Let Kobe Get His?

It’s an interesting link, Jeff, but the one thing it fails to take into account is that Bowen is CLEARLY a shell of his former self. A lot of Laker fans seem to be taking that Bowen matchup a lot more seriously than an objective assessment of Bowen’s current skills allows. His defensive game has slipped. Markedly.

That entire San Antonio team has gotten significantly older rather quickly.

Stop everyone else and just play Kobe straight up!!! we learned from Lebron that what killed us was his teammates. Let Kobe get his which he will anyways lol but mainly think about stopping his 4 role players. This is a team game. Not Kobe, Not Jordan can beat a team 4 times single handed.

I hope that Tony Allen can go. I like the idea of shuttling Ray, Posey and T Allen on Kobe. We all know what Tony is capable of – good and bad – but he can be a defensive asset.

If Kobe is getting in the lane I’d tell PJ, BBD and Leon to put him to the floor before giving him his free throws.

I don’t think Sam has defensive game to play against the triangle. I hope they go with Eddie – not a D wizard, but a hustler.

Celts should watch tape of Houstpon game when TMac said that it was the best D he’s ever faced in the NBA.

I thought the Spurs strategy on Kobe worked brilliantly. They held LA to 15 points below their normal mark and put a hurt on Kobe’s supporting cast. It was the best defense I’ve seen against Gasol’s Lakers. The only reason the Spurs lost was because their offense let them down. Their defense put them in a brilliant situation to win the series.

I’d like to see the C’s do something similar to San Antonio.

I don’t think Sam has defensive game to play against the triangle. I hope they go with Eddie – not a D wizard, but a hustler.

Yes I don’t think Sammy should play either. Jordan Farmer is the best backup point guard off the dribble that the C’s have faced this year. Heck he’s better of the dribble than Atlanta’s and Cleveland’s starting point guard too. Putting Sammy in the game makes Farmer a consistent offensive threat which is something the C’s should avoid where possible.

Eddie House is a far superior one-on-one defender and he’ll do a better job on Farmer than Sammy can. Farmer doesn’t pressure the ball too well either, Sasha does a decent job, so Eddie’s ballhandling is less important. Eddie’s shooting and passion is also a big draw. The bench could use that spark.

is that Bowen is CLEARLY a shell of his former self

I disagree. I agree that Bowen has lost a step and not as dominant a defender as before but he’s still a great defender, a true stopper. I’d rate him as the second best perimeter defender in the league behind Shane Battier which is far from being a shell of his former self.

I think the SA strategy would work better for the Celtics. People have to remember that SA stunk in that series against the Lakers. Robert Horry didn’t score in 3 straight games, Bowen is not the defender people make him out to be (and can’t score more than 7 ppg), especially this late in his career, Ginobli only had 1 good game out of the 5 (because of injury). Tim Duncan and Parker were the only SA players that stepped up. The rest of their bench were too old and DONE.

The Celtics won’t have the same problems scoring that SA had.

And even old man Bowen is far better than Ray. Ray is our weakest perimeter defender (not including cassel)

i don’t care how they do it. there will be adjustments all around and they will probably have to try a few methods. pp on kobe for some time as well. it’s the offense and the willingness of these guys to keep their offensive composure that will tell.

What Thorpe and Abbott are missing here is that the reason the Spurs lost has nothing to do with their plan against Kobe, or even the Lakers offense for that matter. The Spurs held the Lakers to 93.4 ppg, well below their season average of 108.6 ppg, and their playoff average of 105.9 ppg. In theory, the Spurs defense did exactly what it was supposed to do. So why didn’t the Spurs win?

They scored 88.4 ppg, which isn’t even close to enough to beat any team with a high powered offense, especially the best in the league. They only scored that many points for a couple reasons. Their bench was non existent, and Pop could not trust them in the 2nd half all series. This forced Duncan to play extended minutes and just by watching you could tell the effect this had on him. Shots he normally made down the stretch were not falling, and even though Duncan had a great series on the boards and scoring, his efficiency was one of the worst all time we’ve seen from Duncan in a playoff series. So watching the game tells us a lot, but looking at the series boxscore tells us much more. Duncan was 42.6% from the floor in the series, not to mention the obvious struggles of Ginobili throughout the series.

Everyone keeps harping on the offense of the Lakers vs the defense of the Celtics. This is hardly relevant, as what happened in the Spurs series is precisely what will happen in this series. Both sides will give a little bit, and the Lakers will most likely score between 90-95 ppg in this series. The ultimate question is can we score 95-100 throughout?

From watching the Spurs/Lakers series, I’m leaning towards the Spurs lack of depth and being worn down for the reasons of their failures. I think we can score 95-100, and that means not harping on Kobe Bryant as much and just focusing on resurecting our dismal 32% three point shooting in the postseason back to a similar version of ourselves in the regular season where we were top 5 in the league at 38%.

People are blinded by our lack of offense over the last two series, but people are failing to respect that we just played 2 of the top 5 defenses in the league. Both series were rather ugly, but one thing we did show was that we can win ugly. Now, against LA, we must prove we can outscore an opponent. Well, once again, people forget we’ve already seen an offensive oriented team this postseason in the Atlanta Hawks. As much of a black eye as that was on this whole season, the Celtics score 99.1 ppg in that series, and we scored 100.5 ppg during the entire season.

So the Celtics may have shown some offensive inepititude during the postseason, but the whole world is going to be very surprised by how easily we score in this series. This is not the Cavs defense nor is it the Pistons defense. Our big 3 will be ready, and so will our still underrated bench.

I expect to see the same defense we saw against Lebron. Paul’s job will be tougher though, because Kobe is a better jump shooter.

modawg, you are not seriously comparing the “offensive oriented” Atlanta Hawks, the last team to get into the playoffs, to the Lakers?

Kobe Bryants biggest weakness is when he misses a few shots in a row like three for example he gets real anxious to score, becomes selfish, doesn’t utilize his teammates instead.

We need to double team this guy frequently. Forget about gasol, odom or anyone else. Just double team Kobe and we will win the series. I thought san antonio i don;‘t know if they have too much pride or they don’t respect kobe but they let him do whatever he wanted to do.

Get pierce and ray allen to double team kobe alot , odom can’t shoot that well so you risk your chances on that but don’t let rondo lose sight on fisher cuz he can shoot. Gasol has no chance against kg

WHERE DOES THORPE LIVE? la? FTS Celts in 6!