Is the Laker Ship Righted? - Joe Chacon's Blog

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Joe Chacon's Blog

Is the Laker Ship Righted? Stuck

Posted on November 27, 2012 at 12:41 PM.

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What's a Laker season without a bit...err...ton of drama?

Mike D'Antoni was hired as coach of the Los Angeles Lakers once the team struggled out of the gates to a 1-4 start. As much as I like the optimism and character of Mike Brown, it was painfully obvious Brown and his Princeton Offense was not going to fly with this group of veterans.

Since D'Antoni was hired the Lakers have gone 6-3 and are just one game behind the Pacific Division leaders (Warriors and Clippers). The 6-3 record includes games coached by Bernie Bickerstaff, but even then there appeared to be more of a cohesive feeling to the team. Perhaps it's because the guys went out there and tried to have some fun for a change. As Kobe said following the first game without Brown, "We were out there like it was a pickup game".

The D'Antoni system has pushed the Lakers to average 103 points per game since he took over. That's up from the 97 they were averaging under Brown, but still far less than the 114 or so that D'Antoni expects the team to achieve on a nightly basis. The hope is that with time and the return of Steve Nash (leg), the system will start to flow in a way that it did when he was running the show in Phoenix.

What concerns me the most is the passion the players are hitting the court with. All too often it just looks like they are going through the motions. It was more evident when Brown was coaching, but I've seen it pop up over these last few games as well. Rumor has it that Pau Gasol isn't happy with the lack of opportunities in the post, but the idea is he will become a legitimate outside shooting threat which will spread the floor even more and provide more room near the basket for he and Dwight Howard to attack.

The other big concern is how the defense is going to handle giving the opponent more scoring opportunities. If the offense is throwing up shots with 12 seconds on the shot clock, the other team is going to have more chances to score as well. Giving up 113 points to Sacramento about a week ago is a prime example of what can go wrong with an up tempo offense.

It's going to take a larger sample size of games to state for certain that D'Antoni righted the ship towards a championship, but the team is certainly in better shape than they were after game number five.

Sound Off: Are the Lakers back on track to success?

Joe Chacon is a Staff Writer for Operation Sports. You can follow him on Twitter @JoeChacon.

Comments

# 1 WaddupCouzin @ Nov 27

I was at Saturdays game versus the Mavericks and the offense made a concerted effort to get Gasoline and Howard the ball in the post after the comments made in the Memphis game. I think as D'Antoni begins to see the strength of his players, he'll modify the offense accordingly. What's going to help right the ship is getting Nash and having consistent shooters knock down shots.

# 2 tarek @ Nov 27

You can only hope that D'Antoni modifies his offense. His track record has shown that he doesn't usually do that. When the up-tempo offense works it's a thing of beauty, when it doesn't you are in for a long long night.

I'll be honest i haven't watched a Lakers game under D'Antoni. So I don't know how they've taken to the offense and how their defense is shaping up. The key thing for me is that when a team struggles offensively, if they have a solid defensive framework and system, they can still fight out a win. With D'Antoni's offense, as it was in NY, when your offense had an off night (or even an off quarter) then all of a sudden your opponent is either back in it or blown you out.