I Am Tired Of Bill Plaschke Freaking Out

Sorry there is no MMQB this morning, I am on vacation and wrote this post last Wednesday, but MMQB will be up Wednesday morning when I get back, do not fear. Because I am OCD, I had to put something up on Monday and I couldn't figure out exactly how the hell to post an article that is a week old already and make it sound new. Then I had a thought, Bill Plaschke is always freaking out about any Lakers loss in the playoffs. He's a horrendous reactive journalist. Here is his archive. He is like Chicken Little with a slight lisp. I will show how reactive he is by posting an article that will be old by Monday and his panic will make him seem stupid.

When the Lakers win, he writes a wonderfully poetic article about how this is a different team than they used to be and when the Lakers lose, he writes a terribly upset article about how the team is tired or needs to get their shit together. He is as bad as most of the fans of a team. The world is over after a loss and the team is the greatest team in the world after a win. So I thought I would demonstrate what a huge panic he is by posting his Wednesday article on Monday when invariably the series may very well be over with a Lakers victory by Monday to show what a reactionary journalist he is. It would not shock me if the series if over in 5 games but don't tell that to Plaschke.

As Pau Gasol lay sprawled on his belly in a cramped and jeering gym late Tuesday, gasping, sweating, needing a hand, a teammate walked past.

Kobe Bryant never even slowed down.

Holy crap, is this metaphorical? Kobe couldn't pick his team up on this given night? Or was it that he is such an asshole he refused to pick his team up? I vote asshole.

This is another thing that annoys me about Plaschke. He writes one sentence paragraphs and five word sentences. Reading his articles are like reading a children's book.

He wouldn't pick him up. He couldn't pick him up. He couldn't pick any of them up.

Kobe's Game 3 statistics: 31 points, 8 assists, 3 rebounds on 11-25 shooting from the field and 5-10 shooting from the foul line. Not exactly his best line of the series but we can't pin this loss completely on him. Not when Andrew Bynum chipped in with 4 points.

Plaschke manages to freak out after every loss the Lakers have. The Magic shot 63% from the field which is a record of some kind I do believe. The Lakers only lost by 4 points when the Magic shot 63% from the field and made 23 out of 30 free throws. All is not lost and I think it is pretty clear the Magic can't shoot like that for the rest of the series. The Lakers are still in great shape. The Magic won at home, which is what they are supposed to be doing. When you are reading this on Monday, I would be completely and utterly shocked if the Lakers are down 3-2 going back to Orlando. It's not happening. If the series is not over, then the Lakers have a 3-2 lead with two games left...they are not going to lose those two games. Not from what I have seen in the series.

The Lakers endured swish after swish against what became the hottest-shooting team in NBA Finals history, yet still tied it up in the final three minutes.

Exactly. Why can't Bill Plaschke write a column about a Lakers game and not make it sound like the team is on the verge of losing the entire series? They lost one game. I feel like I have written this article before about Plaschke. Except this time, rather than me predicting things that happen and trying to make Plaschke sound like an idiot, you can all read what he wrote less than a week earlier and know he is an idiot. This is a Lakers loss Doomsday article.

After scoring 17 points in the first quarter, Bryant scored just 14 the rest of the game. That's a lack of energy.

Maybe it is a lack of energy. Where is Bill Simmons to write an article about how tired and worn down this Lakers team is? They have played more games over the past year and a half than any other team in the NBA has and Kobe played in the Olympics as well. We got the "Boston is tired because they are so exhausted from defending their title" excuse earlier in the playoffs. I find it interesting that he doesn't say the same thing about the Lakers considering they have played more games than Boston did and they are defending their Western Conference Title pretty well. I know it is off topic, but I feel like it has to be said. The Boston Sports Guy will never make excuses for other teams like he does for his Boston teams, even if the other team is in the same situation as his Boston team was.

He missed half of his 10 free throws, clanking one in the final minute that could have pulled the Lakers to within a point. That's a lack of legs.

He then committed a costly mistake with the Lakers trailing by two, losing the ball while trying to dribble through a double team. That's just pure weariness.

