Kobe Bryant still has no idea when he’ll return. Ken Berger of CBSSports had a quick chat with the guard on his progress: “You continue to elevate it until you get to a point where you can come back and perform at a high level,” Bryant said. “… I’ve been pushing it pretty hard all week.” Bryant is in the final stages of his rehab, but the uncertainty ahead is why he continues to resist estimating a timetable for his return. Too much is at stake; much can still go wrong. “Honestly, I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “I don’t want to say something and then misjudge it. It’s tough to measure.”… “Once I get out there and start moving side-to-side and start doing more change-of-direction things,” he said. “… The biggest thing with the Achilles is you have to be able to maintain your stability. So what happens when the muscle fatigues, it can’t maintain that. So a lot of people with Achilles injuries lose their explosiveness. They try to make a move and now that’s giving on them and they can’t maintain that. So you lose that pop. And that last bit is where you really fight to make sure the muscle is strong enough to be able to maintain that.”
Chandler Parsons could barely stomach losing to the Lakers the way they did, from Sam Amick of USA Today: “When we go to that small lineup, we have to make sure we’re on the same page,” a justifiably-grumpy Parsons said. “If we’re switching, (then) switch. If it’s just ball screens, then so be it. (But) we have to talk better. We can’t keep having these mental lapses. We were doing it all game. In this game, it was obviously exposed more on the last play, but it was happening all night long. “It’s a terrible loss to a team that we should beat, especially on our home floor, and in the Western Conference it’s going to be thick, and we’re playing for a seeding and we want to be a No. 1 seed. A loss like this is something that’s going to haunt us. We’re going to look back on it tonight, and hopefully we get better from it.”
Roy Hibbert used to be a fan of Andre Drummond. After their recent encounter however, the Indiana Pacers center has had a change of heart, from Terry Foster of The Detroit News: “To tell you the truth I was a fan of his until tonight,” Hibbert said Tuesday. “He is a real good prospect, but it seemed like he was running his mouth a little bit tonight. He has a tremendous future, but I was a fan of his. I thought he was supposed to have a breakout year this year. Best of luck to him. He can dunk the ball real well and he can block shots and he can rebound. He is going to have a bright future — but I was a fan of his.” Hibbert doesn’t like yapping on the court. Drummond knows that and admits to trying to agitate him. It was nothing personal. He was simply doing his job and does not care that his fan club lost a member. “If I lost a fan, I can’t be mad about it,” Drummond said. “If he complained about me talking, that is part of the game. I’m doing what I can do to get in his head, and it obviously worked because he noticed. So I was just trying to play my game and get into his.”
Why is Chris Paul scoring more than ever this season? Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN has the answer: “Paul has come to realize the idea that the keeper of the ball, if he can shoot, is often the guy most equipped to get a quality look at the basket. And Paul can shoot. Last season, he drained greater than 48 percent of guarded and unguarded jump shots, which put him in the 92nd percentile in the league. This season, his effective field goal percentage from 10 feet and beyond is 54.5 percent. In his preferred range of 15 to 19 feet, he’s posting a sizzling shooting percentage of 57.9 percent. Paul is one of the relatively few players in the league for whom an open 15-foot jumper with no risk of a turnover is a smart bet. This is high-percentage basketball for the Clippers in the half court, something Paul has embraced. Two-thirds of those 15-19-footers have been uncontested, because Paul can uncannily create a layer of space around him by bursting past or stepping back off a high pick — and those picks from DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin are sturdier this season. Truth is, Paul can create separation between himself and his defender out of nothing in traffic. “
- Stephen Curry’s minor ankle scare from Wednesday looks to be nothing too serious, from Marcus Thompson of Bay Area News Group: “Warriors point guard Stephen Curry got some good new Thursday. An MRI revealed he sustained a bone bruise in his left ankle, per Golden State. No ankle sprain. Initially, the Warriors thought it was a bone bruise. After further examination, it was upgraded to an ankle sprain but the MRI revealed the initial diagnosis was correct. Curry is listed as day-to-day. The injury looked like an ankle sprain. In the third quarter — after he returned from twisting his knee in a tangling with Minnesota guard Ricky Rubio — Curry landed on a defender’s foot while attempting a floater.
- Mike Malone called out the interior defense of DeMarcus Cousins, from Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee: “He has to do a better job with his low-post defense,” coach Michael Malone said, “and we have to do a better job of helping him. And to his credit, the non-basketball stuff … I give him a ton of credit. He’s really trying to contain his emotions and handle it.” Cousins denies that he feels additional pressure because of the contract extension. In fact, he sounded relatively upbeat after Wednesday’s practice; four games do not dictate a season. “We’ve just go keep moving, cutting with a purpose,” he said. “That’s the stuff we’ve got to continue to work on. The double teams aren’t going to stop anytime soon. Just make minor adjustments … and keep going every day.”
James Park is the chief blogger of Sheridan Hoops. You can find him on twitter @SheridanBlog.
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