Los Angeles Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said he would consider making a trade amidst the team's recent struggles, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday night.
The Lakers have dropped two straight -- a loss to the Sacramento Kings on Friday followed by a home loss to the Boston Celtics on Sunday -- four of their last seven games.
"Yes ... I may have to look into a trade, but I'm not saying we have" talked to other teams yet, Kupchak said, according to the newspaper. "We have not been playing up to our level and I don't know why. Maybe it's complacency. I'm not sure."
The Lakers picked up the pieces at practice Monday after the loss to the Celtics left the basketball world wondering if the two-time defending champions have lost a step.
Head coach Phil Jackson was asked what changes his team would make.
"Suicide," Jackson deadpanned. "We'll commit suicide ... mass suicide."
Lakers forward Lamar Odom assured reporters that nobody was jumping off a ledge.
"No, no, no," Odom said. "There's no coming back from that, that's it. I'm not committing suicide."
Jackson said he did not go over the game tape from the Lakers' 109-96 loss to the Celtics on Sunday with his players, opting to focus his team's energy on its upcoming game against the Houston Rockets on Tuesday.
"It's Houston right now that we're worried about," Jackson said. "Our practice [Monday] was about Houston. The last time we played Houston, we lost to them so we have something to do about the team coming up."
Still, most of the questions coming at the 11-time championship winning coach were about what happened against Boston when the Celtics outscored the Lakers 59-42 in the second half.
The hot topic of the day was Kobe Bryant taking 10 straight shots in the fourth quarter and not getting his teammates involved as Boston built its lead from nine to 12.
"Kobe ended up taking it on his shoulders to beat the team," Jackson said about Bryant who scored 41 points on 16-of-29 shooting but saw his team fall to 0-2 when he topped the 40-point plateau this year. "There are times it works, there are times it doesn't. [Against Boston] it didn't work out. Our big guys didn't step in and demand the ball and they weren't aggressive about it."
One of those big guys, Pau Gasol, scored 12 points on 5-of-13 shooting but only had five shot attempts in the second half. On the day Gasol was presented with a plaque to recognize him being named the European Player of 2010 by La Gazzeta dello Sport for the third consecutive year, he said he did not confront his two-time NBA Finals MVP teammate about Sunday's fourth quarter.
"I'm just trying to do the right thing," Gasol said. "It's not the last part of the fourth quarter [that's the problem]. I think that's when [Bryant is] at his best and that's when he can take over, really. But I think earlier during the game, we don't have to rely on that as much and that's something that will help us. We have to figure it out as a coaching staff, as a team and not as individuals. It's definitely something that we need to talk about."
When asked what Jackson expected of Bryant in the fourth quarter, he said simply, "Make the plays."
"You got to make the plays at that time," Jackson said. "That's the credibility you have. You have to make the plays if you're taking that kind of situation on."
The 65-year-old coach said he hasn't talked to Bryant about finding a balance between commandeering the game and relying on the collective efforts of his teammates, but planned to.
"We work on it," Jackson said. "He'll work on it. We'll talk about it together about this thing and we'll work on it."
Not much was working for Ron Artest on Sunday. He went 1-of-10 for the game and did not play in the fourth quarter as his primary defensive assignment, Paul Pierce, went off for 32 points.
"There were a couple shots that were out of the sequence with what we do, but for the most part I can't really get into Ron and his offense right now," Jackson said. "I thought that was a bad day for him offensively, no doubt about it."
Artest did not speak to the media Monday but Jackson conceded that the mercurial forward's play could have been hampered from taking an unintentional Shaquille O'Neal knee to his right thigh in the first quarter.
"[He] just wasn't an active defender like he usually is and so I replaced him and got Luke [Walton] out there and playing a bit," Jackson said. "But we have to have him. He's an important cog to our defensive game."
Andrew Bynum, the anchor of the Lakers' defense in the middle, did not practice because of a sore left knee but expects to play against Houston.
Jackson said he doesn't lean on his experiences from any of his three previous three-peat seasons for direction but agreed with an out of town reporter who theorized that the Lakers taking their lumps in January could help them out in June.
