I’m a lakers fan, and as such I’m likely to overanalyze the behavior of Kobe Bryant. Here’s my latest theory: Kobe threw the Lakers last game down the stretch. For those who didn’t see, the lakers were visiting the Heat, who had just been widely reported to be crying in the locker room after a close loss to the Bulls. The game was close the whole way, with the Lakers doing a pretty decent job working inside-out through their big men, who were guarded by undersized or untalented players the whole game. Kobe knew that was the way to win, keep feeding the post and pressing their advantage. But, instead, Kobe takes a number of terrible shots down the stretch, hogging the ball and going one-on-one with Wade for most of the 4th quarter. He later tried to justify some of the shots [http://bit.ly/hfPhOW], but Kobe is a pretty smart guy, he knows going one-on-one with an All-Star is not the best approach to attacking a defense.
So my theory is that Kobe did it on purpose. Now, I’m more than capable of admitting that Kobe can just be a ball hog who abandons the offense at points. But this game was different for two reasons: The Heat were getting slammed in the press for crying after the Bulls loss, and Kobe went out after the game and shot around for 2 hours, until midnight when they forced him off the court, because he wanted to work on his shot after the loss. This was Kobe making a statement that he could only make in a loss, and he set it up for himself perfectly. The story now is about how Kobe has a crazy motivation, a drive unmatched in the NBA and its why he has 5 titles. And Lebron is a crybaby. If you told Kobe that all he had to do was shoot 2-11 in the second half of a relatively meaningless regular season game, then go shoot for 2 hours after the game and in exchange he might get a lasting anecdote about his legendary work effort while also making Lebron look like a wimp, he would at least consider it.
danielmarkmiller.net 