They played him straight up man to man on nearly every possession. The Pistons doubled, sagged off their man, and collapsed the lane but that's normal help defense in a man to man. You can see a clear difference between Larry Brown's man to man scheme in 2004 - 2005 and Flip Saunders zone-oriented defense after taking over in 2006
LA should have been setting hard screens on Prince every time Kobe got the ball with him guarding. Or even better, set screens away from the ball to get Kobe open looks like in Game 2.
If anybody knows basketball they know the issue here was there was absolutely no spacing on the floor for kobe because shaq and Malone aren't three point shooters so it basically made kobe just a jump shooter...in that series he was able to get around Prince but the lane was so clogged that kobe was forced to take jump shots and not drive all the way to the hole...it made him one dimensional as opposed to kobe being able to utilize all his arsenals and skills...because shaq was in the post kobe couldn't take prince to the post to get higher percentage shots... Just one year later after shaq left kobe had a game against the pistons where he destoyed them...
It's true that the Lakers had no floor spacing/ 3-point shooting. They were 22nd in total makes and 25th in 3P%. Derek Fisher, Kareem Rush, and Devean George shot well in the Playoffs but Fisher played bench minutes bc of Gary Payton (who didn't shoot well from the 3), Rick Fox was injured, and Robert Horry left before the season. Still, I believe that simply dumping the ball down low to Shaq could've won the Lakers the series. Shaq averaged 26.6 PPG (more than 5 points above his regular season average) on 63.1% shooting (nearly 5% more than his FG% in the regular season). Shaq and Kobe's relationship had deteriorated by this point and Phil Jackson was exhausted coaching the two- particularly Kobe according to his book.
@@kawaiiafangirl I disagree Shaq could’ve averaged 30ppg that series on 70 percent shooting and the lakers would’ve still loss Shaq style produces more only low percent shots for his teammates (jump shots), and it slows down the pace which plays right into Detroit hands If you listen to Bullups talk about the game plan it was to let Shaq score Shaq 26-30 points a game isn’t enough to win no matter how efficient he was so that’s why they chose to play him straight up The game plan was outdated They needed to get as many easy buckets as they could on that defense Throughout that 04 playoff run they didn’t played more through Kobe and then in the finals they switched it back to just dumping it down low to Shaq It just doesn’t work on that defense
Crazy how Prince locked down a 26 year old Kobe Bryant in these Finals, yet got cooked by a 23 year old Wade in '05 and '06 along w/ LeBron in '06 and '07.
Mason Wong The rules changed but nobody's points spiked until the '06 season. Wade was already killing Detroit in '05 before his rib injury prevented Miami from advancing to the Finals.
what I think is because the Pistons defensive system's weakened after Larry Brown left, both Wade & Lebron took advantage of that and this vid shows that Prince's defense thrived under Larry Brown's system
They played him straight up man to man on nearly every possession. The Pistons doubled, sagged off their man, and collapsed the lane but that's normal help defense in a man to man. You can see a clear difference between Larry Brown's man to man scheme in 2004 - 2005 and Flip Saunders zone-oriented defense after taking over in 2006
LA should have been setting hard screens on Prince every time Kobe got the ball with him guarding.
Or even better, set screens away from the ball to get Kobe open looks like in Game 2.
Who is this brick city no.8 on the Lakers?
If anybody knows basketball they know the issue here was there was absolutely no spacing on the floor for kobe because shaq and Malone aren't three point shooters so it basically made kobe just a jump shooter...in that series he was able to get around Prince but the lane was so clogged that kobe was forced to take jump shots and not drive all the way to the hole...it made him one dimensional as opposed to kobe being able to utilize all his arsenals and skills...because shaq was in the post kobe couldn't take prince to the post to get higher percentage shots...
Just one year later after shaq left kobe had a game against the pistons where he destoyed them...
It's true that the Lakers had no floor spacing/ 3-point shooting. They were 22nd in total makes and 25th in 3P%. Derek Fisher, Kareem Rush, and Devean George shot well in the Playoffs but Fisher played bench minutes bc of Gary Payton (who didn't shoot well from the 3), Rick Fox was injured, and Robert Horry left before the season.
Still, I believe that simply dumping the ball down low to Shaq could've won the Lakers the series. Shaq averaged 26.6 PPG (more than 5 points above his regular season average) on 63.1% shooting (nearly 5% more than his FG% in the regular season). Shaq and Kobe's relationship had deteriorated by this point and Phil Jackson was exhausted coaching the two- particularly Kobe according to his book.
After this series Kobe worked on that infinite pump fake so he could could get a jump shot off anytime he wanted.
@@kawaiiafangirl I disagree Shaq could’ve averaged 30ppg that series on 70 percent shooting and the lakers would’ve still loss
Shaq style produces more only low percent shots for his teammates (jump shots), and it slows down the pace which plays right into Detroit hands
If you listen to Bullups talk about the game plan it was to let Shaq score
Shaq 26-30 points a game isn’t enough to win no matter how efficient he was so that’s why they chose to play him straight up
The game plan was outdated
They needed to get as many easy buckets as they could on that defense
Throughout that 04 playoff run they didn’t played more through Kobe and then in the finals they switched it back to just dumping it down low to Shaq
It just doesn’t work on that defense
3:44 was not a foul.
Crazy how Prince locked down a 26 year old Kobe Bryant in these Finals, yet got cooked by a 23 year old Wade in '05 and '06 along w/ LeBron in '06 and '07.
***** Same shit. He turned 26 in August of 2004.
+Kevin Surur Didn't the rules change that year? Which is why so many people had huge scoring seasons?
Mason Wong The rules changed but nobody's points spiked until the '06 season. Wade was already killing Detroit in '05 before his rib injury prevented Miami from advancing to the Finals.
what I think is because the Pistons defensive system's weakened after Larry Brown left,
both Wade & Lebron took advantage of that
and this vid shows that Prince's defense thrived under Larry Brown's system
aoyomudafuka Not really, Brown was still the Pistons' head coach in the '05 season, yet Wade still killed them in the P/O.