By MATT "MONEY" SMITH
FOXSportsWest.com | PRIME TICKET
Jan. 31, 2011
"One of these things is not like the others/One of these things just doesn't belong/Can you tell which thing is not like the others/By the time I finish my song?"
Sure the anthem that could be heard at least three times a week while watching "Sesame Street" is stuck in my head because Taylor Made is using it to advertise their new R11 driver, but it was playing on a loop as I watched the Lakers-Celtics game from my couch Sunday. (Click HERE for photos from Sunday's game.) The Boston Celtics look like a team that's on a completely different level than any other in the NBA right now. When you not only sport the league's best defense, but are shooting over 50% as a team, and have busted up the best squads repeatedly, there's no question who has found that rhythm and who's still searching for it.
I was planning on hitting up STAPLES Center to take in the biggest regular season game of the year in person, but it turned out to be Girl Scout cookie day. So my pregame routine consisted of canvassing the neighborhood with my two daughters before the other kids got to our regulars. Thankfully we performed much better in the face of adversity than the Lakers. With one child already on our side of the block and another up the street in the distance, we sprinted over to the street behind our house where we knew an older set of neighbors resides and they live for events like Girl Scout cookie day, buying up 8-10 boxes per home. By the time the rain came to give us a break, we were nearly out of our 180 boxes designated for the fine folks of North Orange County.
Not being in the arena actually worked out for the better. When things got away late in the 4th quarter, I was able to flip over to the NHL All-Star game where they were playing better defense than the Lakers, and if that got too boring there was always the Farmers' Open at Torrey Pines where the world's best actually raised their level of play in the face of adversity instead of holing up into their shells. And don't think I didn't notice that the tournament winner Bubba Watson had the same amount of assists as Kobe Bryant, and he was all the way down in San Diego playing golf.
We'll start there. On which side of the spectrum do you reside; "Kobe is taking all the shots so his teammates have no chance of finding a rhythm," or "Kobe is taking all the shots because his teammates aren't helping him?" I can't say for certain which of them was more correct Sunday against the Celtics considering the type of games Pau Gasol, Ron Artest and Andrew Bynum had. But taking as many shots as your entire front court without posting one single assist doesn't look so hot when it comes to playing a team sport. Perhaps an even greater indictment that Bryant was on his own and had no interest in involving his supporting cast was the paltry 4 assists compiled on his 16 makes. It was almost as if Bryant's goal was to erase the memory of his 6-for-24 effort in Game 7 of the NBA Finals no matter the outcome of the game.
If this were a "The More You Know" or a lesson learned at the end of a "Dukes of Hazard" episode, of all people, Bynum provided the best description of what's wrong with Bryant trying to single handedly provide the second half offense.
"If you're standing around in the triangle, it's going to lead to fast breaks. Because you have three guys on the baseline, you have a guy in the corner, a guy in the other corner, someone in the block. That's automatically, a long shot or long rebound, you're starting from the baseline."
That sort of description puts Bryant's performance smack in the middle of the "not working in the context of the offense" category.
It's certainly easier to say "Pau is soft" or "Andrew's got another owie" than to closely examine all the problems that come with a 41-point Bryant performance during a 13-point Lakers loss. Phil Jackson took up for his superstar when he indicted the supporting cast with the statement "I didn't think anybody else wanted the ball."
Exactly one week following the Jerry West comments that the Lakers were "long in the tooth" and left much to be desired defensively, they allowed their chief rival, in a game they clearly were committed to winning, to connect on 60% of their shots, pile up 34 assists on their 44 baskets and crush them on the glass, 43-30. While the Lakers tried to play down the outcome suggesting if it were May or June than you could panic, but not in January, and while it is true that Sunday's loss counted exactly the same as the one at the hands of the Kings on Friday, you can't ignore trends; in the four losses this season to the Mavericks, Heat, Spurs and now Celtics, the Lakers fell by an average of 13 points per game.
I remember in college chasing an "A" or "B" in some of my more challenging subjects. I would pile up C's and D's on weekly assignments, but insist when the time came to take the "Final Exam" I'd come through and post the grade I wanted. Sometimes it worked, but sometimes the curriculum got the best of me. Last year as the Lakers sputtered down the stretch we questioned whether or not they had enough to win back-to-back titles. They proved they did. But that was in a season where they looked to be the class of the NBA all year long. This year, that's far from the case. Back in school, I was able to pull it off in Western Civilization and Political Science. When I tried to make up too much ground in Calculus, I failed miserably. Last season there was a lot of History and Communication classes waiting for the Lakers.
This year, there's Calculus, Quantum Physics, Anatomy and Statistics waiting.
Matt "Money" Smith can be heard Monday-Friday on The Petros and Money Show on FOX Sports Radio
