Archive for the 'Kobe Bryant' Category

World Peace Rising

Published by Mike Trudell on April 19, 2012 3:29 pm in Kobe Bryant, Matt Barnes and Ron Artest.

With Kobe Bryant’s imminent return on Friday at San Antonio, the minutes and shot dispersal of L.A.’s perimeter players that have stepped up in his absence will change … just not too much, Bryant hopes, particularly in the case of Metta World Peace.

We’ll get to MWP’s jump in production shortly, but even generally speaking, Bryant explained that he doesn’t want his teammates to play any differently than they did in his absence, so impressed was he with their performance in going 5-2.

“It’s been good to see how much guys have progressed, doing things they would ordinarily not try to do,” he said after the team’s Wednesday win at Golden State. “When I’m not out there, you have to do other things. You have to experiment with your game. They had a great deal of success with it.”

Bryant’s replacement in the starting line up, Devin Ebanks, averaged 25 minutes, 6.1 points and 2.9 rebounds on 6.3 field goal attempts in doing precisely what was asked of him. Since Bryant averages 38.5 minutes per game, the 25 per from Ebanks left 13.5 additional minutes to disperse mostly between World Peace and Matt Barnes. With Kobe’s 28.1 points per game on 23 field goal attempts a night out of the line up, both wings filled the void by upping their production, with MWP carrying much of the burden:

NUMBERS WITHOUT KOBE:
World Peace: 36.4 minutes, 16.3 points, 12.7 field goal attempts
Barnes: 27.6 mpg, 11.6 ppg, 7.8 FGA’s

NUMBERS WITH KOBE:
World Peace: 25.8 mpg, 6.5 ppg, 6.5 FGA’s
Barnes: 22.3 mpg, 7.3 ppg, 5.9 FGA’s