Showtime’s Last Stand

This is the last stand, the last possible mote that can be dug, preventing the enemy from eventually occupying the fortress that has been constructed over the past few years.

The Lakers are at the final post of retreat. They can fall back no more in this Western Conference Semi-final Series versus the Dallas Mavericks. Its time to stand up and fight, or die.

Can the Lakers even the series two-two in the next two games, or at least, win one in Dallas and extend the series to a game five back in L.A.? If the question of “can” is asked, than the answer is yes. Yes they can.

Will they? That proposition is what is highly in question.

The Lakers obviously have the talent to do so. However, the question that is most valid is not the one previously posed. It is rather the question whether or not they have the will to do so, and, quite frankly, the balls to do so.

How bad do the back-to-back champs want to compete for this second three-peat in the past decade in support of their consummate icon of a coach, Phil Jackson?

I don’t see anything in their body language during these first two games that leads me to believe they want it bad enough. But at the same time, you never count a defending champion out until they are out. Like Yogi said, “it ain’t over ’till its over,” especially with a team like the Lakers.

The more applicable question that prevails anything has become:  what is so blatantly wrong with the Lakers that lead to back-to-back losses at home to open the series?

Offensively they seem clogged. They aren’t running the fast-openers built-in to their offense, or “quickies” as they are termed within the triangle system, that they usually do to combat ball-deny pressure.

It seems they lack the ability to take the game to their opponent, and are having trouble adjusting to how the defense of the Mavericks is taking the game to them.

This is what the basis of the triangle offense is able to combat: when something is taken away, something else opens up. There is a counter to anything a man-to-man defense presents. Look to pass, see pressure, utilize back-doors, and so on down the branches. This is the very root of the triangle-tree. The Lakers aren’t tapping into this reserve like they have in the past. The secret weapon needs to be utilized.

There is simply no immediate pressure being directly put on the defense. They aren’t making them work hard at all. People are wondering why Dirk Nowitzki is going off at such an amazing clip? The answer is simple – he isn’t having to expend any energy on defense.

No threat of the goal from the prefix is being seen. This is what starts the offense and is the gas that fuels it – being deceptive yet decisive. Everything the Lakers are showing their opponents is a dragged-out, quasi-blueprint of how the offense should be ran at its optimum level.

Isolating Kobe in the post just isn’t getting it done, nor has it ever on a consistent basis. This fall-back is the desperate way out, and it is clearly evident that the Lakers are uneqivocally getting to that point on offense, desperate.

Defensively they are allowing themselves to fall into too many pitfalls. They are rushing feverishly at uncommitted shooters much too rapidly. It makes absolutely zero sense.  You need to make them earn it, because a veteran offense like Dallas will kill you if you allow them a distinct advantage time and time again.

There needs to be a realization of who you are closing out on when you close out, or, if even lesser refined, know what you are against as an entire mindset – a team of older jump-shooters.  This needs to be inherently realized, and when it is, have the ability to not close out on shooters so vehemently and haphazardly.

If you make the Mavericks have to hit jumpers, you’ll curb what is possible for them. If you allow them to make you commit on shot-fakes and then, in-turn, they get to play four-on-five from a penetrating possibility, you are playing right into their back pocket. Pick the lesser of two poisons if you are serious about winning.  Make them hit jumpers instead of letting them get in the lane so easily with a decided advantage of numbers.

The pick and roll defense being exhibited versus J.J. Barea by Steve Blake is atrocious. This gnat getting deep in the paint uncontested time and time again and being able to convert lay-ups in the half-court is unacceptable.

Whoever is responsible, be it the coaching staff or the player(s) themselves, that is choosing to chase Barea over the top of high screen-roll situations, needs to have their head checked. Feel free to hedge that situation with your big, and hedge it strongly, with help underneath, from the weak-side, and from the trailing and sagging initial defender of him. Make them beat you by accomplishing the extra pass.  Make them work more to score, not less.

Barea is not a 3-point threat. Make him pass it around the edge after he is hedged, instead of chasing over the top and letting him get deep.  If a player of his amenity is allowed to get to the baseline consistently, and make the defense try to play with eyes in the backs of their collective heads, the result is an instant loss for the Lakers’ defense, or any defense for that matter. Trying to play defense while facing the baseline while diving slashers are cutting to the basket behind you is nearly impossible. Chris Paul and Co. showed you all as much.

The bottom line – if these fundamentals don’t change and don’t change quickly, the defending champions will be well beyond on-the-ropes. And if that happens, and the Lakers bow out in the Western Conference Semi-finals, it will be more than just a little disappointing.

I can handle losing in The Finals to a better team, or even losing to a better team in the Conference Finals, but a team this talented losing in the Conference Semis would garner some harsh and well-deserved criticism from fans and pundits.

If the travesty were to occur, you may have to make some moves to reconfigure your franchise. Some that aren’t working out in purple and gold might have to go, some way, some how, be it via trades or out and out release, and that would be a sad day.  It would be an admission of failure at some level, yet unfortunately necessary.

The fine line between experience and age is just that, a very fine line. Hopefully for Laker-fans, that fine line won’t snap just yet.