Kobe Bryant confessed he was finding life after Phil Jackson “strange” after the Los Angeles Lakers fell to another road defeat on Thursday.
The team’s top scorer said the Lakers were still adjusting to new head coach Mike Brown after Jackson’s departure after 11 years in charge and some changes to the roster.
“We tweaked some things offensively,” Bryant told reporters after going down 98-87 to the Miami Heat. “We probably want to go back to some of the things that we were doing a few weeks ago in terms of some spots I am on the floor.”
Photo: Reuters
The Lakers have struggled on the road and the latest setback left them with a 1-5 record away from home.
“We are still experimenting, trying out different things,” Bryant said. “We don’t have any practice time so we are kind of experimenting on the fly, which we’ve had interesting conversations about, in terms of trying it on national TV.”
“But this is what we have to do, it is a process and we have got to stick to it,” added Bryant, who went into the game as the league’s top scorer.
Asked whether he meant he had told Brown that the team should not be experimenting in games, Bryant said with a smile: “We’ve had those conversations, but you don’t have any practice time so there is no other time. You’ve got to try and win those games in the interim, but in the process you will see a lot of ugly games.”
The five-time NBA champion said the offense was more than just a work in progress.
“It’s under construction. Still working on the blueprints actually,” he said, adding that the process “feels strange.”
“He [Brown] has to see what he has. He knows what he has with me, but he needs to see what some of the other guys can do and what they can’t do,” Bryant said.
“The only time he can see that is during a game,” he added.
Brown agreed that there was plenty of work to do on offense.
“We still don’t have a good feel in terms of second and third options,” he said. “We are not quite there yet and against better defensive teams it really shows.”
“We have to be able to play inside a little more,” Brown said. “We are not a pick-and-roll team so we have to get a little bit of movement for Kobe Bryant and the rest of the team.”
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