JOG - John Ireland's BLOG

Why So Dominant?

11/29--New Jersey at Lakers

I know it was against the Nets, but the Lakers won their sixth game in a row in ridiculously easy fashion.  In all six games, they've scored more than 100 points and won each by a double-digit margin. They ended their October/November schedule with a 13-3 record, but all three losses were without Pau Gasol. It reminded me a lot of last year's championship season, when the Lakers finished October/November at 14-1. 

But how are they doing it?  Why is it that they're not only winning, but dominating?

"The defense is getting better and better," Kobe Bryant said after the NJ win.  "We're working really, really, hard at it.  Energy has been consistent.  This is something we feel like we can maintain."

But how have they adjusted so quickly to one new player (Ron Artest), and another who missed most of training camp (Gasol)?

"I think the experience, as far as us playing together, understanding the triangle," Lamar Odom says.  "Ron is an incredibly smart basketball player.  I think he understood what he had to do to take over for Trevor.  He's fit into that role well."

I really think they're on to something here, but we won't know for awhile just how good the Lakers are. The schedule doesn't exactly get tougher in the coming days.  The next five games are at home (New Orleans, Miami, Phoenix, Utah, Minnesota), followed by a five game road trip against teams with mostly losing records (Utah, Chicago, Milwaukee, New Jersey, Detroit).  After that, they play Oklahoma City at home before the big Christmas day showdown with Cleveland.

That's 11 games before the Cavs come to town.  If the Lakers go 9-2 (certainly possible), they would go into that Cleveland game with a record of 22-5.  That would be within a game of what the team was last Christmas, when they beat the Celtics and the season took off.

Next up:  Chris Paul and the Hornets in their final visit to Staples this season, on Tuesday.  The Lakers beat the Hornets, 104-88, back on November 8.

Gasol Makes the Difference

11/28/09--Lakers at Golden State

Another easy game on the schedule, and another easy win for LA.  It was no surprise that the Lakers dominated the Warriors--but winning by 33, in Oakland?  It appears that even though Pau Gasol missed 17 games (6 preseason, 11 regular), he and the team have picked up where they left off in last year's NBA Finals.

That surprises me, only because I thought there would be an adjustment period in which the team would have to get used to playing with Gasol, Artest and Bynum all at the same time.  Artest is new, and Gasol and Bynum spent only a handful of games together last season.  But since Gasol has returned, the Lakers have won all four games by margins of 17, 16, 10 and 33.  Twice in that span, Gasol has been the Lakers' leading scorer, including the Warriors game (22 points, 12 rebounds, 3 assists).

Part of this dominance has been because three of those games have been at home, against less than stellar opponents (Chicago, OKC, NY).  But Gasol has clearly been the difference, and I'm convinced he's the reason the games haven't been close.  How is it that Gasol has been able to do this, without a real training camp, and without any games until mid-November?

"He's played so much basketball over the last three years, it's not like he's had three or four months off," Phil Jackson told me after the game.  "It isn't an inordinate amount of time for a guy as talented as he is.  He's a remarkable player, we all see that."

Gasol thinks it has more to do with the team, and the big picture, than it does to do with him.  I interviewed him on the court after the game, and when I asked why he thinks the team has been so good since he came back, he said:

"I think guys have been really aggressive and motivated to win the title again and be better than last year, if that's possible."

We won't know how close they are to that goal until the competition improves, but Kobe Bryant often reminds me that Gasol in one of the best players in the World.

"Sometimes he doesn't get the recognition for that because he's not flying above the rim and dunking all of the time," Kobe said, "but he does everything well, and for us, he adds another dimension.  Not only does he make the starters better, but then Lamar goes to the bench and makes that group better."

My favorite Gasol statistic is that since he arrived in February of 2008, the Lakers have yet to lose more than two games in a row.  Think about that: over the last 188 games, the Lakers longest losing streak is two.  The year before he arrived, the Lakers had losing streaks of seven, six and four games, all in the same season.

If Allen Iverson is "the Answer," and Paul Pierce is "the Truth," Lakers fans should start calling Pau Gasol "the Difference."

Next up:  the Lakers host the winless New Jersey Nets.  As I write this, the Nets have just fired Head Coach Lawerence Frank.  Before you put this game in the win column, think about something Lakers' Assistant Coach Jim Cleamons told me.

