I believe it would be in our best interest to finish 5th and face Utah in the first round, followed by facing New Orleans as the one seed in the second round. I think we can beat Utah with home court advantage as long as everybody remaining stays healthy. And I also think New Orleans is the easiest to beat of the top 4 seeds. If we get past those two, that leaves us with probably either SA or LA in the WC Finals. I really believe SA is going to be there, an I-10 WC Finals. And I'll take our chances there. Don't think we can beat SA in 7 without Yao though, however, maybe we can get lucky similar to what Dallas did a couple years ago when they slid by us with the help of some very bad officiating. Utah??? We historically have matched up badly against them with Boozer and DWill taking us to task. Van Gundy kept trying to play Yao on Boozer and it just didn't work, Yao got in foul trouble, and we wound up down in the hole against them too much before being able to recover, too much lost ground. Personally, I have always felt that Hayes is the answer on Boozer. I'd actually like to see Hayes start at Center instead of Deke when and if we play them. Boozer's main game is the face up FT jump shot. He killed Yao with it then got Yao off balance and drew the contact for the foul. Hayes is our best defensive matchup against Boozer. And since our other Center option is Deke, neither one of those guys is going to give you much offense, may as well get the better defensive matchup against them. This leaves Scola out at the 3 point line on Okur. I'm comfortable with that matchup as well. All Scola has to do is crowd him after he catches and force Okur to put it on the floor. He is ineffective if he can't catch and shoot. The next matchup is the Kirilenko/DWill combination. We should run Shane out there on DWill, put McGrady on Kirilenko, and then let the point gaurd defend Utah's 5th starter (Price/Korver/Brewer). I'm confident we can beat Utah. And I'm also confident we can shut down New Orleans. New Orleans is a team that get their whole offense off CP3. You let him have his and you shut everybody else down, double off Mo Pete and help on West. Besides that, New Orleans is paper then. They have essentially a 6 1/2 man rotation. I think they are beatable. That leaves us with San Antonio. Nuff said.
Hayes is the best defensive option for Boozer, but offensively his man (probably AK47) will always rotate for the weak side help, like he did last year to block Yao a lot at the rim. But then again, we don't have any back to the basket options for that to happen very often, and Mutumbo is just as offensively inept and slower, so I guess it could work. On New Orleans, I agree.
Yea without Yao, we do match up with Utah the best. I hope to watch a lot of playoff games this year, so many unbelievably good match ups in the first round...
Nice Post, I agree! As for the Lakers comment, I just get this feeling anyone who play's them will fall into bad officiating. This seems like David Stern's dream scenario: Kobe in the MVP race, picking up Gasol, and possible rematch with the Celtics in the Finals!
no team will come out of the west other than the lakers. David stern has it written all over it since he approved the Gasol trade. it was not a fair trade, not for the fact that memph getting zero in return value. But, for the fact that lakers could use a non-playing player to make the salary match.
i rarely see posts as accurate and on the point as this, i agree on everything you say. boozer did kill yao last season and it was hard to watch. i am worried as always to face utah at home, but i hate them with every ounce of my being haha, bring em on!
You're thinking of the Mavericks trade, in which they used Keith Van Horn. The lakers trade involved Kwame Brown and Javaris Crittenton, who both played for the lakers this year.
I agree. Right now I want us to stay in this 5th spot cause we could beat the Jazz in the first round. The analysts may say we have less of a chance this year without Yao than last year when we still lost with Yao. But now we could cover Boozer with speed and athleticism while still covering Okur outside. Also I am pulling for Denver to finish 8th cause I feel they have a much better chance of taking down the Hornets over GS. Plus we have a better chance beating Denver than we do of GS and NO. Placing all the bad matchups for us on the 2,7 and 3,6 side(LAL, SA, PHX) and only one team can emerge from that. Its a bit of a stretch to pull for a Dallas miracle to emerge from that but to be honest I will be perfectly satisfied making it to the West Finals givien our situations.
New orleans is not the easiest team of the top 4.........Chris paul will kill any team at any giving game.......with either points....or assist and occasionally rebounds.......
Oh man i dont know if i can stand another game 7 at toyota center against utah.....Can you say Deja vu???
We are good against teams that have one super star rather than several great all-stars. Lakers - Kobe can go off, but when he does, the rest of the team suffers. Everyone, even Pau, feeds off of him. Hornets - CP3 is amazing, but when he gets 30 pts rather 12+ assists (which he can get either pretty easy) his team suffers. Dallas - Dirk isn't nearly as good as he was in the past, plus we have Scola who can make him work on the offensive end (and give him a good taste of his own flopping). Whichever 8th seed makes it - They will be shut down by a good defensive team. Our hardest matchups are: (from least to most) Utah - I think they are a lot harder to beat than we let on. They are a machine on both sides of the floor. Their big weakness in the past has been injuries and poor motivation. Both of which they are doing fine in this year. They are definitely a team below the radar. Spurs - They are just as methodical as Utah on the offense and defense, but are bigger, smarter, and faster (at least Parker is). Plus, they play better defense than us. Suns - Everyone feeds off of Nash, yes, but every single starter can drive and hit the three. We saw how Amare went for 20+ FT's, and it won't get any better in the playoffs. Utah or Lakers, since they are the most likely, would be an okay match up in the first round for the first round. After that, I'm afraid that the Suns or Spurs have a big advantage (unless we can secure home court)
Given that it looks like we're gonna have a hard time cracking the Top 4, I think this scenario is definitely the best for us match-up wise, particularly if we get homecourt. Utah is dominating at home but mediocre on the road. We'll have a hard time matching up with Deron Williams, but I think we'll manage Boozer better with Hayes, Scola, or Landry. A 2nd round match-up against the Hornets is also in our best interests, as we be be able to neutralize everyone except CP3.
The one thing I would like to see, is the Rockets forcing the ball out of the hands of Chris Paul, Derron Williams, Steve Nash, and/or Tony Parker by running a soft double team at them before they cross half court forcing them to give the ball up to someone else to start their offense. Teams are limited when other players besides PG's have to start the offense.
I agree that the Hornets would be one of the better matchups for us but only because of their relative lack of experience. I do not agree that CP3 is the only player we would need to neutralize. David West has abused our frontcourts on multiple occasions. You need to find an answer for both of these guys if you want to slow down their attack.
Oh yea... but why be mad at that? They would have just made the deal work using someone else's contract. The Dallas trade is much more frustrating because they essentially created an expiring contract from thin air while the lakers trade would have happened one way or another. You gotta blame the Grizzlies for that one.
