They had a game plan against Kobe that was effective, getting the ball out of his hands.

They're shooting almost 40 percent. That in itself is remarkable, unheard of. It converts to a lot of points. And to have to recycle our team to find a way to match up against them is not easy. It's not conventional.

It seems like they played really hard against Sacramento, didn't they? That was their other opponent they had an option to play. It would seem like they want to choose us.

It was a game where our rebounds and defense really failed us and eventually, I had to think about an offensive unit that could do some things to try and catch up. Kobe obviously wasn't right tonight, but this is the second time Blake has scored big against us in critical situations.

That's a higher pace, higher fatigue rate, particularly when you play against this team. So it's important for us to understand how to do that.

I'm not going to weigh in on that one. I think that water is a little deep. I think that he measures himself against a season. I've always given him credit for that and he knows what the end-goal is. He's got a tremendous amount of pride and I anticipate that's a process that he's going through. He'll be there when playoffs are going and he'll probably be at his peak at that time.

I'm sure he's going to juice up, as far as playing against Kobe.

I don't feel like we missed an opportunity. We'll have better opportunities as we go along. We're figuring out how to play against them.

I think that Shaq measures himself against a season. I've always given him credit for that. He knows what the end goal is, and he's got a tremendous amount of pride. He'll be there when the playoffs are going, and he's going to be probably at his peak at that time.