We sat down with assistant coach Jim Cleamons after shootaround to discuss tonight’s matchup with the Chris Paul and the New Orleans Hornets. Check out the video above.
Archive for the 'Video' Category
Earlier today, Dr. Ken Jung confirmed that Luke Walton is suffering from sesamoiditis in his right foot, which has found Walton in a protective boot that he’ll sport throughout the week.
Set to begin non-weight bearing rehabilitation exercises in a pool today, Walton is expected to be out a minimum of two weeks.
After Monday’s practice, Walton addressed local media pertaining to his disappointment about the injury, which had been bugging him increasingly until he spoke to Lakers trainer Gary Vitti.
The Portland Trail Blazers aren’t quite the same team that’s managed a 20-13 record, good for second place in the Northwest Division.
Their best player, Brandon Roy, didn’t even make the trip to L.A. due to a hamstring injury that could keep him out for a few more games on top of the three he’ll have missed after Sunday. Roy does have a history of getting injured, as he missed 25 games his rookie year and eight last season. The Blazers, thus, have been without Roy before, and this season add Spaniard Rudy Fernandez to slide into Roy’s shooting guard slot. Where Portland probably misses Roy the most, however, is late in games; Travis Outlaw may be the Blazer towards which they turn if the Fernandez/LaMarcus Aldridge high screen and roll isn’t clicking.
The Lakers, meanwhile, have lost just once at home this season - back on Nov. 14 against Detroit - compared with 17 wins. The purple and gold has also yet to lose while wearing their Sunday and holiday white jerseys.
Alas, here’s assistant coach Brian Shaw with more on the matchup in our LakersTV video segment: LAKERS SHOOTAROUND: BRIAN SHAW
After L.A.’s first practice in three days, Lakers head coach Phil Jackson and guard Kobe Bryant addressed assembled media.
We were there taping, so you could watch for yourself:
Stay tuned tomorrow and Friday, as we’ll have more from Derek Fisher on how much he enjoys playing big minutes, not to mention a conversation with Josh Powell about abbreviations in text messages.
Finally, we’ll have a pregame look at a banged up Utah Jazz squad which has managed to keep their record in the “solid” category at 19-12.
Happy New Year
(YouTube versions of the videos are below the jump)
Lakers.com is fully willing to take credit for Sasha Vujacic’s best home games.
We can’t explain exactly why it works like this, but when Sasha sits down with us after shootaround before home games, he balls out.
During Sunday’s beating of Golden State, Vujacic was 6-of-10 from the field and 4-of-7 from three for a season-high 17 points, plus a season-high six assists, two boards and a steal … Not to mention only two turnovers while serving as the backup point guard in the absence of Jordan Farmar, and some tough defense against smaller guards on the perimeter. Not coincidentally, he appeared on Lakers.com that morning.
Sasha’s already admitted the cause (admittedly, playing 30 minutes didn’t hurt his cause), and can even rewind back to the season’s first four games, in which he’d made just 7-of-22 shots and was ready to crack his head against the base of the basket. Sasha came on Lakers.com, and proceeded to make all three of his shots from the field with three assists and a steal for a +15 in 15 minutes of playing time against Houston the next day.
Alas, below is the video of Sasha before his best game of the season … Though, clearly, he’s more worried about the socks* I wore to shootaround then the fact that Lakers.com is basically ensuring that he lives up to his contract.
*OK, I wore white socks with my blue suit at 11 a.m. shootaround, because I had to promptly change back into jeans and running shoes to cart my in-town family around Manhattan Beach. Obviously, blue socks were waiting in the car for the game, but Sasha cared so little about that excuse that he brought it up three times during the video (some were edited out) and then again twice in the locker room. Thanks for blowing up my spot, Sasha, ‘ppreciate you.
Tonight forward/center Ronny Turiaf returned to face the Lakers for the first since joining the Golden State Warriors as a free agent. In his three years with the team Ronny became one of the most popular Lakers on and off the court because of his blue collar work ethic and unbridled enthusiasm for the game. The organization welcomed Ronny back to STAPLES Center with a short video of appreciation before tip-off.