"I think there's a certain amount of tension that goes with winning and losing and I think that helps a team be active or more active or play a little bit harder," Jackson said.
Jackson seemed bemused by the extra press attention at practice to find a crack in the defending champs' armor, holding court for more than 12 minutes, twice as long as his media sessions following practice usually last.
"I don't like it, but I don't run away from it," Jackson said. "I kind of embrace it."
Jackson was asked how he maintained his confidence despite his team falling 7½ games behind San Antonio for the top seed in the West and to the fifth overall in the league behind the Spurs, Celtics, Heat and Bulls.
"Well, we have two years of pretty good records in the playoffs, don't we?" Jackson said. "So that's what keeps me optimistic. We have guys that are experienced and know what to do."
Last week, Laker legend Jerry West degraded the team as being too old to play effective defense but Jackson said the aspect of the game in disrepair is L.A.'s offense.
"Our inconsistency offensively I think is the thing that bothers me the most," Jackson said. "We have defensive mistakes, we plotted them out, we talked to them about it [at practice] and what we made mistakes doing. But really, our inconsistency playing offense is really something we have to work on."
Asked when the Lakers would need to show improvements by, Jackson replied, "I would say April 15 or 17, somewhere around there," pointing to the start of the playoffs.
Showing posts with label Open. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Open. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
2011 Australian Open Final: Just the Beginning of Something Special, Not the End
This was supposed to be a sports obituary.
Early Thursday, my favorite tennis player, my favorite athlete really, Roger Federer, lost in the Australian Open semifinals to Novak Djokovic. For the first time since I was in high school (which I promise you, was quite some time ago), Federer didn’t hold a single Grand Slam title, and more importantly, hasn’t even made a Grand Slam final since last year’s Australian Open. In Fed’s world, four straight losses before—at the very least—a major final, is four too many.
Granted, there’d been signs of Federer’s decline for a while now, some dating all the way back to 2008. But whenever we counted him out, it always seemed like he bounced back with another dominating title at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open, and once even in Paris.
Finally though, it seemed like the loss in Australia, where for the second time in two majors he couldn’t get by Djokovic, was the nail in the coffin. The guy I had watched grow from quirky upstart with a bad ponytail to the No. 1 player in the world, and ultimately to the best player of all time was officially washed up. Needless to say, it left me more depressed than one of the girls on The Hills if she hasn’t taken her Valium in a week.
But then a funny thing happened: I actually sat down and watched a replay of the Djokovic-Federer match. It wasn’t nearly what I expected it to be.
Then again, this is also why I always feel obligated to watch every match, tournament or game that I plan on writing about. Because a box score or recap only tells a part of the story, seeing everything in living color, with your own two eyes, can often show a different one.
Well, when I sat down to watch the Federer-Djokovic match, I was expecting the worst. I already knew that Djokovic had won in straight sets, and I was expecting it to be ugly. Like Tyson vs. Spinks or JWoww vs. Sammi kind of ugly. Going into the match, we knew that Novak was the younger, sprier and stronger player, and I assumed sitting down and watching a replay would be a two-and-a-half-hour verification of that.
Except that’s not what happened at all. Yes, Djokovic won, but not only was it not one-sided, you could make the case that Federer was the better player through a big part of it. Roger didn’t lose on serve once in the first set, and easily could’ve taken it in the tiebreak.
Then in the second set, he was up 5-2 and cruising, before taking his foot off the gas, and letting Djokovic back in. Within minutes it was 5-5, Djokovic had again seized control, and Federer was left with the same glaze in his eyes my grandma gets when you try to explain the internet to her. Novak cruised in the third, and won the match.
But while all the match reports said one thing, Federer-Djokovic wasn’t the one-sided beat down everyone made it out to be. Instead, it was hard-fought and back and forth for the first 60 percent, before Federer lost focus and control. And even as great as Federer is, you just can’t do that against someone as skilled as Djokovic.
Still, as I took everything in after the match, I couldn’t help but think that my idea for Federer’s obituary was way too premature, because the truth is much better: tennis is in the midst of a golden age.
