trick

I couldn't even stand to watch the post game show. But if anyone caught it could you recap Sam's comments?

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AirJordan™

Kobe scored 81 pts??????? OMFG. That is just craaaaaazy. What happened to the Raptors defence?
We gotta bounce back today against the Nuggets.

Benis007

The way that Kobe has been playing this year it isn't a suprise that he hit 81.. One question though

why did he pick us?

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Turkish Delight

At half time I had a bad feeling about this game. Sure, we were knocking down our shots, but Kobe was heating up, and our best defender, Mo Pete was in foul trouble.
In the second half not only was Kobe killing us on one end, but we started taking too many jumpers on offense.

It's funny how in the 1st half Chuck was saying how it may be too late for the Lakers to come back, what was he thinking?

lucky777s

A lot of overreacting to Kobe's point total. It was an impressive performance, and a very efficient 81 if such a thing exists. But does it really matter that it was one guy doing the scoring? Would it be any better or worse if 3 Lakers put up 90 combined? (Well, actuallly you could say 3 Lakers combined for 90 tonight I guess, LOL, but you get the point).

What Kobe's performance did was clearly shake the Raptors and throw their offence totally out of whack. Kobe was hitting all those 3's so we just kept taking long Js with no rebounders.

And Kobes night also hid some major weaknesses in the game. The rebounding differential of 51-27, nearly doubling our output. Mihm and Kwame looked like MONSTERS out there against Charlie and Bosh. Lakers had 18 offensive rebounds with 9 by Mihm and Kwame. Most early in the game. Our interior D is a joke.

Pape looks small out there as well, and hasn't shown anything that Hoff wasn't doing since being called up. Now we know why he was sent down and that his nbdl stats mean nothing.

We miss Hoff, even for his 12mpg. Its non stat-line stuff like rebounds the other team doesn't get because of Hoff boxing out, and his D rotations. We are just too weak and small inside without him.

Still, with all that, our biggest lead was 18 in the 3rd Q and the Lakers had us by 20 in the 4th Q. That's a 38 point swing in about 15-20 minutes. We really fell apart at both ends. But it was mainly the D with 73 second half points. Even if we scored 50 we would have lost by 9.

Just a loss to a hot shooter while we went cold and lost focus. Not a huge deal. 20 point leads go bye-bye every night in the league. And we were never even up that much.

People ragging on Kobe for shooting too much tonight are just haters. He won that game by himself. The rest of the team did nothing all night and were heading for a big loss. Kobe had 26 at the half and they were getting spanked.

He would have put 70-80 on the Mavs last month too. He had 62 after 3 quarters and sat out the 4th. The guy is just a machine. 81 points on 46 shots is efficient.

Sam said he tried man, zone, and even a box and 1 with one guy shadowing Kobe everywhere. Nothing mattered this night. Thats the beauty and the difficulty of basketball. You can't tackle guy to stop him. And when a shooter is on it doesn't matter how many hands are in his face.

undefined_playa

Alright guys, I'm gonna just vent a bit now so listen up:

1) Why did Mitchell take off Pape Sow? He was playing with great intensity...grabbing boards, contesting shots, being a big presence down low. Suddenly he takes him off for...Bonner? Can somebody please explain that?

2) Where the double or even triple teams on Kobe? Yeah they DID do it...but it should've been done every trip down the floor. Play Kobe as you would Jordan. Stop him and just let others try to score. I think everyone agrees with me that you'd rather have anyone else on the team have a wide open shot than Kobe even taking a fade-away.

3) What happened to Bosh schooling the Lakers? In the beginning he looked almost unstoppable, then the Raps stopped running their O through him. Just sad.

4) Same as the Pape Sow situation, what happened to Charlie? The combo of Chris & Charlie was working really well & for some retarded reason, Mitchell says, "i've had enough of this."

5) Why the hell couldn't we break out of their double teams? It's like Calderon & James froze everytime the Lakers double-teamed them? Shoot, how could they NOT find the open man?

All in all, I blame this coach on Mitchell. He just hasn't been a very good coach for the Raps in my eyes.

__________________
"I've never been afraid to fail."
"Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen."
"I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying."

Michael Jordan...the greatest ever

"When I'm upset I'm known to do certain things...like win championships."
- Shaq

aizn

wow, kobe is juss amazing, that is juss an unbelievable feat. out of 46 shots, and 20 from the free throw line, how many PEOPLE can say they can score 81 points, let alone playing in an NBA game and having a hand up in ur face on all those shots.