"When a team makes a coaching change," Cleamons said, "the first ten games are hard to predict.  A lot of guys sense a new lease on life, and anything can happen.  After that, they normally revert to who they are."

We'll see if that theory has any truth to it tonight.

Stevie, Kobe and Spike

11/24--New York at Lakers

This game was a rout.  Never in doubt, and never really close.  The Lakers led at the end of each quarter, and after they outscored the Knicks 28-17 in the third, they coasted home to a 100-90 win.  But for me, two things happened that made the night more than interesting.

In the first quarter, I saw that Stevie Wonder was at the game, sitting about 15 feet to my left.  I noticed that he was having trouble following the action, so I came up with an idea.  At each game, our radio engineer, Darren Chan, provides me with a transmitter that allows me to listen to Spero and Mychal call the game.  I listen through an earpiece, and that way can do my sideline reports by talking back and forth with either.  

I've noticed that Darren sometimes has a spare transmitter, so I asked him if could offer his spare to Stevie so he could follow the game.  When I approached Stevie with the idea, he said enthusiastically "that would be great!"  So we hooked him up, and he listened to the first half over the transmitter. 

At halftime, he went back to the Chairman's Room, where most of the celebrities go.  Normally, all of these celebs are back in their seats by early in the third quarter.  But Stevie didn't come back at all in the third.  And halfway through the fourth, he still wasn't back.

Now I had a problem.  These transmitters are hard to find and expensive.  Since it was my idea to give it to him, I felt like I owed it to Darren to get it back.  But I had no idea where Stevie was, or if he was even still in the building.  I felt like I was in that Seinfeld episode where Jerry loses the jacket from the Friars Club because he let a bunch of magicians do a trick.  I was screwed.

I was trying to figure out how to get my boss to pick up the tab for this, or even how I would explain it to him.  That's when I threw a Hail Mary and called Michael Roth, the guy in charge of Communications for the Staples Center and frankly, a guy that thinks of stuff that nobody else seems to think of.  I told him the story, and he said simply, "If he's here, I'll find him." 

And he did....having dinner in the Arena Club.  But he didn't get the transmitter back and he had a good reason why. 

"He's still using it," Roth said.  "How can I take audio away from Stevie Wonder?"

He was right, but I had to go do a TV live shot.  My only hope was to run up to the Arena Club right when the game ended, and swipe the transmitter back.  With Michael as my wing man, that's exactly what I did, averting a major crisis.

After the game, I hosted a live Q and A with Kobe Bryant and Spike Lee in conjunction with the release of Spike's DVD "Kobe Doin' Work."

Among the things I learned:

--Kobe's was Spike's first choice for the project, and he didn't jump at the chance right away.  It was after Spike sent him a similar movie about soccer star Zindane that Kobe agreed to do it.  Spike thought that Phil Jackson might say no, but surprisingly, Phil agreed to give him full access.

--Kobe did the commentary for the movie on the same night he broke the single-game scoring record in Madison Square Garden last February (he scored 61 points).  He said he knew if he didn't play well at that game, Spike would talk trash to him all night, so he was extra motivated.

--Spike used 30 cameras for the project, and worked one of the cameras himself.  It was the hand-held locker room camera, and stayed behind Kobe the whole time so the viewer could see what Kobe sees.

--Kobe let his young girls watch the movie--bad words and all.  He felt that by seeing how hard he worked and how he always gave his best, the girls would learn something.

--When Kobe is on the bench and wants to go back in, he often asks an assistant coach because Phil is too focused on the game to listen to him.  "He's in the moment, Zen stuff," Kobe said.

--Kobe took questions from the audience and my co-host Brian Long.  This included:

He hasn't signed his extension, but has no plans of going anywhere else.

He thinks Allen Iverson can still play and could really help a team that needs a scorer.

He watched Ron Artest on Jimmy Kimmel Live and thought he was nuts (but likes him--a lot).  

Overall, it was a very fun event.  You can now purchase the Kobe Doin' Work DVD and if you've never seen it, you should put it on your Christmas list, especially if your a basketball fan.

Next up, Thanksgiving at home, followed by a quick one game trip to the Bay Area for a Saturday night game with the Warriors.