Looking across the board right now, there appear to be four guys that are head and shoulders above everyone else: Djokovic, Federer, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal. Sure others have their moments given the right circumstance or surface, but ultimately, after years of “Roger or Rafa,” we now have four guys that you’re comfortable saying, “I could see this guy winning this tournament,” every single tour stop.
What makes things really cool though, and what ultimately makes this the golden age of tennis, is that these four guys are all at slightly different points in their careers. And with that, a cool converging of eras has occurred.
Starting with Federer, he’s no longer the dominant force of nature he was in his prime, when I fell in love with his game. He’s a bit older, and a step slower, and with two young kids, undoubtedly no longer a young man, but instead just a man.
As we saw in Australia, he’s also no longer the guy that can go into Grand Slams, play flawless tennis for long stretches and not drop a set for matches at a time. More increasingly, there seems to be one or two early round matches that give him trouble, and draw him into five sets. Ultimately though, that’s ok. Time stops for no man. Even the Fed Express.
Still, what Federer is—even closing in on 30 years old—is a guy that should be favored against everyone other than Djokovic, Murray and Nadal, and can absolutely lay waste to any of the non “Big Three,” on any given night. That’s exactly what happened in the Australian quarterfinals against Stanislas Warwinka, where what was supposed to be an exciting match, turned into a 6-3, 6-3, 6-1 Federer laugher. It was over before it began and had less drama and excitement than a Friday night in Salt Lake City. Federer might not be able to turn on the fifth gear every night, but can still get there often enough.
That match was also why I believe Federer still has at least one major title left in him. On the right surface, in the right circumstances, is there any doubt Federer can take down seven matches in a row and hoist a championship trophy? It not only seems feasible to me, but probable.
Early Thursday, my favorite tennis player, my favorite athlete really, Roger Federer, lost in the Australian Open semifinals to Novak Djokovic. For the first time since I was in high school (which I promise you, was quite some time ago), Federer didn’t hold a single Grand Slam title, and more importantly, hasn’t even made a Grand Slam final since last year’s Australian Open. In Fed’s world, four straight losses before—at the very least—a major final, is four too many.
Granted, there’d been signs of Federer’s decline for a while now, some dating all the way back to 2008. But whenever we counted him out, it always seemed like he bounced back with another dominating title at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open, and once even in Paris.
Finally though, it seemed like the loss in Australia, where for the second time in two majors he couldn’t get by Djokovic, was the nail in the coffin. The guy I had watched grow from quirky upstart with a bad ponytail to the No. 1 player in the world, and ultimately to the best player of all time was officially washed up. Needless to say, it left me more depressed than one of the girls on The Hills if she hasn’t taken her Valium in a week.
But then a funny thing happened: I actually sat down and watched a replay of the Djokovic-Federer match. It wasn’t nearly what I expected it to be.
Then again, this is also why I always feel obligated to watch every match, tournament or game that I plan on writing about. Because a box score or recap only tells a part of the story, seeing everything in living color, with your own two eyes, can often show a different one.
Well, when I sat down to watch the Federer-Djokovic match, I was expecting the worst. I already knew that Djokovic had won in straight sets, and I was expecting it to be ugly. Like Tyson vs. Spinks or JWoww vs. Sammi kind of ugly. Going into the match, we knew that Novak was the younger, sprier and stronger player, and I assumed sitting down and watching a replay would be a two-and-a-half-hour verification of that.
Except that’s not what happened at all. Yes, Djokovic won, but not only was it not one-sided, you could make the case that Federer was the better player through a big part of it. Roger didn’t lose on serve once in the first set, and easily could’ve taken it in the tiebreak.
Then in the second set, he was up 5-2 and cruising, before taking his foot off the gas, and letting Djokovic back in. Within minutes it was 5-5, Djokovic had again seized control, and Federer was left with the same glaze in his eyes my grandma gets when you try to explain the internet to her. Novak cruised in the third, and won the match.
But while all the match reports said one thing, Federer-Djokovic wasn’t the one-sided beat down everyone made it out to be. Instead, it was hard-fought and back and forth for the first 60 percent, before Federer lost focus and control. And even as great as Federer is, you just can’t do that against someone as skilled as Djokovic.
