[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by pgardn

This is a sign of death for the Lakers. Reminds me of MJ and the Bulls in the early years.

Lets all watch Kobe. They are one bad team.

Everyone remembers the 63 that MJ scored on Boston in 1986. That was in game two of that series. He had scored 49 in game one. After game three, the Celtics had swept the Bulls. The Lakers are just a bad team. They've been decimated by injuries this year but that's never an excuse in professional sports. The Rockets didn't sink when McGrady and then Ming went down. U've got to play through them. They have done a decent job but Kobe saw what was going on. It's interesting that he didn't take over like this during the horrible losing streaks. They went through a six then seven game losing streak and he was playing team ball. They get Odom and Walton back and off goes Kobe. From the beginning of the season, I was counting down the days until he realized that they wouldn't get anywhere with him playing team ball. He has to take over like this for them to have any chance. I don't call him an unselfish player or even blame him. Hell, if I was Phil Jackson, I'd say that Kobe needs to shoot even more. I'd rather have him taking 15 more shots per game than having Parker, Vujacic and Brown taking them.

I just can't believe how bad the defense has been. During the four games, they've given up:

111 to Portland (averaging 94.5)
102 to Minnesota (96.2)
119 to Memphis (101.3)
105 to New Orleans (94.1)

They've been outrebounded by over four a game during this stretch. And Kobe is just totally disregarding his teammates:

39 shots, 3 assists vs Portland
35 shots, 3 assists vs Minnesota
37 shots, 4 assists vs Memphis
29 shots, 1 assist vs New Orleans

How long can he carry them like this? How long before they become totally uninterested in playing any defense (who would be able to tell) because they don't get to play any offense. They are in bad shape.