  

Only in LA

11/22--Oklahoma City at Lakers

Back when the Lakers won three straight titles (2000-2002), the Staples Center was the place to be.  A young Kobe would make spectacular plays, Shaq would put on a show, and the stars were out in full force.  It was a true LA experience.

On Sunday night, that feeling came back--for three reasons.

First, Kobe was making shots that I've only seen in a game of  "h-o-r-s-e."  He started by making a shot from straight behind the backboard.  Not at an angle, but from behind the board.  He followed it up with a spectacular reverse lay-up and finished with a left-handed buzzer beater at the end of the quarter.  He ended the game with 26 points, seven assists, six rebounds, two steals and no turnovers.  I asked him after the game if he'd ever made that many trick shots in a game.

"Not in a game, no." he said.  "And I've never made a shot from behind the backboard."

Next, Shannon Brown put on a high-flying trapeze act worthy of a Harlem Globetrotters game.  Brown jumped out of the building on a alley-oop from Jordan Farmar, then did it again on a solo dunk.  Then he tried to block a dunk by jumping higher than he did on the dunk.  Phil Jackson said after the game that Shannon jumps just as high as Michael Jordan used to.  Then, Kobe took it a step further.

"Shannon jumps higher than me or Michael ever did," Kobe said.  "You have to remember--we're 6'6".  Shannon is 6'1" tops.  He's jumping higher."

Finally, with the American Music Awards going on across the street at the Nokia Theatre, the front row was loaded with stars.  In an surreal moment, somebody handed Will I Am from the Black Eyed Peas a microphone and he started singing, live, "I Got A Feeling."  Fergie was with him, and so was Alex Rodriguez.  Think about that:  an impromptu concert with the Black Eyed Peas and Arod.  And you know what?  It totally worked.  It was fun, and spontaneous, and could only happen in LA.

And oh, by the way, the Lakers completely waxed the Thunder.  They led by as many as 28 points, and won 101-85.  Oklahoma City was a team that took the Lakers into overtime earlier this month, but this wasn't even close.  It seems that the return of Pau Gasol has made a big difference, and it's helped both the starters and the bench.  It will probably be hard to tell how good the Lakers are for awhile, since they close out the month with the Knicks, Warriors and Nets.  But for now, they look like a team completely capable of defending the title.

Next up:  the hapless Knicks come to Staples on Tuesday.  I'm hosting a private DVD release party with Kobe and Spike Lee after the game--and I'll write about both in my next diary.

 

Gasol Returns....and Could Kobe Catch Kareem?

11/19/09--Chicago at Lakers

As expected, Pau Gasol's return to the lineup made everybody look better.  Kobe had an off night, making just seven of 21 shots, but it didn't matter.  Andrew Bynum left the game in the third quarter with a jammed ankle, but it was no big deal.  Gasol is the type of player who is so consistent (24 points, 13 rebounds), that it allows the rest of the team to coast a little.

After the game, the Bulls play by play guy Chuck Swirsky said to me, "there's no way this team isn't going back to the Finals."  And if they stay healthy, he's probably right.

During the third quarter, Kobe passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and moved into second place on the Lakers all-time scoring list.  Only Jerry West stands ahead of him, by about 1000 points.  Barring an injury, Kobe should pass him just after the All Star break.  But during the radio broadcast, we kicked around the idea that Kobe could possibly become the NBA's all-time leading scorer.

I think it's a long shot, but let's do the math just for fun:

Kobe, who is now 31, has 24,161 points.  At the end of this season, if he has a year similar to last year, he'll finish somewhere around 26,000.  Kareem, thanks to his years in Milwaukee, holds the record with 38,387. 

Let's say Kobe plays eight more years, until he's 39 (that's the same age that both Michael Jordan and Reggie Miller retired).  He would need around 12,400 points to break the record.  Kobe has averaged 25 points a game for his career, but more lately since the Shaq trade.  How much would he have to average over those eight seasons in order to break the record?

Not as much as you think.  If he stays healthy (and he's a conditioning freak who always has), he would need to score 1550 points a year to get there.  That's an average of 18.9 points per game.

Can you imagine Kobe not scoring 19 points a game?  Even in his Washington Wizards days, Jordan (who was a shell of himself at that time) averaged 23 the first year, and 19.5 the second.  Bottom line:  I think it's highly unlikely and if I had to bet on it, I would probably say no.  But it isn't as crazy of an idea as I first thought.

