

@PeteCarroll Who’s the best basketball player you’ve ever coached?
@Lakers best hoops player i’ve ever coached… a lot of guys would like this title… gotta go with steve smith…

@PeteCarroll Your teams come into each season with the same championship expectations as the Lakers, how do you maintain focus on that goal?
@Lakers practice is everything… the level of competition at practice on a daily basis forever makes us who we are

@Lakers just became a @jeaniebuss follower… jeanie rocks!

@PeteCarroll It seems like maintaining the guys emotion level during the playoffs is similar to the week leading up to a game, agree?
@Lakers it’s different because there’s not as much time between your games… you guys have to stay locked in for a longer period

@PeteCarroll Have you followed the Lakers for a while or just since you’ve been in LA?
@Lakers i’ve always liked the lakers, being in california… its hard to root for the warriors except when rick was there

@Lakers oh, want to send good wishes to tex winter (a trojan)… hope to see him tonite at the game… fight on to a great trojan!

@PeteCarroll Which current Laker do you think could help your program the most on the field?
@Lakers kobe–no brainer… he’s a great competitor… if he isn’t a go-to guy, then i don’t know who is
@PeteCarroll What side of the ball do you line #24 up at though?
@Lakers we’re throwing the ball to him… he’d play split end– like mike williams or jarrett — he’d be the big WR.. good for 80 balls a yr
@PeteCarroll How about 81?
@PeteCarroll #24 claims he could lineup at WR for the Eagles right now.
@Lakers i’d rather see him line up at the coliseum than lincoln financial… we got 93K… he has four years of eligibility left anyway
@Lakers they made a big deal about michael playing baseball… just think how huge it would be if kobe played for the trojans

@PeteCarroll What differences do you see in coaching between football & basketball?
@Lakers basketball’s cool because youre almost like another player… youre so close and you can make calls… it might be more fun to coach
@Lakers though i’d probably have trouble staying inside the coaching box or whatever its called

@PeteCarroll What’s your favorite part about coaching in LA?
@Lakers it’s a championship town… expectations are high and everyone’s counting on winning… its the only way to be… and the beach too

@PeteCarroll going back to an earlier comment, do you shoot your free throws like Rick Barry?
@Lakers no i shoot like hal greer

@PeteCarroll It has to be easier dealing with 15 players as opposed to 80 right?
@Lakers it’s just way different… you have an opportunity to get to know 15 guys better than the 105 we have

@PeteCarroll Did @ABetterLA have anything to do with Baron Davis’ new movie?
@Lakers no, @ABetterLA didnt but anything to create awareness for the good is awesome

@PeteCarroll Which NBA player would you compare your hoops game too?
@Lakers i think dominique wilkins once said “you lose your hops but you never lose your J”… and my hops left me a long time ago
@Lakers i wish i could be like ginobili though
@Lakers but in reality i’m more like a “hondo” type of player
@PeteCarroll at least you’ve still got the J. Thanks for joining us today Coach, maybe we’ll catch up with ya courtside tonight.
@Lakers good luck tonight, tear em up!

Follow the Lakers Official Twitter here, the cardinal text is Coach Carroll.

Our Twitter Contest Winner

On Monday we ran our first contest on Twitter, giving away a pair of tickets to the first of our followers that could find Mike Trudell and myself having lunch. @bryanz got there about three minutes after we gave the final location clue. For his efforts he got to see the Lakers close out the Jazz in Game 5. Here’s his story in his own words.

Since this is my story about winning tix via Twitter, I’m retelling it in < 140 character increments.

I live in Marina Del Rey and had to pick up a friend from LAX at 2:15. At about 1:30 on Monday I saw this come across Tweetdeck:

@bryanzLakers Reporter Mike Trudell & I will be getting lunch in El Segundo. 1st person to find us and say “Playoffs” will win. More clues coming.

What better do I have going on? El Segundo is 15 minutes away. Hopped on Yelp! to find the best places to eat lunch for some clues. >:)

Grand Ave. has a ton of hits, heading there. Grab the Blackberry! Taking Lincoln to Sepulveda, past LAX, then down into El Seg.

In the car, just made a right onto Grand and passed Chipotle. Mmmm… Chipotle. I’d eat lunch there and this is a crapshoot. Any updates?

At 1:55pm: This is where we’re at in El Segundo, come find us & say “playoffs” http://twitpic.com/44c1t

Carl’s Jr?!? Where is that? Google Maps on Blackberry = Miracle worker! There’s a Carl’s Jr. a quarter mile from here. *tires peeling out*

Continue reading ‘Our Twitter Contest Winner’