I know this will be akin to treason for a Canadian writer to say this, but the Los Angeles Lakers need more from Steve Nash and the rest of their guards if they want to advance to the second round of the playoffs.
Yes, I realize the team being without Kobe Bryant and his 27.3 points per game leaves a big a hole to fill, but having a healthy Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol should give the team an advantage over most teams in the league.
Should being the key word.
One of the troubling things Lakers’ head coach Mike D’Antoni needs to address heading into Game 2 is the distribution of field-goal attempts. It’s concerning that the two Steves, Nash and Blake, combined to take 28 shots in the series-opening loss to the San Antonio Spurs while Gasol and Howard combined for the same amount. There’s no way Nash and Steve Blake should be bombing away as many times as their two prominent teammates, rather, the team needs to pound the ball inside to their bigs in the post.
Kobe Bryant was watching Game 1 from his couch and he was quick to point out this issue on Twitter.
Another issue in Game 1 was D’Antoni’s decision to have Blake and Nash open the game. By putting both point guards on the court together to tip things off it messed with his substitution patterns later in the game and it didn’t result in their bigs not getting as many touches as expected.
It’s also a surefire way to overextend Nash and Blake if this series goes more than five games.
On top of that, Blake had a nasty +/- score of -12 in the game. On the flip side, Manu Ginobili came off the bench to score 18 points and finished with a +19.
While Ginobili has a career scoring average of 14.9 points per game, he averaged a career-low 11.8 points per game this season so it’s not like he was on a tear when he was healthy. On top of that he only played 12 minutes of the Spurs final regular season game after missing the rest of San Antonio’s games in April due to a hamstring injury.
It’s tough to make a guy coming off an injury look rejuvenated but Blake and the Lakers managed to do just that.
“It was great to have Manu back,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich told reporters after the Game 1 win. “He does what he does. He makes big shots. He creates problems for the opponent and he’s got a great will, a great desire. I’ll worry all night about how he’ll feel in the morning. If he says he feels great, then that will be a good sign for our team.”
Blake’s backcourt mate, Nash, didn’t fair much better on the defensive end. It’s tough to fault the Canadian point gurard for struggling to keep up with Tony Parker after missing the previous nine games due to issues with his hamstring and hip, but the reality is Parker lit him up like a Christmas tree. Parker finished the game with 18 points on 21 shots while dishing out eight dimes. If the Spurs guard has been able to hit some of missed shots in the paint or make some of his jumpers just outside the paint, his impact on the final score would have been even more impressive.
Nash struggles guarding Parker even when healthy so this is a match-up that the Spurs will continue to try to exploit as Nash limps through this series.
The only guard besides Nash (29 minutes) and Blake (39 minutes) to get extended minutes was Jodie Meeks. Why not throw Meeks onto the court for more than 20 minutes? He’s a player that once scored 54 against Tennessee and 45 points against Arkansas when he was playing for Kentucky. He has translated that to the NBA and has become a scoring spark off the bench with a career-high of 26 points in the NBA. Meeks only shot the ball four times in Game 1 and if you need a scoring spark with Bryant sidelined it doesn’t hurt to see if he can catch fire for a game or two in the series.
Meeks also has the athletic ability to provide a much tougher, physical cover on Parker or Ginobili than Blake or Nash can.
Regardless of how it happens, the Lakers need to get better production from their guards on both ends of the court. If not, the Spurs will make this a quick series.