Phil Jackson Practice Notes

The Lakers practiced for three plus hours today, but Phil didn’t think that it was that hard of a practice. Although none of the three hours were spent in film study, the team spent a substantial amount of time working on defensive sets, which meant a lot of standing around and teaching. Overall, Jackson was happy with the practice, “Sometimes when they go that long they don’t finish as strong as you like, but it was okay.”

Vladimir Radmanovic is a starter for “right now,” according to Jackson. “We play really well with him out there on the floor. As long as you play well, coaches are addicted to that kind of stuff.” That doesn’t guarantee Vladi the starting spot when the Lakers next lace them up against Regal FC Barcelona on Saturday, but it is a nice vote of confidence for the big man from Serbia.

Phil liked how aggressive Lamar Odom was when he entered Sunday’s game. What he wasn’t as fond of was Lamar taking a couple of three pointers as soon as he entered the game. This isn’t a slight on Odom’s long-range game as much as it’s just Phil wanting to see only a few designated gunners taking the shots from deep.

Phil intimated that there would be a roster cut at some point this week. No indication on who or when, but the decision will be based on how practice goes the next couple days and the overall health of the team.

The Andrew Bynum/Pau Gasol experiment seems to be heading in the right direction. “They’re playing pretty well together,” Jackson said. “It’s still a work in progress.” Phil mentioned that Pau is still learning a lot of the organizational intricacies and automatics of playing the wing spot as opposed to the center position. The advantages of these two figuring out how to play with each other has been discussed ad nausea, but Jackson brought up transition defense as something that could be a disadvantage of the twin tower setup. Both will have to realize when it’s best for them to go to the boards and when it’s best to retreat.