If you combined all of Plaschke's two sentence paragraphs into one sentence, I doubt his articles would reach a page in length. Sure, maybe Kobe is a little bit tired, but I thought he wanted it so bad you could see it on his face? I guess not...actually, if any athlete in these playoffs should be tired, it is Kobe Bryant because he has literally played basketball for a year and a half straight. He played in the Finals, the Olympics, and then the Finals again. I still think he will be ok. He will pop a 5 Hour Energy drink before Game 4 and be back on track. No need to panic.

Bryant was whipped, and I wasn't the only one who thought so, as Coach Phil Jackson sat him on the bench for nearly the first five minutes of the fourth quarter.

It could have also had something to do with the fact Kobe had four or five personal fouls at that point in the game. I am sure that factored in a little bit.

So, then, Jackson thought he looked tired?

I am sure you can take everything Phil Jackson, the Zen Master and the man who seems to coach his players using entirely psychology, at face value and believe what he is saying when asked a question.

"Yeah," Jackson said. "[But] he'll say no."

Is this the truth or a psychological ploy? Which one? We will know the result by Monday.

I can see Plaschke's panic ridden face at hearing that Kobe Bryant may be tired. I bet his slight lisp is very pronounced right now.

I asked Bryant and, yes, officially he said no. But by his tiny smile -- one of the first of the series -- you knew he meant yes.

After speaking to Phil Jackson, Bill Plaschke scurried over to Kobe like a mouse to see if he would say he got tired during the game. Maybe Kobe was smiling because he thought it was an incredibly stupid question or he thinks it is funny to watch Plaschke run all over the locker room asking people if they think he is tired.

There is a third possibility for Bryant's fatigue, but it is too premature to ponder, and, for Laker fans, too painful to even consider.

Two months shy of his 31st birthday, three games into the most strenuous basketball series of his life, could Bryant be hitting a wall that will not disappear?

Exactly how it could it be too premature to ponder that Bryant is fatigued but this is the reason he was tired during Game 3 of the NBA Finals? If his fatigue is currently occurring I would say it is not too early to ponder he may be fatigued. Though, I would have to imagine this fatigue would not hit immediately in a three day span between Game 2 and Game 3 of the NBA Finals, but would actually happen over a period of time where Bryant's numbers start to decline. That doesn't seem to be occurring. So I doubt Plaschke's "long term fatigue" theory is in any way correct.

Bryant may be hitting the wall but I don't think that is the reason the Lakers did not win. I think the fact the Magic shot 63% from the field is the reason the Lakers did not win.

Defense suffers, and if you don't think Bryant's energy was missing there, well, the Magic had the best shooting first half in NBA playoff history (75%) after bricking its way through Los Angeles.

We will know more on Monday when everyone reads this but I have a feeling this performance by Orlando in Game 3 is nothing more than a death rattle. They won a game in the series and I don't think they will be able to win another one. So many things went right in this game for the Magic and the Lakers still had a chance to win it.

"It was disappointing," Bryant said. "I'm used to coming through in those situations, the team trusts me to come through in those situations, and it just didn't happen tonight."

That's the bottom line. There is no need for panic. Just to recap, after the Lakers lose ONE GAME in the NBA Finals to a team shooting 63% Bill Plaschke freaks out and says the Lakers could be in trouble because Kobe Bryant is tired...he even thinks this game was a sign that Kobe will slow down for his entire career now and this game was an indication of an even greater career slide.? Reactionary journalism at it's best.

I hate it when journalists over react and freak out after the team they cover wins or loses one game. It's annoying and it will not shock me if when everyone reads this on Monday Kobe has bounced back and the series is over. It really would not surprise me at all. Journalism that takes one game and makes a huge, huge deal out of it really pisses me off.

I still don't understand why the games during the week start at 9pm and the games on the weekend start at 8:30pm. Then the NBA sets up the NBA Finals schedule so there are no games on Friday or Saturday nights, you know, the nights most people can actually stay up and watch the games. Does the NBA not want NBA fans to be able to watch the games? I haven't been able to finish an NBA Finals game yet because I always have to go to work the next day. The NBA Playoffs schedule never fails to piss me off with its idiocy.