Karl Hyppolite of SportsHubLA: “What has always separated Kobe from a great but-not-quite-as-special Tracy McGrady is an ability to maintain a steady level of excellence while T-Mac seemed to put up a 5-of-16 shooting clunker every five games or so. But if you take a quick gander at Kobe’s game logs, you’ll already notice eight games where he’s shot under 40 percent from the field. There are a handful of possibilities as to why Kobe’s shooting numbers have been up and down. The first reason is one that no Lakers fan wants to think about: That Kobe is starting to show the signs of decline. But like it or not, there are reasons to consider it. For example, he’s always shot a fairly flat jumper because he fades back on to gain extra separation while attempting these highly contested shots. Kobe would compensate for that lack of arc by getting great lift on his shot. But is he still capable of making that happen? At 30, he’s played more games than any other player at the same age. And if you go back and watch a game from the 2005-06 season—when Kobe was at the peak of his powers—you’ll notice that he’s simply not getting the same type of lift on those jumpers (much less displaying the same explosion at the rack).”
Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times: “There was a time when the Phoenix Suns led the NBA in scoring for three consecutive seasons, when they were offense-minded and when defense was a foreign concept. The Lakers lead the NBA in scoring, piling up 107.3 points per game, but their defense has begun to leak from so many holes they don’t seem to know where or how to plug them. For Lamar Odom, there are too many similarities now between today’s Lakers and those Suns teams, and that’s not a good thing. Every team seems to take advantage of the Lakers’ porous defense. ‘It’s just like when we used to play against Phoenix two seasons ago,’ Odom said. ‘We always felt like, ‘Oh, we’re going to get back in the game. They are playing an offensive style of basketball.’ I think that’s how teams right now might be looking at us.’”
Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: “With Dwyane Wade carrying as large an offensive load as any player in the league, Spoelstra moved to alleviate some of the overall burden by utilizing Marion as the prime defender against opposing shooting guards. The results have been encouraging, with Marion holding the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant relatively in check Friday night and then shutting down the Nets’ Vince Carter on Saturday night. ‘He offers a lot of length and experience,’ Spoelstra said. Spoelstra said Marion approached him Saturday afternoon about defending Carter and said he even considered switching Marion onto Devin Harris after the emerging Nets point guard began to find his way late in Saturday’s fourth quarter. The switch to Marion as the prime perimeter defender came after opposing shooting guards Jason Richardson, O.J. Mayo and Michael Redd got off to sizzling starts in recent games against Wade.”
Julian Benbow of The Boston Globe: “If you’re Paul Pierce, who will brag that he went on an 18-game streak at Kansas, you appreciate the wins. But you also move on. ‘It’s difficult,’ he said. ‘Especially playing in the NBA, it’s definitely difficult. Playing every night, back-to-back games on the road. So it’s definitely an accomplishment. But we’re just focusing on each and every game and improving each and every game.’ But Pierce was with Powe two years ago, when streaking was a different kind of difficult. Rivers, Brian Scalabrine, Rajon Rondo, Kendrick Perkins, and Tony Allen are holdovers from that team. Rondo said he treats each stretch the same. He tries not to think about either. ‘When we lost 18 straight you try to get off the hump,’ he said. ‘And now when you win 18 straight you try to take it one game at a time and not overlook anyone.’”
Sekou K Smith of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “‘Being 11-2 at home sticks out to me more than anything else right now,’ Josh Smith said after Sunday’s game. ‘It’s been a long time coming for me and all the rest of these guys that have been here for a few years. I like to mess with Al (Horford) and tell him that all he’s ever known is the good times. We made the playoffs his rookie year and we’re winning now. He doesn’t know what it’s like to struggle.’ That could turn out to be the best thing for Horford and anyone else that is a part of this franchise going forward. Having been here through the leanest of times, I can tell you it hasn’t been particularly pleasant for anyone (though this job is a lot easier when the stories are coming at you left and right). I’ve worked big winners and big losers in this league and I sleep the same whatever the situation. The toll extreme losing takes on everyone else, however, is rough to witness up close.”
Tom Enlund of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The Milwaukee Bucks have a right to be feeling pretty good about themselves these days. And not just because they’re coming off their two most lopsided victories of the season on consecutive nights, over New York by 24 points Friday and over the Los Angeles Clippers by 34 points Saturday. What’s more important for the Bucks is they see signs of genuine progress. They’ve won their last four games at the Bradley Center and might be establishing a bit of a home-court advantage. They’ve won four of their last five overall to improve to 13-16, and a victory over Utah on Tuesday would give them their first three-game winning streak of the season. They’re as healthy as they have been all season and a suffocating early season schedule is finally easing up. And now, 29 games into the season, the players are getting more comfortable with the system that coach Scott Skiles and his staff have been trying to implement since the opening of training camp.”
Neil Paine of Basketball-Reference.com: All-Overrated Team: Isaiah Rider
Chris Tomasson of the Rocky Mountain News: “The Nuggets have lost three straight games for the first time this season, and Jones has had his troubles. Still, Karl said Sunday he’s not considering replacing Jones with Smith, who has averaged 19 points the past four games. ‘I don’t think so,” said Karl, emphasizing that ‘we’re having a great year.’ Things, though, haven’t gone so great the past three games. While there have been a number of factors why the Nuggets (17-10) have gone into a slump, statistics show the Nuggets have been far better during their losing streak when Smith is on the court rather than Jones. Over the past three games, Smith has had a plus-minus rating (a measure of points scored in a game when a player is on the court) of plus-19 compared to minus-43 for Jones. And the Nuggets regularly have gotten off to rough starts.”
