With that in mind, we kept the video camera rolling to capture some of the action with just over 24 hours until Game 1 tips off in Los Angeles.
Archive for the 'Practice News' Category
Amidst the media horde at STAPLES Center for the first day of full availability, we spent some time with various Lakers and Magic players, plus Lakers Coach Phil Jackson, to offer a summary of the event.
First, Kobe Bryant (2:49) and Jackson (2:33) spoke from the podium (CLICK HERE): The nine-time coaching champ addressed how his team looked in practice this week, talked about the meaning of Orlando’s regular season wins over L.A., the motivation caused by losing last year’s NBA Finals and more. Bryant, meanwhile, expressed a state of calm focus, referred to the determination felt by his team and talked about what it would mean to deliver Jackson’s 10th ring.
Afterwards, we sat down individually with Josh Powell, Jordan Farmar and Luke Walton, videos that can be seen by CLICKING HERE. Powell, protected by a ball rack, talked mostly about hip hop music; Farmar talked about returning to the Finals and being great at video games; while Walton let everyone know that his phone will be off throughout the Finals.
Finally, we heard from three Orlando players - Hedo Turkoglu, Jameer Nelson and Anthony Johnson - to sum up the visitors’ perspective, which can be viewed HERE. Nelson remains questionable (shoulder), but did explain that if he does play, it will be in limited capacity. He was looked to as a scorer in the regular season before hurting his shoulder on Feb. 2, keyed by a terrific shooting rhythm that he said simply isn’t back yet. As such, if he plays, Nelson will serve as more of a facilitator off the bench.
For more on the Finals, head to our Playoff Central page or check out the complete Lakers - Magic preview.
Phil Jackson addressed assembled media following L.A.’s Wednesday morning practice:
Q. How can you just whether this team is ready, what kind of feeling will you have?
PHIL JACKSON: Boy, that’s not the easiest question to answer because we’ve got two really good days of practice. Today wasn’t as sharp or as crisp, and that’s what you’re looking for as a coach is that everybody is focused, they’re reacting well, shooting well in a sense.
Q. Pau, he talked yesterday about how he really hit the weight room this season and he’s stronger and he doesn’t have to take anti inflammatories. How much healthier is he now than he was a year ago?
PHIL JACKSON: Yeah, I just think that he’s never been one that’s been dedicated to the weight room type. We understand that. But knowing what happened last year and felt we just didn’t have the muscle to get in there and wrestle with Boston in the situation that we were in, that he really had to get in the weight room, and it would help his rebounding, and it certainly has.
Q. What does it mean that you lost two games to those guys? Does it mean anything going into The Finals?
PHIL JACKSON: It means we have a great deal of respect for them as far as a team. They played very well down the stretch in both the games to win the two games they played against us. Obviously those are mitigating circumstances; we had different people in the lineup, they had different people in the lineup. It was four months ago, but it certainly gives us a great deal of respect for them.
Q. Can you talk about just what it means to be back here. And then also the role that you had to take, taking a team from a lottery to being a championship contender over the last five years or so?
PHIL JACKSON: Well, I came back at the behest of the Buss family really to coach this team back into playoff contention. We obviously got back into the playoffs even though we got back to .500 and struggled in the playoffs both against Phoenix first two years and then we subsequently have gotten to a position where we feel like we’re as strong as any team in the league. Every night we give ourselves a chance to win, and have during the regular season. So that’s been really the blessing of coming back and having this opportunity again to see this team rise through kind of a feeling situation, come out from the ashes and become again a dominant team in the league.
Q. What keeps you going? I know you’ve been dealing with a lot of health issues and other things throughout the year. How much longer do you see yourself being able to do this?
PHIL JACKSON: With the training staff we have and the equipment manager, it’s about as easy a life as I can live. He carries my luggage, and the therapists, they keep me going every day. I’m in good shape.
Q. In terms of motivation?
PHIL JACKSON: It’s really about the momentum of a season. You know, you get caught up in this day to day life that we have where your schedule is pretty much determined from October until summer. You know, you get onto it, and there’s something about it that you learn over a behavior period, I think, of years. I think it’s going to be hard to get away from it, personally. I know I’ve done it twice, and I know one year, the asterisk season, and they didn’t start playing until February, and the other year I went to the South Pacific and got away from the basketball game simply by dissolving the presence of NBA ball.
But yeah, it’s something that’s been in my life for 40 years.
Q. When you talked about health and rings yesterday, we never got around to asking you, what happens if you win this thing? Will that enter into your decision about coming back?
PHIL JACKSON: I hope it does. It’s certainly an event that would be a culmination of an effort.