Next up: game two of the return of Pau, vs. Oklahoma City on Sunday.

   

Gasol is Coming Back....I Think

11/17/09  Detroit at Lakers

The Lakers snapped their two game losing skid, but that wasn't the big story coming out of Staples Center after LA's 106-93 win over the Pistons.

I ran into Pau Gasol after the game, and for the first time since the pre-season, I'm convinced that he's returning to the Lakers on Thursday against Chicago.  Gasol hedged a little by telling me that he's going to practice tomorrow....and that if he "doesn't have any soreness," he'll play on Thursday.  Amazingly, since Gasol arrived in February of 2008, the Lakers haven't lost more than two games in a row (a streak that continued on Tuesday night).

To me, the games will only start to count once Gasol returns to the court.  The Lakers are a great team without him, but not a championship one.  As Kobe constantly reminds me, "he's one of the best players in the world."

The reason I think Gasol is so important to the Lakers is ridiculously simple.  He can catch and finish better than any big man in the game today.  I was reminded what a big deal that is when Kwame Brown came back to Staples with the Pistons.  Despite his reputation, Kwame is actually a huge body who can play defense, rebound and occasionally score.  But he has terrible hands and can't finish.  When it comes to the Lakers, that's critically important.

The reason for that is Kobe.  He can create space and breakdown a defense better than anybody I've ever seen.  So when Kwame was here, Kobe would slash inside--then pass to a wide open Kwame--who would then either drop the pass or miss the lay-up.  Chris Mihm was much better than Kwame, but he couldn't stay healthy.  It wasn't until Gasol arrived that everything came together.

Gasol has great hands, and catches everything.  After he does, he can score with either hand and almost always finishes.  The last time Kobe had somebody like that, it was Shaq.  Another thing about Gasol is that he demands a double-team.  If the other team has to double Kobe, and has to double Pau, it creates wide open opportunities for guys like Andrew Bynum, Derek Fisher, Ron Artest and Lamar Odom. 

The Lakers quest to repeat starts on Thursday.  Like Mychal Thompson says, their biggest challenge isn't another team, but two outside influences:  injuries and apathy.  So far this season, we've seen glimpses of both.

Next up:  the only visit of the year from Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls. 

Two Early Turkeys Before Thanksgiving

11/15/09  Houston at Lakers

For the second game in a row, the Lakers didn't just get beat--they got beat up.

And that's not even the bad news.  Kobe Bryant left the game late in the fourth quarter with a strained right groin.  He initially suffered the injury a week ago, but it has become increasingly more sore, and now he's out.  He rarely misses games, but it's obvious that he should think about missing the next one (Tuesday at home against Detroit).  Trying to play through it on Sunday, Kobe made just five of 20 shots, had just one rebound, and also had four turnovers.  He missed several lay-ups, and had no lift.  If his condition doesn't improve, it doesn't make a lot of sense to keep playing him.

Now, to the game itself.  After I gave them a free pass in Denver on Friday, the Lakers more than showed that they've got problems with an inexplicable loss at home to Houston.  After jumping out to a 16-2 lead, the Lakers were out played, out hustled, and most of all, out rebounded on almost every play.  When I first saw the final rebounding numbers, I thought it was a typo.

Houston 60, Los Angeles 38.

The Houston Rockets don't have a player taller than 6'8".  And they had 22 more rebounds than a team with 7'0" Andrew Bynum and 6'10" Lamar Odom?  How does that happen?

"They're running out and then we're all over the place," Bynum said.  "We got guards trying to box out bigs.  Bigs trying to box out guards.  We're all over the place right now."

"The ball just bounced their way tonight," Kobe added.

Both guys are being less than candid.  The truth is that Houston goes after every loose ball like crazy because they have to.  If you don't have any tall guys, it's you're only choice.  If the other team doesn't match the Rockets intensity, they get embarrassed--and the Lakers just did.

Now, the story with the Lakers becomes injuries.  Pau Gasol is still out (as is Luke Walton with a sore back), and now Kobe Bryant is on the watch list.  Without Pau, the Lakers are still a very formidable team.  Without Pau and Kobe, the Lakers are the Clippers. 