Sam Amick of the Sacramento Bee: “Kenny Natt is a simple man. And while that wasn’t the sole reason he was chosen as the Kings’ interim coach last Monday after Reggie Theus and Chuck Person were fired, it was a significant one. Because if the last two-plus seasons and the coaches that came with them were anything, they were complicated. The Eric Musselman and Theus eras were complex in ways that bred dysfunction within the organization and served as an indictment of the hiring processes. Both coaches were inexperienced in their own way, risky picks whose tenures were filled with subplots of the non-basketball kind that had everything to do with their dismissals.”
Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Love is 26 games into an uneven rookie season in which he has struggled to get off his shot around the basket. That was the biggest question about the former UCLA star, who measured less than 6-8 in his bare feet before last summer’s draft. On Saturday, Love deftly faked his defender into the air early in the second quarter, drove the baseline and maneuvered under the basket for a reverse layup … that was resoundingly swatted away by Rockets forward Shane Battier. It definitely wasn’t a first in his rookie season and it certainly won’t be his last, but it is the problem area he must solve if he intends to have a long and prosperous pro career. ‘I just have to be more creative,’ Love said. ‘In college, I could just go up and score. I played against size in college, too: both Lopez twins [Brook and Robin] at Stanford, [Taj] Gibson at USC, [Aron] Baines at Washington State. Other than Yao and Shaq, nobody’s going to be bigger than the Lopez twins. I think it’s just a confidence level I need to get back to.’”
Fred Kerber of the New York Post: “In New Jersey, it might have all the appeal of re-runs of ‘Men in Trees. But the Nets-Rockets game tonight at the Meadowlands is a big deal – bigger than big – in China Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian don’t face each other every day. ‘It is a special game for all the Chinese fans,’ Yi, the Nets’ 7-foot forward, said. ‘For me and Yao, it probably means a lot only in that all the Chinese fans will be watching. For sure, it’s another game where we want to play hard and play good and try to play a good game for all the fans.’ Journalists from China who cover Yi 24/7 estimated that about 200 million people will be watching the game back home.”
Mike Sorensen of the Deseret News: “There’s no doubt Boozer is a great player, one of the best in the NBA … He has incredible footwork and is extremely productive for a guy who’s 6-foot-8. He’s an NBA all-star and a member of the U.S. Olympic team. But several factors keep the local fans from feeling affection for him. One, he gets injured a lot. He’s missed 104 games, well over a season’s worth, in his four years in Utah. Two, despite his audacious offense, he doesn’t seem to hustle and play defense. Three, he doesn’t play as well in the playoffs, particularly last year… Four, he comes across as being aloof. Not just the way he stares into space when he answers reporters’ questions, but he’s never seemed to embrace Salt Lake. You get the idea he’s here to collect a big paycheck and would be just as happy to move on and collect a bigger one.”
Joe Freeman of The Oregonian: “‘I think we have to make our identity defense,’ Roy said. ‘I think for our team, when we’re struggling, we struggle defensively. When we’re losing, it’s because of our defense. (Our defense) should be good every night. It can’t be that we play good ‘D’ some nights. … We have no identity. It’s still like, ‘What’s our team’s identity?’ We have to make our identity defense.’ Throughout training camp, McMillan and his coaching staff placed most of the emphasis on defense. Players bought in and acknowledged that it had to be a priority. You couldn’t talk to Aldridge without him mentioning defense over and over — even if the subject centered on something else. But the Blazers’ defense continues to be a work in progress rather than an identity. Although they are allowing a respectable 95.4 points per game — 10th-best in the NBA — the Blazers rank near the bottom in several crucial statistical categories. They are second-to-last in defensive rebounding (28.3 per game) and are forcing the seventh-fewest turnovers in the league (13.1 per game). They rank 23rd in opponents’ shooting percentage (46.2) and 27th in opponents’ three-point shooting percentage (39.1). And they are in the midst of one of their worst defensive slumps of the season.”
Howard Beck of The New York Times: “As Walsh said the day he was hired as the Knicks’ team president last spring, having cap space ‘would be a monstrous thing’ for the franchise. ‘You can turn something over overnight in a lot of ways if you can manage the cap the right way now,’ he said. The Knicks have not had cap room since 1996, when they signed Allan Houston to a seven-year, $56 million contract. They have spent every season since swapping one large contract for another, inflating the payroll to record-setting levels without having the chance to chase Kobe Bryant or Tim Duncan, Jason Kidd or Chris Webber, Elton Brand or Josh Smith. ‘He thinks the Knicks should be under the cap no matter what the scenario is,’ Coach Mike D’Antoni said of Walsh, ‘and then deal from strength, instead of being handicapped with certain moves.’ In the N.B.A., cap room also means flexibility. A team under the cap does not have to balance salaries in trades. It can serve as a bridge in three-team deals. And unspent cap space in 2010 can always be rolled into the summer of 2011.”