After shootaround today we caught up with assistant coach Brian Shaw to talk about tonight’s opponent, the Golden State Warriors (video above).
He threw a couple of interesting statistics at us. Golden State leads the league in offensive rebounds and is near the top in second-chance and fast-break points. This is all indicative of a team that isn’t afraid to hoist up a lot of outside shots. That’s not really a surprise since head coach Don Nelson loves to play fast ( fast like near the border of reckless, not fast like 70 in a 65) and has a roster stocked with gunners like Stephen Jackson, Kelenna Azubuike, Jamal Crawford, Marco Belinelli and Corey Maggette.
A stat the might surprise is the Warriors ranking at the top of the NBA in blocked shots with 6.6 per game. Former Laker Ronny Turiaf is fourth in the league with 2.17 bpg in just over 17-minutes per game while starting big man Andris Biedrins is swatting away 1.45 shot per game.
It looks like the Warriors will be without Maggette (hamstring), but could regain the services of Crawford, who is still listed as questionable with a strained groin.This won’t effect the style of basketball the Warriors play, they’ll run-and-gun no matter who’s dressed, just the quality and depth.
Even without those two, and a record that only sports nine wins, Golden State is a dangerous team every single night. They showed this on Friday when they beat the Boston Celtics a day after the Lakers accomplished the same feat. In that game Boston controlled the game with a double-digit lead for the majority of the contest until hitting a cold streak in the final minutes while the Warriors caught fire and ended up with a 99-89 win.
On offense the key for the Lakers will be to go inside early and often. “Last year when Pau was with Memphis, right before the trade, he had 45 or 46 points against the Warriors. His brother this year, with Memphis again, had 26-points and 16-rebounds against Golden State. The point I was trying to make is that you have to get the ball inside against this team,” Shaw said. And it’s not just the Gasol brothers that fair well against Golden State, big men in general seem to prosper when given the touches against the Warriors.
*Editor’s Note: It was 43 for Pau, but when you get up that high who really cares
The inside game not only takes advantage of the Warriors lack of size down there but leads to high percentage shots that cuts down on long rebounds that can kick start the Warriors fast-break.
Added Shaw, “That might be our best defense, how we execute our offense to control the tempo and the pace.”
After Wednesday’s shootaround, we spent a few minutes shooting the breeze with Sasha Vujacic … And by pure coincidence, Vujacic played his best game of the season later that evening, scoring 15 points in 19 minutes with three three-pointers. Towards that end, last time Vujacic talked to us on video was prior to the Houston game (Nov. 9), when he broke out of a slump by going 3-for-3 from the field with three assists and two boards in 15 minutes. Just saying.
Alas, on this day we talked about music, with Sasha detailing a recently-attended John Mayer concert, his love (err, hate) for techno/rave music and more.
Is that the longest title of the year? Maybe.
After I spent a few minutes with Vladimir Radmanovic talking about his increased aggression in taking the ball to the hoop when defenders jump out at him (because he’s shooting 48 percent from three), I abruptly switched topics to music.
Since Vladi doesn’t watch much TV, but has always loved music, he’s able to reel off a list of his favorites as if by memory. Yet before we got to Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, Vladi told me about his earliest musical influences, all bands from the former Yugoslavia that are quite hard to pronounce (unless you’re from a country in the former Yugoslavia…).
Here’s the video:
Now, Vladi said on the video that he “didn’t want to” make me a former Yugoslavian music mix, but he agreed after the interview when I complained about my lack of former Eastern European cultural knowledge. Perhaps we’ll be able to post a bit of the music once Vladi gets around to it? I’ll let you know…
The 5-0 Purple & Gold got back on the floor Monday morning in preparation for their first road back-to-back of the season. Here are a couple of bullet points from Phil Jackson’s post-practice media session.
Click here to watch the video… or click below the jump for the embedded version.
