Too often he has roamed too freely on defense, but his greatest successes at that end have undoubtedly come while defending whoever has the ball, head-to-head. Bryant has received All-Defensive Team honors 12 times, yet his Scott-inspired defensive activity in the exhibition opener Monday night was jarring in its intensity.
On Thursday night, Golden State opened the game by zipping the ball around with good movement before Klay Thompson nailed a three-pointer—but Bryant closed out on defense harder than he has on a shooter since about As the Warriors ' talented scorers continued to ring up points with ease, Bryant barked to his teammates: "We're making it too easy!
Bryant had three steals to go with his 15 points in 23 minutes Thursday night and declared himself "more than comfortable" in his comeback from Achilles and knee injuries. He said he is on board if Scott decides to sit him out of one of the remaining six exhibition games perhaps one of the back-to-back games Oct. Phoenix or Oct. He knows, however, that there won't be much winning during this comeback unless the Lakers' defense improves dramatically from the Mike D'Antoni era.
Bryant was so disenchanted with what happened last season that he headed off to France for his wedding anniversary as the Lakers including an injured Steve Nash and Pau Gasol finished up their season by traveling to Utah and San Antonio. Although the stigma of being a bad teammate has been difficult for Bryant to shake, Lin isn't the only teammate Bryant has mentored. Last season Bryant harped on Nick Young to become more professional. Even though they rarely were on the court together, Bryant was vocal from the sideline and practically forced Young into studying game footage in his down time.
Bryant continues to push Young, saying the other day: "In order to be 'Swaggy P' and for people to pay attention to 'Swaggy P,' he has to put in some work on the court. Or no one's gonna give a s And this summer, small forward Wesley Johnson—a notorious underachiever in his four NBA seasons, including his inconsistent first Lakers season—met Bryant for 7 a. It's fair to say that there has never been a phenomenon that has swept across the NBA , or any league for that matter, as quickly as Linsanity has.
The Knicks were scuffling badly with Carmelo Anthony injured and the offense playing out of sync. Since Lin started getting minutes, though, New York has become a totally different team.
Head coach Mike D'Antoni's offense has always been contingent upon excellent point guard play. That is why the Phoenix Suns were so dangerous during his time in the desert as Steve Nash ran the team to perfection. It was crazy to think that some conglomeration of Toney Douglas, Mike Bibby and Iman Shumpert could effectively run such a high-tempo offense. Lin has the endurance and the decision-making ability to do it, though, and that's why the Knicks have excelled, even without Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire as of late.
The likes of Kobe and LeBron James are always going to be major stars, but nobody cares much about them right now. No one had ever seen any player do that to Kobe, but Lin did it.
In a recent appearance on All the Smoke podcast, he finally revealed what went behind that incident. They stopped talking because of it. And nobody else on the team knew about it. But Lin feels the silence from Kobe had a silver lining.
He came in as a raw high school prospect who had to battle for a place, so he always respected everyone who also fought for their stay in the league.
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