It’s forever a delicate balance for the great scorers. After all these years, Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony still get ripped for being selfish and LeBron James and Kevin Durant get ripped for not being selfish enough.
36 points and 19 rebounds in an overtime loss would be a monster night for anybody not named Carmelo Anthony. But Carmelo’s gun-slinger reputation, the high-volume of shot attempts, so naturally, he is to blame.
47 points in 48 minutes for Kobe Bryant did not inspire praise after the Lakers crucial 113-106 win in Portland Wednesday night. No, the conversation was focused on why he would try to score 47 points.
“We all have to step up and do what we need to do as a team to win,” Howard said. “We all are unique. We all have different skill sets. We have to go out there and put them to use. It’s a team sport, and we got to do it as a team. We shouldn’t rely on one person. We just got to go out there and do our jobs together.”
It’s funny how we have selective memory when discussing these stars, these epic performances. We fail to recognize how long the Knicks 13-game winning streak would have lasted had ‘Melo not been the first player since Walt Frazier to score 40-plus points in three consecutive games, or how they would have won in Oklahoma City without his 36 point and 12 rebound performance.
It proves we are plagued by a bias against players with a shoot-first mentality, even if it is two of the games most popular stars. If LeBron had posted the same stat line, we would call it another virtuoso LeBron performance.
“He can do it all.”
But why can we not give Kobe the same credit, who 17 years into his career has reinvented his game on the fly throughout his most trying year. 47 points and eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks and three steals while playing all 48 minutes in a must-win game.
Without Steve Nash, a hobbled Metta World Peace, who else was going to get the job done for the Lakers when they had to get the job done?
“That’s what you try to do is you try to do whatever you can,” Bryant said of his all-around effort. “You don’t look for excuses, you don’t wait for anybody else to make rotations, you do it yourself and by doing it, it sets an example for everybody else to do the same thing.”
However the script has read to this point, though, the final chapter of the regular season has been set for the Lakers: three games to play, win and your in.
LA holds a one game lead over the Utah Jazz heading into Friday night while both teams have three games remaining. The Jazz hold the tiebreaker, meaning if both end with the same record, Utah will be playing in the playoffs. But if the Lakers win out, and it will not be easy, they’re in.
It starts tonight against Golden State, who recently clinched a playoff berth, but are still playing for seeding. The Lakers are 2-1 against the Warriors this year, but will again be without point guard Steve Nash, more from Dave McMenamin of ESPN Los Angeles: “Steve Blake will get the defensive assignment on the Warriors’ Stephen Curry to start, as the Lakers will have to try to win once again without Steve Nash on Friday. He will miss his sixth straight game with a lingering right hip and hamstring issue that originally occurred the last time the Lakers played the Warriors on March 25.”
More on Nash: “D’Antoni called Nash day-to-day and did not rule him out for the Lakers’ final two games of the regular season, at home against the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday and the Houston Rockets on Wednesday. “I am [optimistic],” D’Antoni said when asked if he thought Nash would return this season. “Now, whether that’s blind optimism, I don’t know. But yeah, I think he’s close.””
One oft-injured player this season that will suit up for the Lakers tonight is Dwight Howard. Howard has had this game against the Warriors circled for some time, after he left the last affair — a 109-103 Warriors victory — with stitches thanks to the elbow of David Lee.
“I will remember this game. I will remember that shot. He said he wasn’t trying to do it. You can look at the play and see it for yourself. I will take care of it later.”
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