by Marcel Mutoni

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“Of great importance, the Lakers’ reserves were heavily outscored by the Mavericks’ backups, 40-25. Jason Terry had 15 points, Peja Stojakovic had 10 and Jose Barea had eight. Not the way the Lakers wanted to start another playoff series. But here they are, down a game, just like two weeks ago against New Orleans. They’re not pleased about it, either. ‘We went in the locker room and felt like we gave a game away,’ Lakers Coach Phil Jackson said. Said [Kobe] Bryant: ‘I’m concerned. This team can beat us. It’s clear. We’ve just got to come in ready to play Game 2.’ The Lakers didn’t pound the ball down low very often, Andrew Bynum scoring eight points on three-for-eight shooting and Pau Gasol scoring 15 on five-for-10 shooting. Bryant repeatedly said it wasn’t his fault, pointing instead to the Lakers’ reserves. ‘It had nothing to do with me,’ he said. ‘I’m going to do what I do. I think the second unit, we’ve got to make a conscious effort to get the ball in to Pau and get the ball in to Andrew.’” Kobes the leader he lost the game, his defense was weak, he didn’t set up In The triangle like he was supposed to ignoring the offense like phil always points out, when ever the ball went inside to the low post he stood at the 3 point line with his hands down he didn’t give his bigs good kick out angles or cut off of bynum or gasol like he should of, then in the 3rd qtr when mavs rallied back kobe nor derek fisher didn’t control the pace, re-group and force feed the bigs like they started off the game. that’s lack of leadership, kobes not getting his teamates on the same page for whatever reason and its costing the squad