As I've said many times, the Lakers have the best training staff in the NBA.  The team employs three full-time trainers/physical therapists and a full-time masseuse.  Led by Gary Vitti, they work around the clock when stuff like this happens.  And the clock is now ticking.

Two other notes from tonight:

--Trevor Ariza was presented his championship ring before the game.  He was very excited, as were his former teammates, who joined the crowd in giving him a standing ovation.  That probably contributed to the fact that Ariza seemed distracted during the game, making just two of 12 shots.  He did, however, do a great job on Kobe defensively, and grabbed eight of those 60 rebounds.

--The Lakers actually got booed by the home crowd in the fourth quarter after allowing Houston two offensive rebounds on the same possession--twice.  As one player told me in the locker room:  "I would have booed us too."

Next up:  the Detroit Pistons come to Staples Center on Tuesday.  How many Lakers will actually be dressed in uniform?

   

Friday the 13th Beatdown

11/13/09 Lakers at Denver

Anybody who follows the NBA knows that part of being a good team is learning how to win on the road.  Not just the act of winning in a different city, but learning to deal with all of the travel that's involved.  In the old days, teams had to travel by commercial aircraft and sometimes play three nights in a row.  In today's NBA, every team flies by private charter and never plays more than two nights in a row.

Sounds easy enough, right? 

Not quite.  I firmly believe that somebody at the NBA needs to wake up and take a long look at how they schedule their current marquee games.  What happened to the Lakers in Denver is a prime example. 

On Thursday night, the Lakers hosted Phoenix in a nationally televised game on TNT.  That's significant because TNT games are longer.  Because of all of the money that the network paid the league, they sell more commercials--both during the game and at halftime.  The Lakers/Suns game was also the second game of a double-header.  That meant the game started 20 minutes late, and then dragged on until 10:15 (1:15 AM EST).

By the time the team showered, went to the airport, loaded the plane and took off for Denver--it was well after midnight.  Because they changed time zones, they arrived at their hotel at 4 am.  Not to mention that the Nuggets play at high altitude, which many feel takes at least a day to adjust to.

Does that sound like what a team should be doing on the day it plays a rematch of last year's Western Conference Finals?  Especially considering that the Nuggets had Thursday night off?

To his credit, when I asked Phil Jackson about this before Friday's game, he didn't make any excuses.

"The league won't even talk about it," he said.  "It's what we do.  It's part of learning how to play and win on the road."

But I knew better.  This exact same scenario played out last year in Denver, and while the Lakers kept it close for three quarters, they ran out of gas in the fourth and folded like a tent.  I had no illusions that this year would be any different.

Sure enough, the first half on Friday night was close.  Both teams played well, and the Nuggets lead 58-56 at the half.  But unlike the year before, the Lakers didn't even show up for the third quarter. 

Denver outscored LA 29-8 in the third, and the game was over.  For the half, the Lakers scored a total of 23 points, an all-time franchise low for points in a half.  The final score was Denver 105, and the Lakers 79.

After the game, I gave Phil Jackson another chance to answer my original question.

"I know you don't want to make excuses," I said, "but I blame the league for part of what happened tonight.  You really think it's right to fly all night and play the second game of a back to back like this?"

He thought about it for a second, and again, said that back to back games was the world they lived in and he had to make it work.

I then asked, "but what about playing a TNT game last night, changing time zones, then playing here, in this altitude?" 

"Well," Jackson smiled, "that's a different issue."

Of course it is.  Nobody wants to see a great match-up that flops because one team has a decided advantage before the game even starts.  Since the Lakers only travel twice to Denver all year, the fans who paid for this game were cheated.  ESPN, who televised the game nationally, was left with a lousy product.  Nobody who invested their time in this game got their money's worth.

It would be easy to tweak the schedule before the season to ensure that games like this don't happen. And don't tell me that it's because of TV.  I can't imagine that any of the league's broadcast partners were happy with what they saw on Friday.  They didn't get the Lakers--they got a dead tired version of a team that had little or no chance.

Next up:  a rematch with Houston at Staples Center, where Trevor Ariza will get his ring.

Return of the Lakers Diary

A few years ago, I decided that I would write a diary after each Lakers game.  Mostly, I just shared it with some friends as a way to make them laugh and let them in on the ride I was taking with some of those great teams earlier in the decade.  Now, for better or worse, I'll post it here.  Keep in mind that this is my opinion, and mine only.  It doesn't represent the views of the radio station, the TV station, the Lakers, the NBA, Mason, or anybody else.  Just random observations from a guy with a good seat.

