Los Angeles Lakers teammates Pau Gasol, Metta World Peace keen to share blame – NBA Playoffs Update
The Los Angeles Lakers are still reeling from their 103 – 100 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday. The Lakers were ahead when they started the final period but ended up on the losing side after a series of sloppy plays.
Super star guard Kobe Bryant was responsible for a couple of turnovers but the biggest talking point was the pass Pau Gasol made to Metta World Peace, only to be picked up by Kevin Durant. Durant went on to capitalize on the turnover by making a dagger 3-point
shot, earning the win for OKC in game-4 of the Western Conference Semi Finals series.
Pau Gasol faced a lot of criticism for his play, particularly from teammate Bryant. The player has now come out to say that he accepts blame for what happened, but the game wasn’t lost because of that one mistake.
"It's definitely one play, one mistake, but there was a lot of mistakes in that fourth quarter and a lot of mistakes during the game," Gasol said.
Bryant argued after the game that Pau was perhaps too passive, that he needed to take a shot on the play instead of passing the ball. The forward said that looking back at it; maybe he should have done so.
"Obviously if I could've gone back, maybe I could've shot it, and I would've. But it's one play -- obviously at a critical time -- but I don't feel like we lost the game on one turnover. There's plenty of bad plays or mistakes in the fourth."
Pau though had played like that for most of the game, with a pass first mentality. In fact, he didn’t attempt a shot in the final 12 minutes.
"If you look, I didn't take a shot the whole fourth quarter," Gasol said.
On the flip side, teammate World Peace put his hand up to take the blame off of Pau. World Peace made some important plays in the last quarter but remarked that perhaps he should have been more active on that particular play.
"I support him," World Peace said. "I'll take the blame for that. Maybe I should've cut. He saw me open, I should've cut. It's my fault."
The show of support from Metta for Gasol would go some way in repairing the atmosphere of a locker room that is bound to be tense before their next do or die battle against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
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