Still, as I took everything in after the match, I couldn’t help but think that my idea for Federer’s obituary was way too premature, because the truth is much better: tennis is in the midst of a golden age.
Looking across the board right now, there appear to be four guys that are head and shoulders above everyone else: Djokovic, Federer, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal. Sure others have their moments given the right circumstance or surface, but ultimately, after years of “Roger or Rafa,” we now have four guys that you’re comfortable saying, “I could see this guy winning this tournament,” every single tour stop.
What makes things really cool though, and what ultimately makes this the golden age of tennis, is that these four guys are all at slightly different points in their careers. And with that, a cool converging of eras has occurred.
Starting with Federer, he’s no longer the dominant force of nature he was in his prime, when I fell in love with his game. He’s a bit older, and a step slower, and with two young kids, undoubtedly no longer a young man, but instead just a man.
As we saw in Australia, he’s also no longer the guy that can go into Grand Slams, play flawless tennis for long stretches and not drop a set for matches at a time. More increasingly, there seems to be one or two early round matches that give him trouble, and draw him into five sets. Ultimately though, that’s ok. Time stops for no man. Even the Fed Express.
Still, what Federer is—even closing in on 30 years old—is a guy that should be favored against everyone other than Djokovic, Murray and Nadal, and can absolutely lay waste to any of the non “Big Three,” on any given night. That’s exactly what happened in the Australian quarterfinals against Stanislas Warwinka, where what was supposed to be an exciting match, turned into a 6-3, 6-3, 6-1 Federer laugher. It was over before it began and had less drama and excitement than a Friday night in Salt Lake City. Federer might not be able to turn on the fifth gear every night, but can still get there often enough.
That match was also why I believe Federer still has at least one major title left in him. On the right surface, in the right circumstances, is there any doubt Federer can take down seven matches in a row and hoist a championship trophy? It not only seems feasible to me, but probable.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Li Na Quips Her Way To The Australian Open 2011 Finals - Video
Ninth-seeded Li Na, world No. 11, has never made it past the quarterfinals of any Grand Slam event since turning pro in 1999, so expect to hear her characterized as an upstart for her run to the finals at the Australian Open 2011. It's a remarkable feat, to be sure: She upset No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki to get there, and no Chinese tennis player has ever reached the finals of a Grand slam tourney. Should she emerge victorious, however, viewers will be treated to a more intangible benefit: The lady interviews like Novak Djokovic.
Li won our allegiance with her calm assessment, after beating Victoria Azarenka, that she won "because I'm better." Asked to clarify by Chris Fowler, she deadpanned, "It's true, right?" Her on-court interview following the semis more than lives up to that promise:
We can't pick a favorite answer, between the spirited imitation of her snoring husband (and coach) keeping her up the night before the match and her calm reply of "prize money," when asked what got her through the match. There's just something about this girl that makes you want to be her best friend. Last shot: Li signing the camera, walking off the court and into hearts all around the world.
This is shaping up to be the most bizarrely likable finals field in any Grand Slam tourney in recent memory, but it's going to be hard to pull for any combo of winners but Li and Djokovic. The pressers that would ensue could produce enough material to keep us writing and laughing all the way to Roland Garros.
Li won our allegiance with her calm assessment, after beating Victoria Azarenka, that she won "because I'm better." Asked to clarify by Chris Fowler, she deadpanned, "It's true, right?" Her on-court interview following the semis more than lives up to that promise:
We can't pick a favorite answer, between the spirited imitation of her snoring husband (and coach) keeping her up the night before the match and her calm reply of "prize money," when asked what got her through the match. There's just something about this girl that makes you want to be her best friend. Last shot: Li signing the camera, walking off the court and into hearts all around the world.
This is shaping up to be the most bizarrely likable finals field in any Grand Slam tourney in recent memory, but it's going to be hard to pull for any combo of winners but Li and Djokovic. The pressers that would ensue could produce enough material to keep us writing and laughing all the way to Roland Garros.
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