11/12/09  Phoenix at Lakers

This was supposed to be the toughest test of the young season.  The Suns came in with a league best record of 8-1, averaging a league high 112 points a game.  For those of us who cover the league, it was almost like stepping into a time machine.  Thomas Wolfe wrote that "you can't go home again, not ever."  But the Suns are trying.

From 2004 through 2008, the Suns were the most exciting team in the NBA.  Coached by Mike D'Antoni, they introduced the world to a whole new way to play basketball.  The whole idea was to get the ball, push it up court, and get a shot off in "seven seconds or less" (Jack McCallum, one of the best NBA writers alive, wrote a book of the same title after spending a year with the Suns).  Using the SSOL system, the Suns improved by 33 wins in 2004, and never looked back.  Under D'Antoni--who won NBA Coach of the Year in his first full season--the Suns averaged 58 wins a year for four straight years.

The key to all of this was that in his first full season as coach, D'Antoni was able to acquire Steve Nash to run the SSOL system.  D'Antoni was also the Suns General Manager, and he surrounded him with the perfect cast.  Shawn Marion was a natural compliment to Nash, and they added another All Star in Amare Stoudamire.  Even the role players, guys like Raja Bell, Boris Diaw, and especially Leandro Barbosa, all seemed to work with Nash like he was conducting an orchestra.

There wasn't a place on the NBA map that we enjoyed more than going to Phoenix.  The games were like sold out rock concerts.  Even when the Suns lost, it was so entertaining that nobody seemed to care.  D'Antoni came close in the playoffs, making it to the conference finals twice.  And then, everything changed, almost overnight.

Jerry Colangelo had sold the Suns during the D'Antoni era to a San Diego banker named Robert Sarver.  Sarver is like Daniel Snyder, but without Snyder's money.  He began to meddle with everything D'Antoni had built, and eventually ran him off.  Sarver was convinced that he couldn't win a title playing the SSOL way, and blew it all up.  The media had trouble criticizing Sarver because he hired Steve Kerr, one of the most likable guys in sports, to be his general manager.  As the kingdom crumbled, it was Kerr, not Sarver, who most often faced the press. In less than a year, the Suns ran off D'Antoni, followed by Marion, Bell, Diaw and most of the bench.  They brought in Shaq, and Nash actually started walking the ball up the court.  The fun, and the winning, was over.

But then something happened that almost never happens in sports.  The Suns admitted they had made a terrible mistake.  They fired Terry Porter, who was hired to run a half-court, traditional system.  They replaced him with Alvin Gentry, one of D'Antoni's old assistants.  They traded Shaq, and told Gentry to try and "go home again."

Gentry is trying, but it won't be easy.  It's like trying to put a rock band back together after it's prime.  Most of the musicians, and a lot of the fans, have moved on.  They still have the lead singer in Nash, but all of his band mates are now playing with other groups.  Still, I wanted to see how the new band stacked up with the old one. Since Phoenix had already won in Boston and Miami, I had high hopes.  

On this night, I was disappointed.  When the game started, the Lakers did exactly what most people thought they would:  they jammed the ball inside.  Andrew Bynum had clean looks at the basket, and finished with 26 points on 13 of 18 shooting.  Kobe finished with 29, making 13 of 21 shots, many of those close to the basket.  The Lakers led for most of the first half and all of the second, coasting to a 121-102 win.  The Suns couldn't make shots, making a season low 36% of their field goals.  When I asked Phil Jackson after the game if that could be attributed to great defense or poor shooting, he thought the latter.  He pointed out that we shouldn't expect Stoudamire to make two of 15 attempts, or Jason Richardson to go two of nine any time soon.  It appears that although the Suns are off to a good start with the old playbook, they aren't ready for the Lakers...at least not yet. 

But I'm glad that the Suns are at least trying the old formula. While it would have been smarter and a lot more fun to keep the old band together, Phoenix is at least a story again. I just hope Sarver doesn't look at the Lakers' loss and scuttle the ship.  We know how that movie ends.

Next up:  an all night flight to Denver, and a rematch of last year's Western Conference Finals with the Nuggets.