Q. So that means a large part of it, if you finally win that tenth ring?
PHIL JACKSON: I guess I really haven’t thought about it in that depth. I’ve kind of left that off to assessment at the end of the year.
Continue reading ‘Phil Jackson Press Conference’
So, there’s this new thing called Twitter. You heard of it?
Lakers.com Content Manager Ty Nowell introduced the Lakers to the new technology a couple months ago, and populates our @Lakers account, which now has over 267,000 followers. He also made an account for me, @miketrudell, which I used at today’s practice while listening to some of the players and head coach Phil Jackson talk.
Alas, here’s what I typed on my phone (140 characters maximum, mind you) with further explanation in italics if necessary:
Tweet #1: Kobe Bryant was asked how his body felt after a full year of playing including the 08 Finals and Olympics: “I feel great.”
A reporter intimated that Bryant’s body must be sore after the constant pounding, and while he at times looked tired while having to carry the whole load against Houston and Denver until figuring out that his passing could kill Denver after Game 4, Bryant looked quite fresh in Game 6. It’s also underrated how much having Phil Jackson helps veterans in their recovery process on non-game days.
#2: Kobe on what is still the media’s favorite topic, Lamar’s candy habit: “I’d love to be his dentist.”
Good joke, but basically, this story is extremely overblown. Too much down time between the WCF and the Finals.
#3: Here’s what Dwight Howard will be looking at (well, not all at once): http://twitpic.com/6hfou
Twitter allows you to take pictures and add them to what you’ve written, so I snapped a pic of Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol and D.J. Mbenga.
#4: Bynum: “We need to win a championship … We want to attack.”
The Lakers are hungry.
#5: Fisher said a 10th title would mean a lot to Jackson him not as a personal milestone but because his team has grown considerably.
Jackson confirmed this when asked repeatedly (five times) about it in his presser.
#6: Phil Jackson, after being asked about his health, said that he’s actually feeling pretty good right now.
A reporter was curious about Jackson’s health after he skipped a late regular season Portland game.
#7: Jackson said that last year the lead up to finals was spent figuring out how to deal with Boston’s D. This year, it’s more about LA’s D.
He didn’t think his team fully understood Boston’s defense, led by the outstanding Kevin Garnett, but this year is focusing more on dealing with Orlando’s unique offense.
#8: Jackson said he was worried about the 04 Detroit series and 08 Boston series but that he feels very good about the coming series.
This is as good a sign as any for the Lakers.
#9: Phil: “I don’t think since Shaq came into the game have we seen (as powerful a force) as Howard. We have to take that away from him.”
Self explanatory, but basically, Jackson explained how you simply can’t teach size in the NBA.
L.A. beat the Utah Jazz in five games, the Houston Rockets in seven and the Denver Nuggets in six, but there weren’t many smiles among the Lakers after winning the Western Conference Trophy.
Their collective mind was too busy thinking about the basketball kind of Magic to smile.
“We are extremely focused and we are ready,” said Luke Walton after Sunday’s practice*. “We have some time to rest our bodies, but we are excited to get started.”
*Click here for post-practice video of Phil Jackson, Pau Gasol and Shannon Brown
That the Lakers are back in the NBA Finals for the second consecutive year and 30th time in franchise history isn’t so much of a surprise to the team that came into the season favored by pundits and, well, themselves, to emerge out of the West. The same, however, can’t be said about their opponent, considered at best the third option to Boston and Cleveland even after Kevin Garnett’s injury. Yet after defeating the Philadelphia 76ers in six games, it took Orlando seven to defeat the defending champion Celtics and six to bury Cleveland, winning twice on the road in both Philly and Boston before earning the Eastern Conference trophy at home.
Like the dove out of the magician’s hat, the secret on the Magic is officially out: They’re good.
L.A. got a hint of that in the regular season as Orlando joined Charlotte as the only NBA teams not to lose to the Lakers in the regular season, winning close games that came down to key three pointers from the now-injured Jameer Nelson. But the Lakers aren’t thinking too much about the regular season not just because Orlando’s playing better ball, but because despite 65 wins L.A. clearly didn’t bring its A-game on a nightly basis … And who in the NBA could? More pointedly, the Lakers may not have seen Orlando as they did Boston, Cleveland or San Antonio in the regular season, but they do now.
