Points of clarification

I think most people know what I was going for here, but I should clarify it anyway...in today's notebook I discussed how the Lakers were in a 2-0 series hole in 2003 and had lost under Phil Jackson. Well, that should have been worded a little more clearly, because it didn't reflect that Jackson had two Chicago teams that fell into 2-0 holes. So that's that. For the record, the '90 Bulls dropped the first two to Detroit in the conference finals and the '94 Bulls dropped the first two to the Knicks in the second round. Both series went to seven games and the Bulls lost both series. The '03 Lakers lost the first two games to the Spurs and lost in six games. The '04 Lakers lost the first two games to the Spurs and won the series in six games. Whew...

There were a couple questions about who Lamar might have been referring to, and the relationship between him and Kobe. I can't speak for Lamar, and there's very little chance that he will call out anyone in specific publicly, but I think it could go either way. Kobe could very well be the target, especially after his post-Game 1 comments when he talked about being frustrated when his teammates don't knock down open looks. Then again, Lamar was asked, independently, about Kobe's leadership and gave him some good praise. I think the ``separating'' comments were more about Smush and Vlad. When you read their body language these days, it doesn't look good.