Cru’s Corner: A Home Stand Ends, A Win Streak Continues

It was allowing Derek to funnel his man (as he has the whole year so far) into the middle. Having that faith in your interior defense has made Derek’s defensive game a lot easier to watch. He hasn’t had to play that face-up defense like he did before (the weakest part of his game). Now that he’s expending less energy on D, his offense has picked up. He was shooting well again tonight, though there were a couple jump shots in transition that could’ve been ditched for a better percentage shot.

But Derek’s ability to nail that shot had the Raptors scattered on transition attempts and a couple times in the half court too.

The bench wasn’t exactly on fire tonight, save for another scorching game from Lamar and Trevor.

Trevor’s constant motion game got him into the box score heavily again. A couple alley-oops and a lot of smart drives when he could’ve taken a longer shot gave Trevor a lot of room to operate in. The Raptors looked conflicted defending him, not knowing whether to push up or give him room once he got the ball.

Defensively Trevor had his trademark / once a game passing lane steal along with other grabs mainly through a great balance of position and being within reach of his man at all times.

Lamar’s open court skills spoke loudly tonight, but again, it was his activity alongside of plays on the defensive end that made him look like he was everywhere at times. Mostly though for the first time in a long time Lamar didn’t let questionable calls get to him and take his game down. He kept his focus even through some tough calls to take.

Sasha had an understated game tonight, not very box score friendly, but he did a good job getting back to his annoying style of defense on Kapono. In the process he all but took the wide-open shots the Raptors were getting from the corners with Parker and Kapono away.

Jordan was the odd man out from the bench as he just wasn’t on his game. What Jordan has to realize is that when he’s on the floor with the bench and without Kobe on the floor, he has got to be the man to breakdown the defense, even if its from minor probing into the paint. Every time he gets his head and shoulders past his man, even for an instant, good things happen.

When Kobe comes back into the game he can then go back to being more of an outside threat and initiator. A prime example of this was in the 2nd quarter when Kobe came back in Jordan began to step back out and almost immediately hit a 3 when before he was struggling to even get a shot up. His size won’t let him get open enough (as he does typically need to be open to drain a shot), but it will allow him to worm his way to the hoop.

But the Lakers did allow far too many points from the same screen set plays being run over and over (as in the Dallas game). The defensive communication was at a complete stand still for a long part of this game. The corners were open too much for 3’s when the Lakers should know full well that that’s what the Raptors do (especially without the help of O’Neal on the elbows).

They also have to avoid getting into shooting contests like they got suckered into during the 2nd and 3rd quarters. They have to stick to what they do best, an inside / outside game with off ball motion to pull the defense off the posts.

The Lakers have got to put games like this away earlier. They let the Raptors hang around too much for comfort when this game really should’ve been over at the 8-minute mark of the 3rd. Every chance they had to knock the game out, they let the Raptors back in through sleepy perimeter D or sloppy passing on the offensive end.

One odd thing about this game was an early look for Luke tonight. Though it paid off big time as the offense was humming with Luke at the 3 position, `culminating in a brilliant full court pass to Kobe for an easy dunk.

The other odd thing – for the first time in recent memory Radmanovic threw down a nice alley-oop from Kobe. Seeing Vladi get up for that shot was shocking, fun and pretty much awesome to see.

When the buzzer sounded and the fans got their taco certificates, the Lakers racked up another win. It wasn’t one for the ages, but it sure was a great way to wrap up the home stand.

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