The matchup is surely intriguing for the Lakers, particularly because of the unique style of the Magic, which features a true outside-in system boasting very good three-point shooters surrounding the exceedingly physical Dwight Howard. Their system proved too much for Cleveland, but there’s one major difference between the Cavs and Lakers: L.A. has three big men - Andrey Bynum, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom - that can individually attack Howard on defense, and two seven footers - if not three (Bynum, Gasol, D.J. Mbenga) - that will play him straight up on defense. Furthermore, while Rashard Lewis makes it tough on most opposing fours with his perimeter nature, L.A. feels that Pau Gasol can use his length to stay with Lewis on defense and his size to attack him on the block at the other.
“Pau can move his feet really well for how tall he is,” said Walton. “He has to be up to the challenge of Lewis and knowing Pau, he will be, so we may have an advantage there.”
Monday afternoon on Lakers.com, we’ll take you through a detailed and complete breakdown of each position-by-position matchup such as Gasol-Lewis, we’ll pick the brain of Lakers advance scout Rasheed Hazzard upon his return trip from scouting Orlando and we’ll review L.A.’s journey through the Western playoffs.
Until then, here are a few numbers upon which to chew:
264
Combined field goals made by Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol in the first three rounds on only 441 attempts. Howard led all playoff performers with a 62.2 shooting percentage, while Gasol was third with 57.4 percent from the field.
81
The number of wins L.A. would have at season’s end were they to accomplish their ultimate championship goal, the same number as Kobe Bryant’s career high point total.
55.8
Shooting percentage for Trevor Ariza in the playoffs after a 46-percent effort in the regular season. His playoff touch had him 4th in the entire NBA in FG%, while his 30-of-60 from three-point territory was good for 6th in the NBA.
51.9
Three-point percentage in the playoffs for Lamar Odom, good for 5th in the NBA and the highest of any remaining player. Bit of a shocker for a guy that shot 32 percent in the regular season, right? The team that’s thought of as the better three-point shooting team, Orlando, actually failed to have even one player over 40 percent, as Mickael Pietrus shot 39.3 percent to lead Orlando, while Rashard Lewis was right behind with 39.1 percent. They made 69 combined triples, while Odom made only 14 on 27 attempts, but Ariza (50 percent) and Shannon Brown (48 percent) were also shooting with more precision than Orlando.
41
The high-scoring game for any Lakers player came from Bryant in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals against Denver. Bryant also scored 40 in Game 1 against Denver and Game 2 of the second round against Houston. Pau Gasol was the only other Laker to hit the 30-point mark, which occurred in Game 4 at Houston.
40
Points scored by Howard in Sunday’s Game 6 win over Cleveland, the single-game high for any Magic player. Howard hit the 30-point mark in three other games in the first three rounds, while no other Magic player got there.
29.6
Scoring average for Bryant in the playoffs, good for second in the NBA behind LeBron James (35.3). Howard led Orlando with 21.7 points per game. Rashard Lewis was second with 19.4 per contest, while Pau Gasol put in 18.2 on a nightly basis.
15.4
Rebounds per game grabbed by Howard, the most in the playoffs. Gasol led L.A. with 11.3 per game, good for fifth in the playoffs, while Lamar Odom was 8th with 9.5 per game.
5.1
Assists per game averaged by Hedo Turkoglu to lead Orlando, while Bryant’s 4.9 were tops for L.A.
2
Home games lost by each team in their respective conferences. Houston surprised L.A. with a 100-92 win in Game 1 of the second round, while Denver took Game 2 of the WCF 106-103. Orlando opened the playoffs with a 100-98 loss on Andre Iguodala’s buzzer beater, and Boston won Game 4 95-94 on a Glen Davis jumper.
After appearing at times sluggish in the first two games of each of their first two 2009 playoff series, the Lakers pulled things together quite impressively in their two Game 5’s and a Game 7 against Utah and Houston, respectively. In fact, all three games ended up being blowouts after the Jazz and Rockets had taken 1-of-2 from L.A. at home in Games 3 or 4.
Here’s a quick review of the late-series first and second round games in Los Angeles:
Game 5 vs. Utah - Lakers 107, Jazz 96: The Lakers led by as many as 22 points early in the fourth quarter before Utah’s subs closed the gap late. Lamar Odom was terrific with 26 points, 15 rebounds, four assists and three blocks.
Game 5 vs. Houston - Lakers 118, Rockets 78: After the first quarter, the home team led by 11 points. After the second, the gap was 25. One more quarter, and it was 40, the margin that would stick through the final score.
Game 7 vs. Houston - Lakers 89, Rockets 70: The Lakers absolutely smothered the Rockets defensively, opening an early lead that swelled to as many as 31 points to finally dismiss a pesky Houston squad.
