Despite Victory, It's Not All Fine In Lakerville
Lakers celebration" class="alignnone" src="http://in.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100528&t=2&i=114277445&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=img-2010-05-28T111831Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_India-488694-2" height="256" alt="" width="350">Last night the Lakers were able to pull off a game 5 victory at home, with a buzzer-beating layup by Ron Artest. While a win is a win, and this win put the Lakers ahead in the series 3 games to 2, Artest’s late game heroics covered up some disturbing signs for Los Angeles.
First of all, the Lakers blew an 18 point lead they held with under four minutes to go in the third quarter, a collapse of epic proportions that got swept under the rug because of the victory. The Lakers were plagued in the fourth quarter by poor decision making, and shoddy shot selection. Glaring examples of this were Artest’s not one, but two ill-advised jump shots with one minute to play and the Lakers up by 3. The second of those two came with 22 seconds on the shot clock! Come on Ron, you know better than that. Hold the ball. Take your time, set up a good shot, and make it harder on the Suns to come back down the other end.
Additionally, the Lakers continued to take way too many 3-point shots, racking up 24 attempts, and hitting only 7. A team is not going to win on a consistent basis shooting under 30% from the 3-point line unless it gets tremendous play from its big men. To the Lakers’ credit, they did manage to pull down 19 offensive rebounds, which compensated for their sloppy shooting to a certain extent.
In the final seconds the Lakers got lucky. Kobe had another outstanding performance, coming close to a triple-double, scoring 30 points, pulling down 11 rebounds, and dishing out 9 assists. However, his double-pump catch-and-shoot heave with three seconds left was ill-advised. Now Kobe, I understand that you’re the man to be taking the last shot, but with 3.5 seconds left on the clock, you had plenty of time to create a better shot than a fade-away jumper over two defenders. After the game during his postgame press conference Kobe claimed to have seen Artest cutting towards the basket as he released the shot. Whether or not that was the case, NBA fans have come to expect better looks from a player as talented and clutch as Kobe Bryant.
Here’s Kobe’s post game interview:
One other factor that played into the Laker’s victory was Phoenix’s uncharacteristically abysmal free-throw shooting. The Suns shot 69% from the charity stripe. For a team that was in the top 12 in free-throw percentage during the regular season, last night’s performance was unexpected and inexcusable. Even Steve Nash, generally a free-throw shooting machine, was only 3-5 from the line.
Last night’s game was exciting and entertaining, but don’t get fooled into thinking this wraps up the series for the Lakers. Neither team has won a game on the road. If both teams continue to play well, I predict they’ll be heading back to L.A. for game seven on Monday night.
Here are the highlights from Game 5
