Most pundits wouldn't give us a chance beating L.A. without T-mac and no other legit big man outside of Yao. Before this series, I'd have agreed with t-mac, L.A. will win the championship. But I think we have a very good shot to pull off an upset ala '86. Here's why: 1. Yao Ming is playing the most dominate basketball of his CAREER. He's not only hitting a high percentage of his shots, he's been banging for position, snaring offensive and defensive rebounds, and looks stronger and healthier...and more aggressive than I have ever seen him. 2. L.A. is built very similarly to Portland. 2. A: Kobe Bryant is obviously an upgrade over Brandon Roy....there's only one Kobe. But think about this, Brandon Roy played extremely well, and it wasn't enough. Not only that, the team...including R.A. - now have 6 games of experience guarding a nearly unstoppable shooting guard. All of that work will now easily transfer over to Kobe. The exact same strategy. This means we are well prepared for game one. 2. B: Here's why I am really hopeful though. Aldridge is actually a better version of Paul Gasol. Aldridge has a monster series - he shot well, he was physical - it is hard to imagine that Gasol can play more physical and shoot as well in the course of a series as Alridge. 2. C: Baynum = Oden, Ariza = Outlaw, Blake = Fischer. Odom is similar to Scola/Landry. But Fernadez = who on the Lakers is like him? Of course, portland doesn't have a guy like Odom, so this one is a bit of a wash...but Fernandez did a lot more damage to us this past series than Odom will do. Yes, the Lakers supporting cast is pretty good, but consider that bynum is coming of an injury. These are further signs that we will match-up well against this team. 3. The Lakers have no one who can match-up with Yao. Bynum can't handle it. And certainly not Gasol. The Lakers have no J. Pryzbilla to wear Yao down. This is going to be a big problem for L.A. 4. The Rockets have proven they can hold on and win the close games. That was always one of the achilles heels...but didn't see that in the Portland game. They won 2 very close games, and lost one on the road. The other two wins were by double digits, and the road loss was not that close. This is important because we know in a close game L.A. has a big advantage with Kobe - in fact, this is their main advantage - that Kobe can single-handedly lift the lakers to victory in any close game. But we stopped Roy....and I don't think Kobe is unstoppable ala Jordan. Battier and Artest have had success against him, there's reason to believe this series may be a repeat of that. So really this series comes down to this, can we take out everyone on the lakers except for Kobe and one other player (Gasol or Odom) and nuetralize his teammates like we did against Roy and Aldridge. I think the answer is yes. And I think L.A. is prime for a game one upset like Portland having played a Utah Cupcake Jazz team that was ready to role over and die. We will win game 1 by surprising the lakers, and then close them out in game 6. Crazy I know, but i think this Rockets team has found itself in the last few games.
I also honestly think this team will give the hardest match up against the Lakers out of any other team in the playoffs
The Lakers are great, but I can't agree that Phil Jackson is a great coach. He's always had top-tier players around him...but that's not what this is about. I think we can surprise the Lakers, but it would have to be in 7 games. I think Scola will be the key player...taking the Lakers' bigs out of the paint and giving Yao more room.
This series is basically the finals. I believe we can take them out. We just need to play as one and make them play ugly ball.
The biggest key is going to be beating the front on Yao - not only will they front at critical times, they will have Kobe playing Yao for the strip.
we are undersized team.when yao got in foul trouble,lakers gonna kill us.and we have no one can match up well with odom.and kobe can let Baynum,gasol get easy points..we have little chance to win
Bynum is ahead of Oden in possibly every aspect other than defense, and I doubt Aldridge is better than Gasol. Gasol is much more polished in the low post than Aldridge is. And add to the fact that none of our PFs can match up with him on the low block and we have a problem on our hands. I do hope that we can pull off an upset somehow, but realistically, I doubt it. But even then, I don't see the Lakers running away with the series. It'll be a tight one, with us just losing out in a game 7. The Portland series obviously favours us with their inexperience, but the Lakers is on another level in almost every respect of the game.
When thinking about the series, I just have the feeling that Lamar Odom gonna kill us. We have nobody that can match up with him he's just so long and our power forwards are undersized. If they can somehow contain Odom I think we have a better chance but if he goes off, we're in trouble.
I don't think Phil Jackson will do a lot of fronting. He's not going to let Scola tear them apart like the Blazer did.
Biggest difference is that the Lakers can run the break pretty well, they are great at doubling Yao late, swatting the ball out of his hands, and they play passing lanes really well, getting a bunch of steals. The key will be limiting our turnovers, cause that is where LA can really hurt us.
I disagree with this. If we somehow beat the Lakers we still either play Denver... Who has a PG so much better than both of ours combined. Billups in the regular season and Billups in the Post-season is a different monster. or Dallas...who has Jason Terry. We can't even begin to start thinking ahead of the Lakers.
the most important is refs always with lakers...yao will get in foul trouble every game.kobe will go to ft line as many as our whole team
