You can’t win them all. It’s
a simple, yet very true phrase that applies to all North American sports
(except you, 1972 Dolphins). The Lakers came out of an 0-8 preseason to a very
hyped up and anticipated regular season opener against the Dallas Mavericks
without power forward Dirk Nowitzki or center Chris Kaman. With a starting lineup
of Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, Metta World Peace, Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard, I’m
sure everyone outside of Dallas thought the Lakers take this in a landslide.
Alas, here we are with Dallas winning in Los Angeles 99-91.
What went wrong for L.A.?
Plenty of things went wrong for Los Angeles, starting with free throws; the
Lakers took 13 more free throws than the Mavericks, however, Dallas ended up
making two more than Los Angeles. That’s right, out of a whopping 31 free
throws, L.A. only manages to make 12; while Dallas made 14 out of 18 free
throws. That is unacceptable. What is also amazing: No backcourt player on the
Lakers took a single free throw; Howard took 14 free throws (nearly half of
L.A.’s total free throw count), Jordan Hill took 6 free throws, only making 1.
Pau Gasol had a respectable percentage, as he made 6 of 8 free throws. Antawn
Jamison made 1 of 1 to complete an And-1 play, and Metta World Peace only made
1 of 2.
Dallas spent most of its
time stopping Howard from getting easy put back dunks, effectively applying the
Hack-a-Shaq strategy to perfection as Howard went on to make only 3 of 14 from
the charity stripe. The Lakers just couldn’t stop the pick and roll Dallas was
running, and that’s without the possibility of it becoming a pick and pop (a
play that’s very common and hard to stop with Dirk on the floor). Steve Nash is
still the below average defender we all know as Darren Collison ate him alive
tonight to the tune of 17 points on 8-12 shooting, and Howard seems to have
been off on his timing; he only had one block tonight, and allowed countless
shots to go uncontested in the paint.
Los Angeles allowed too many
rebounds to Dallas. On paper, it doesn’t look bad, as L.A. hauled in 46
rebounds to Dallas’ 40, but when you realize the Lakers have Dwight Howard and
Pau Gasol, while Dallas is missing its twin 7 footers, then you know you have a
problem. LA looked generally slower than Dallas, and played with less enthusiasm
than the Mavs, a problem common with the late 2000’s, Kobe Bryant led Lakers.
Not all is dark in Laker
land. Of the team’s 38 field goals, 24 of them were assisted, and not just by
Nash, who only had four, but by the whole team, who really seem to be buying
into assistant coach Eddie Jordan’s Princeton Offense. It seems the Princeton
Offense is making things easier for the team offensively as Los Angeles shot
49.4% from the floor and the offense generally looked fluid and efficient. My
only complaint tonight would be the lack of fast break points for the Lakers;
after every rebound, Los Angeles would slowly job up the court instead of
pushing the tempo with Nash (which is his bread and butter after the pick and
roll) to get even easier shots early in the shot clock. Dwight Howard also got
too few touches in the post, as most of his shots came off of offensive
rebounds and last second passes to him to try to clean up LA’s offensive
mistakes. This especially bothered me because Dallas had the much smaller Elton
Brand on Howard for most of the night; nonetheless, Howard still managed to
score 19 points despite only 12 shot attempts, and very few offensive
possessions in which he was the focus. The brightest spot for Los Angeles was
the spectacular Kobe Bryant, who is really feeding off of the Princeton Offense
to make his own offense efficient and effective; Bryant shot 11-14 from the
floor, only forcing up 1 shot (which he made in spectacular fashion over Vince
Carter), and forcing zero unnecessary three pointers.
