Lakers Coach Phil Jackson Plans Team-Oriented Approach

After last year’s devastating loss to the Boston Celtics in the NBA finals, Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson says the team plans on sticking to a team-oriented approach as opposed to relying on Koby Bryant’s personal scoring records. Two seasons ago Bryant scored 81 points against the Toronto Raptors, the second-highest point total in NBA history, second only to Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point effort in 1962. Jackson used last season’s NBA finals to cite his case as to why it would be better if Bryant didn’t have a repeat performance of his 81-point scoring record to the L.A. Times: “We know that Boston literally said, ‘We’ve got to take Kobe out, we just have to throw out defense at them. We have to have more guys fit into our offense if we’re going to be a team that can compete with those clubs.”

This season Bryant has had fewer minutes and lower stats across the board; on Sunday’s game against the Raptors he scored 23 points and failed to beat Chamberlain to 22,000, which would make him the youngest player to score that many points. In 1966 Chamberlain was 30 years old and 100 days when he hit the 22,000 mark and on Sunday Bryant was 30 years and 99 days old. Jackson reinforced his hopes that Bryant would put the team first, saying, “Kobe does have agendas at times that will come out. A couple years ago, when things didn’t go well, he went on that tear. He could get into that [again]. You hope that he stays focused on what the overall plan is.”

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