I mean in another board people were saying that healthy Lakers would kill a healthy RocKets what do you guys think about that. Actual injuries: Ariza Bynum Gasol Mihm Rockets: Yao Landry
LOL. If you want to add Francis to our team, be fair and put Smush Parker back on the Laker's roster. The Lakers have far superior offensive talent and overall athleticism, but the Rockets beat them on defense and hustle. It's a tough call.
Bynum and Gasol would be great for Yao and Deke to feast on.. and Mihm doesn't even count. Not sure about Ariza tho. A combo of him and Kobe together would be pretty hard to stop. The Lakers look much, much better on paper when healthy, but we all know a game isn't won on paper.
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Not true. Gasol has given Yao fits in the past, both on offense as well as defense. Yao does outplay Bynum though.
I am a little biased since I am a Rocket fan, but the one thing about the Lakers that pisses me off (and they revealed this the other night against Sac) is that they take positions off on defense a lot. Now all my Laker friends keep saying Bynum this and Bynum that, but I need to see more than just 2 months of production before you can put Bynum up as a true threat night in and night out. Also with Gasol, he doesn't like physical play in the low post. So where is that real enforcer in the back protecting the basket? Say all you want about Yao, but he does a good job of protecting the basket on most occasions and Deke is probably the best or right behind Howard at doing this. Bynum has more potential to be a great defender down there because he is younger and more athletic than Yao, but at the current stage, I take Yao because he isn't athletic enough to block lots of shots, but he is intelligent enough to know how to force people to alter their shots. Lakers' defense is a joke at the current moment. So I am definitely taking the Rockets because they have proven to me that they are committed to DEFENDING! It is easy for basketball players to go and put up huge numbers, it is more difficult to force yourself to not take possessions off on defensive (ie Battier, Rafer, and Scola in the final 1:32 of today's game with a 12 point lead). So until the Lakers proven to me that they can play a full 48 or atleast 44 minutes of basketball with solid defense, then Rockets any day baby!
We can always switch to Deke when Gasol is tearing, that'll slow him down, at least on offense. However I'm not sure what kind of minutes Deke will get once Yao is back. Maybe Adelman will put Deke in for Yao to help on D when we meet them in the playoffs, since he knows what Deke is capable of now. As far as the offense in concerned, I'm confident we won't need Yao to be having a monster offense now that everyone else can step up. As long as we can clamp those guys down on defense, we should be ok.