Our 3-point shooting was okay; Thankfully, Oklahoma’s was abominable. Outside of Ron Artest (1-8 from 3 point land, in what continues to be a huge struggle for him), the Lakers shot pretty well. (36% — If you remove Artest’s 1-8, it jumps to 50%). Our 3-point shooting has ranged from “atrocious” to “virtually non-existent” this year. Derek Fisher, thankfully, contributed with some timely 3-point shooting. Lamar Odom hit a timely 3 in the fourth quarter that was essentially a dagger.
36%, for me, is acceptable. It’s not eye-popping, but it’s not horrible. Guys like Derek Fisher and Ron Artest especially have to hit their threes if we’re going to make it out of the West.
Thankfully, the Thunder, who clearly lack 3-point shooting, went 2-16 from 3-point land. Some of that can be contributed to our defense and some of that can be contributed to the Thunder just being miserable from 3-point range. However, we can’t count on them to only make 12.5% of their 3-point attempts for the rest of the series. Had they hit two more threes, this game could’ve been entirely different.
Shannon Brown and Jordan Farmar made some plays. Our much maligned bench came through on Sunday. Lamar, Farmar, and Shannon all had their moments. High marks for all of them.
Luke Walton’s two floaters in the 3rd quarter may have set the game of basketball back to 1945. I like Luke, but I have no clue what in the hell those shots were. I think it was an attempt at a running floater, but I have no clue what they were. The first one was easily the hardest brick of the game. (The next seven hardest bricks? Artest’s missed 3 pointers). And the second one? I’m not even sure if that came within two feet of touching the rim. That was Godawful. I now know what I would look like if I ever attempted a runner during an NBA game.
Next: The Role that Kobe is Starting to Figure out for this Series
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