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Peter Piper

"Now Peter Piper picked peppers, but Run rapped rhymes.
Humpty Dumpty fell down, that's his hard time.
Jack B. Nimble, what, nimble, and he was quick,
but Jam Master was faster, Jack saw Jay's dick.
Now little Bo Peep cold lost her sheep
and Rip van Winkle fell the hell asleep.
And Alice stilled her hunger in Wonderland"

Benis007

ESPNradio was bashing Sam for his coaching during the game.. why no double team?

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ansoncarter

wheres that "KOBE IS KING!" poster

the one time he should be posting that stuff he disappears lol

USSKittyHawk

I asked that in another thread, but I heard he was double him. If Sam ordered the double, I would have triple his behind if that wasn't working.

BTW Love the sig Benis!

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"Behind every successful woman there is an astonished man." - Four Star General Ann E. Dunwoody

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.

martymar

They did double Kobe, but they really can't double Kobe when he is outside the arc...

I still don't understand why the focus of raptors losing the game because Kobe scored 81 and they didn't triple team him, as I said before raps lost cuz they got out rebound 51-27

TRON

^ forget doubling him when he gets the ball, how about draping two players on him before that, how about denying him the ball before he gets it, how about a trap, pressure anything.....For someone that missed the game it's unfathomable that a player, even as talented as Kobe Bryant could do that to a team in the modern era of NBA Basketball.

I think as Speedy mentioned, Sam's theory was to let Kobe shoot all day and hope he takes his team out the game. Can anyone that heard Sam's post game comments, please post what he was thinking

Wow, that really puts into perspective how bad our frontcourt is.

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"and they aware of us though,
but we don't give a flying 747 **** though,
stayin on my hustle" -Nas

"To be honest, sometimes in this game, telling the truth is the best smokescreen of all." - Raptors GM Bryan Collangelo

no_free_baskets

of course it matters...when the coach blatantly disregards the most obvious way to slow a hot player down, (double kobe out like how we defend mcgrady) its speaks volumes on the ineptness of the coach...yeah, me personally, i would have much preferred 3 lakers going for 90 then what kobe did to us....but what is the likelyhood of those 3 plyrs going for 90 on us, when practically no one but kobe shot all 2nd half? dont u think if we forced the ball out of kobes hand, those players would have been ice cold and out of rhythm from their lack of shots? no one knows for sure what would happen if we did...it could be that it wouldnt havent work, it could be it that it would have...but the question of if it would have worked or not is not even the pt.... the pt. is mitchell didnt even ATTEMPT to explicitly double kobe out until late in the game, when kobe already had 70+ and the game was out of reach...(anyone that say mitchell explictly sent double teams on kobe before calderon and sow came in, in garbage mins., is flat out wrong.) i dont buy the spin mitchell puts on it, it just inexcusable to me how there wasnt a double sent down on kobe even thou there were pts in the game, where it would seem , the situation clearly dictated it...

e.g 1: peterson picks up 4th foul late in 3rd quarter...mitchell brings in calderon to guard him, which he explain in not so many words in his post game interview, as bringing in a smaller guard (calderon in this instance) to deny kobe the ball...there are 2 part i dont understand in mitchell's logic here...1, why let calderon guard him, when james was out on the floor at the same? would it not have made more sense to put the quicker james on bryant if the objective was to deny kobe the ball? secondly, once kobe had the ball in his possession, why wasnt the double team sent seeing as calderon clearly cant guard him one-on-one? were we playing a box and one defense at this pt?

e.g 2: calderon gets abuse for a good min or 2, and mitchell sends out rose to guard bryant...now we all know rose isnt the best defender, so knowing that, why isnt there a double sent as soon as kobe touches the ball? what is mitchell excuse? were we playing box and one defense again?

e.g 3 rose is overwhelmed by bryant and peterson is sent early in the 4th as mitchell probably believes the balance of the game will probably be dictated in the next few mins. peterson picks up a quick 5th foul...peterson now has 5 early in the 4th quarter with the game still within reach...with 5 fouls, peterson obviously cant guard bryant as aggressively as he wants, so wouldnt it have been prudent to send a double team on bryant seeing our man guarding him has 5 fouls? or were we playing box and one defense again? please....in each of these 3 cases, each man was playing head up against bryant...the only defensive system which mitchell brought up that warrants not doubling kobe is the box and one...but if the box and one didnt work in any of these 3 cases, why did he not do the obvious and send out the straight double team? someone pls explain this to me......

no_free_baskets