Why was the Lakers aspiring to win three consecutive championships in 2011? Nowitzki averaged 25+9 per game, what about Kobe

If you want to talk about who was the most successful NBA player in the 2000s, the best answer in most fans is Kobe. He first helped the Lakers win three consecutive championships in 2000, 2001 and 2002, and then won a series of personal honors such as scoring champions and MVP. Later, Kobe led the Lakers back to the top with his own hands. In 2009 and 2010, he helped the team win two consecutive championships. During this period, he also won two FMVPs. At that time, he undoubtedly reached the top position as the No. 1 player in the league.

Kobe, who has always regarded Jordan as his idol, naturally wants to replicate the result of his idol leading the team to three consecutive championships twice that year. Therefore, Kobe still maintained a very good competitive state in the 2010-2011 season. That year, he averaged 25.3 points, 5.1 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 1.2 steals per game. In the end, he was selected for the Double First Team for the sixth consecutive season. At the same time, under the leadership of Kobe, the Lakers were still ranked second in the West with a record of 57 wins and 25 losses.

However, after the playoffs, the Lakers' final ending surprised everyone. In the Western Conference semi-finals, facing the Mavericks who had 57 wins like themselves, the Lakers had no power to fight back in the entire series. In the end, as the defending champions, they lost to their opponents 0-4 and were swept. Since then, the team has gradually become lonely. So now let’s look back at the Lakers’ 2010-2011 season. Why did they lose so neatly at that time? So what about Kobe's final performance? Let’s take a look together next!

The core Lakers players were exhausted and plagued by injuries

Before the 2010-2011 season, the Lakers had reached the Finals for three consecutive years, so many players in their lineup had a higher load than most of the other people in the league, especially the two absolute core players such as Kobe and Gasol also participated in the Beijing Olympics that year in 2008, so their bodies had already shown signs of fatigue.

Especially considering that Kobe and Gasol are 32 years old and the other is 30 years old, their recovery speed is actually far inferior to their youth. Gasol, who is a little younger, is better. Therefore, he not only played 82 games, but also averaged up to 37 minutes of playing time. On the other hand, Kobe is different. Although he has played 82 regular season games, the Lakers coaching staff has greatly reduced Kobe's playing time. At that time, he averaged 33.9 minutes per game, which is also the lowest season per game since he has secured his starting lineup in 1998-1999.

The reason why Kobe and Gasol played the regular season was also related to the situation in the Western Conference at that time. That year, the top four in the Western Conference in the regular season were at least 55 wins. Therefore, if the Lakers want to get a home advantage in the first round of the playoffs, they can only treat every game with caution. In addition, Kobe's competitive spirit is indeed too strong, but in fact, the best choice is to rest some games in the regular season to strive to start the playoffs healthily.

In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers' first opponent was the Pelicans. Although the latter only had 46 wins in the regular season, they still dragged the series to Game 6. This round of series also consumes a lot of money for Kobe, especially considering that the Lakers lost G1 after coming up and still tied 2-2 after 4 games, the team dared not relax. So in the six games, Kobe's average playing time has also increased significantly compared to the regular season, but his personal average of 22.5 points, 3.7 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 3.3 turnovers has proved that his physical condition is problematic. At the same time, Gasol's physical strength is obviously not 100%. In this round of the series, he once had only 13.5 points and 6.8 rebounds, and his shooting percentage was as low as 41.8%.

After reaching the Western Conference semi-finals with a bumpy and bumpy opponent, the second round of the opponent became the Mavericks with 57 wins in the regular season. Not only were they far superior to the Pelicans, but the players in the lineup were also much healthier than the Lakers. Therefore, this round of series was destined to be very difficult for the Lakers from the beginning. But no one expected that at that time, the Lakers ended with the sweeping ending. Facing the Mavericks, the Lakers played both cores very badly in this round of the series, which is also one of the most critical factors for the Lakers to lose.

Among them, Kobe averaged 23.3 points, 3 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 2.8 turnovers per game, and his three-point shooting percentage was only 22.7%. His lack of energy caused Kobe to have to focus more energy on his personal offense, and his shooting was seriously affected. Besides, putting aside the G4, which was lost early in the end, Kobe had no strength to score in the first three games until the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter of the three games, he only scored 15 points in the total, and his shooting percentage was only 35.3%. On the other hand, the physically energetic Nowitzki scored 23 points in the fourth quarter of these three games, and his shooting percentage was 47.1%.

, and Gasol's performance was also very bad. He averaged only 12.5 points, 9.3 rebounds, 4 assists and 1.5 turnovers per game, and his shooting percentage was 42.2%. Gasol's fourth quarter performance in the first three games was also terrible. He only scored 6 points and his shooting percentage was not high, and he only grabbed 9 rebounds in total. It can be seen from Nowitzki's performance that he obviously failed to play a key role on the defensive end. Even if you watch the entire series, Nowitzki is still the best player. He averages 25.3 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game, shooting percentage of 57.4%, and three-point shooting percentage of up to 72.7%..

Aging + loss of role players has led to a collapse in both offense and defense.

Except for Kobe and Gasol, many of the other role players in this Lakers are also quite old, such as Fisher 36 and Ate 31. These two are the core rotations in the Lakers. The years of consumption naturally had a significant impact on these players, and even stronger Kobe, even if he was strong, he could not resist the invasion of time, it would be even more difficult for them. Therefore, in this round of the series, the only role player in the Lakers who plays better is Bynum, who averages 13.3 points and 8.5 rebounds per game, but he also wins in his youth. Like the other veterans, Fisher averages 6.5 points per game, shooting percentage of 31%, and Ate averages 8 points per game, and shooting percentage of 32%.

In addition, before the start of the season, the Lakers lost Famal and Sasha, who had a special role to the team. The departure of the team caused the team's outside defense to further decline. If they didn't leave, the Mavericks might not be able to shoot 46.2% of the three-pointers in this round of the series. At the same time, they still averaged 12.3 three-pointers with this efficiency. The reason why they can have such a performance is that Terry, who averaged 3.3 three-pointers with 68.4% shooting rate and Peja, who averaged 2.8 three-pointers with 52.4% shooting rate.

The locker room was uneven

This was because the character players lacked their desire to win after winning the championship, and there were also many things that happened outside the Lakers at that time. The most important one was the scandal between Gasol's girlfriend and Shannon Brown, and the other was when the Mavericks, head coach Phil Jackson revealed to the players the bad news that he had cancer. The occurrence of these incidents made Lakers players unable to concentrate on training and games in many cases.