Now, the question is, will the Lakers be able to continue this pattern against a Denver team that’s proven to be playing better basketball than either of L.A.’s previous opponents, and with Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza both nursing injuries? In other words, just because L.A. played very well in its building in the first two rounds doesn’t mean they’ll be able to repeat the effort against Denver, even if the evidence doesn’t hurt. In this case, to repeat their STAPLES success, the purple and gold will not only need more from Odom and Ariza - injured or not - but from the rest of the bench, who’ll be looked at to display the kind of energy shown by the Nuggets’ pine in Game 4.
For more on L.A.’s upcoming Game 5, set to tip at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, check the post practice video by CLICKING HERE.
We had the notepad out subsequent to L.A.’s Saturday morning shootaround in Denver. Here’s what we learned:
- Andrew Bynum expressed his excitement about playing and, as expected, denied any ill will for a lack of playing time in the second half when pushed by various reporters. Clearly he’d prefer to be playing more minutes, like any player, but he says his focus is on maintaining a good attitude and contributing as much as he can.
- Phil Jackson said that he thought there’s far too much focus being placed on Bynum, whom he said still lacks the conditioning to play for long stretches. On Friday, Jackson also cited Denver’s small lineup as a reason his big center didn’t get many minutes.
- Luke Walton, while icing down, joked around with Adam Morrison and Pau Gasol for a good five minutes. The mood, in general, was quite light.
- The team watched film for a good hour before taking the court.
- Kobe Bryant held court with reporters for a good seven minutes or so, revealing his awareness of how tough the Pepsi Center will be, but expressing confidence for the NBA’s best road team.
- The primary goal for the Lakers in Colorado is to win both games, not just the split that would return home court advantage.
- Assistant coach Brian Shaw talked about how much more difficult it is approaching a game as a coach than as a player, because as a player one feels an element of control that can be executed personally, while a coach has nothing but a clipboard and his voice.
- Tip off is at 5:30 Pacific.
Generally after a playoff game, the losing team has the benefit of looking at the tape and making adjustments that could benefit their cause in the second game.
But after breaking down the pluses and minuses of both teams in Game 1, it appears that the Lakers, not the Nuggets, are the team that will be making the greater number of adjustments before Thursday’s Game 2, which can only be seen as a positive going forward. This shouldn’t come as a major surprise, however, since the Nuggets had days longer to prepare for the matchup than did L.A. (come on, you know the Nuggets weren’t prepping for Houston).
Take out the final two minutes, and Denver couldn’t have executed their game plan any better, while the Lakers could hardly have seemed more out of sorts. Let’s take a look:
Denver Positives
- Attacked the rim with luster, getting 46 points in the paint and several layups/dunks as L.A. was slow to react particularly on the weak side. Clearly, the Nuggets had planned on exploiting L.A.’s strong side push, and they executed very well.
- Got Andrew Bynum in foul trouble and pushed Pau Gasol around, allowing the Nuggs to control the lane at both ends. Essentially, they pushed the Lakers out of their preferred spots and forced offensive freelancing.
- Made Kobe Bryant work (very) hard for nearly everything he got at both ends of the floor.
- Got a transcendent 14-of-20 shooting performance from Carmelo Anthony.
- Controlled the tempo.
- Had the benefit of Chauncey Billups’ floor game, which helped expose that strong side trap, not to mention his two clutch threes.
- Saw Kenyon Martin go for 15 points, including some ugly line drives in the paint.
- Got a solid defensive effort off the bench from Chris Anderson, who also pitched in eight points.
Denver Negatives
- Missed 12 free throws, which really hurt. Billups missed three and J.R. Smith four.
- Conceded 17 offensive rebounds to the Lakers in part because of L.A.’s length, and in part because Denver’s bigs routinely leave their rebounding position to attempt blocked shots (of which they had eight).
- Made three critical mistakes in crunch time, including Anthony Carter’s turnover on the inbound pass that Ariza sniped, and two untimely Kenyon Martin fouls.
- Lack of a bench contribution from J.R. Smith* in particular, who made only 2-of-7 shots, took two terrible threes, missed four free throws and turned it over three times while committing five fouls.
*Smith, who hyper-extended his knee on Sunday, is expected to play in Game 2.
Continue reading ‘Lakers Practice Report - Wednesday’
Pau Gasol explained his team’s excitement heading into Game 7, talked about the importance of helping Andrew Bynum get off to good starts and expressed clearly his desire to bring a maximum physical effort to the game.
Kobe Bryant addressed the media after Saturday afternoon’s practice, displaying a game-ready focus in describing what his team needs to do on Sunday starting at 12:30 p.m.
