And that has nothing to do with his self-imposed ban on live-game tweeting, either. Frankly, he might not know these guys well enough.
L.A.'s starting backcourt for Friday's 120-89 Game 3 loss to the San Antonio Spurs featured the 2012-13 D-League MVP, Andrew Goudelock, and another player who had served a D-League assignment this month, Darius Morris.
Think that was bad? Well, it only gets worse.
The injury replacements combined to score nearly half of L.A.'s points. Morris had 24, and Goudelock added 20, accounting for even more production with their seven total assists.
Clearly someone had to pick up the offensive slack left behind by Bryant (Achilles), Steve Nash (hamstring), Jodie Meeks (ankle) and Steve Blake (hamstring). But it has to be concerning to Lakers nation that Metta World Peace (zero points, 0-of-6), Antawn Jamison (five points, 2-of-5) and Earl Clark (four points, 2-of-9) couldn't contribute much of anything.
Pau, Dwight, Morris, & Goudelock: 31-58 from the floor for 80 points. The rest of the team: 4-23 from the floor for 9 points. Yeah.
— Darius Soriano (@forumbluegold) April 27, 2013 The inside-out attack necessitated by this rash of injuries never got flowing on either end of the equation. Dwight Howard scored a team-high 25 points, but he was limited to just 31 minutes because of foul trouble. Pau Gasol found his way to another triple-double (11 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists), but the Lakers needed him to be a more selfish scorer.
Any thoughts of upsetting the Spurs have long been abandoned.
As the stakes have risen, the Lakers have crumbled, particularly on the defensive end. San Antonio has improved its field-goal percentage by more than 10 points in each game this series, peaking (for now) with Friday's 61.2 mark...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
