i am not so sure whether it is pointless....kobe took contested shots all night long in game 3 and he missed most of it making ronnie brewer look like a great defender, in game 4, he again took a lot of contested shots, made most of them...making brewer and everyone else look ordinary... meaning he was off in game 3 and has been seriously on in game 4...i didn't see utah doing a lot differently in these two games on him....
as for the team, in the 1st game, they played terrific offense and good defense in the 1st half, they were pretty sloppy for most of the 2nd, turned over the ball numerous times and just about managed to hold on because of a good overall shooting %...
in game 2, they played a great 1st qtr and then it was downhill from there, once again they coasted for the rest of the game and managed to squeeze out a win - both 1 and 2 became much closer affairs than they should have been and as fusion put it, they played down to the level of the opposition...
game 4 is the 1st game that they have played consistently well from near the end of the 1st qtr to the final minutes(great offense, good defense, much less turnovers....), although they are relaxing now and becoming sloppy and jackson is seeing red....
my point is that when the lakers play well, for all the utah grit and reslience, it's not even close between these two teams and if they had played with any sort of consistency, this would have been a sweep and would have ended tonight...for a team with the stated mission of winning a ring(and anything less will be a major disappointment), you look for them to make a statement jumping out of the gate...the cavs have done that, the lakers haven't so far...are they capable of doing it? absolutely! will they? remains to be seen...
