well not exactly.. no Gasol. Nor an active Landry either though. Hopefully we'll see come playoffs. Terrible thread btw, everyone knows what the results are going to be
The Rockets look like a far superior team today, and even in the first meeting of the season the Rockets look like a better team....... 1) Bynum and Gasol are nowhere in the stratosphere of Yao Ming....even with all of his limitations he's better than both individually and put together 2) Players like Landry, Brooks, and Scola have become regulars, not Brooks so much....but those players weren't really in the equation the first two meetings. 3) Rick Adelman's offense: He has adjusted to players and the players have done the same reverse. 4) The Lakers bench is somewhat overrated, while the Rockets are very much underrated. 5) Defense Defense Defense - we have far better effort, strategy, and intensity on that end...which is why we a better record 6) The Lakers are not a championship team, at least not yet. We are far closer to them than most expect....they haven't made out of the 1st Round since you know who left.....they haven't beaten S.A. Dallas Utah or even the Suns in 7 game series yet and it still remains to be seen if they are truly that much better than some of these other teams.....
Point 1) Yao is great but you sound like a homer here more than actually making a reasonable argument. Yao is not likely better than those two combined. Point 6) You say we are closer to the Lakers than most people think. That sounds like you are saying we are not quite as good as them but close which sounds like the opposite of your overall point that the Rockets are better. Or, am I misinterpreting something?
Lakers' defense is overrated. Just look at the recent two games when they lost to Kings and Rockets. They might have a good squad on paper, but you have to assemble them together before concluding anything. Just like last offseason, everybody expected Steve and Mike to contribute a lot, but in fact our rookies stepped up big. I only believe what I saw.
<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5BI8zNgRkI0&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5BI8zNgRkI0&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object> I was there waaaaaay too early in the season though. chuck hayes was starting. there was one constant in the matchups though - Battier making Kobe miss much more than he made. This thread would get much better unbiased response in the NBA forum and a day after the game.
houston. and it's not even close even with the much publicized short handedness of LA, they were +16 in the paint. houston literally had no interior offensive threat. and this is the rare case where literally means literally. there was literally no guy on the court above 6'6" in the paint for the rockets who could post up on the lakers a healthy yao + landry would put up at least 34 on LA and perhaps even up to 50 points on a superlative night. bynum is good but he's still developing. and a lot of hype surrounding him hinges on his "potential" and what he's shown so far. Yao is in his prime. yao + landry would OWN bynum and gasol over a series even making the 2 big assumptions that bynum would come back able to pick up where he left off (and continue to significantly develop) AND that bynum and gasol would have chemistry comparable to yao with scola&landry I'm one of those who emphasize that the streak carries over 0 to the playoffs. and right now without yao and landry the team is playing almost beyond what could be rationally expected. but add yao back to this team right now and it's the best team in the NBA. lakers are at best overrated and not near the best team in the league. laker's hype is based on projection and conjecture... let's see bynum, gasol kobe and the rest actually play a set on the court before we declare them better than the spurs, the celts or detroit. LA might not even be better come playoff time than the spurs or the mavs. jury is still OUT on LA
you don't expect rafer to have a crazy game like that. One things for sure, tmac can't shoot like that and expect to win. Rafer saved his ass
Again, what's the point of this thread? Teams go through injuries, Rockets played healthy Lakers on their first season game and beat them. Those teams are different now, teams change, injuries happen, Rockets won 22nd straight, who the hell cares if Lakers are healthy or not, does that mean we would actually win a championship if T-Mac and Yao were healthy?
Hey, take a look at what people are saying about the Lakers' PG defense in this link, which is on lakersground.net. http://forums.lakersground.net/viewtopic.php?t=58041
