The Lakers Are Good At Passing

I'm absolutely hypnotized by this play.



1. Kobe threw a near perfect outlet pass half the length of the court - over his shoulder facing the opposite baseline. It looked like a pass that would be attempted in a pickup game that would either be picked off or go nowhere near the intended target. You see that kind of pass from the block to someone cutting to the rim.

2. Luke Walton goes up and catches the ball and throws a perfect behind the back bounce pass in one motion. The more I watch the video the more ridiculous this pass becomes. One fluid motion. Just a flawless play by Walton. More impressive than the act of the pass itself...

3. ...is the perfect placement of said pass to Lamar Odom who is running full speed towards the hoop. This is the second pass in less than a second that generally doesn't work.

4. Odom doesn't travel. This is the NBA - even the coaches constantly take too many steps. One. Two. Dunk. End highlight.

This is kind of like the Manning-Tyree play. Not in the magnitude of the moment, obviously. I mean, they were playing the Heat. The '07-'08 Heat in the regular season* at that. But its the combination of the separate plays that take it to another level. The difficulty of each facet of this sequence is incredible.

What's my point? I guess it's a good time to be a fan of the NBA.

*It would be hard to meet these teams to meet in the playoffs since 10-45 teams seldom make the playoffs - let alone represent their conference in the finals. Then again, we are talking about the Eastern Conference. So who knows? Maybe the Heat will win the East and I'll have to eat this blog.