It's certainly not guaranteed, and I fear him going off for a ton of clutch shots if the game is close. However, if (and that's a huge IF) the Rockets play intelligently and craft their game plan to their strengths, it shouldn't be close. Gotta run as often as you can and pound their front line for easy dunks, putbacks, and rebounds. Hopefully the three isn't ice cold, and turnovers aren't astronomically high (but I don't think they will).
exactly I for one am scared that the Rockets are going to walk in over confident and the Lakers are going to play free and beat them at their own game. Jamison is old but still can drop 20+ on a given night. I am far more nervous for tonights game than any other game in the recent win streak -- i mean they still have Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash
Given their lack of a frontcourt and the possibility of playing Artest, I refuse to call him by the other name, at center, we should have a heavy mismatch down low. With the correct rotations and without a complete meltdown, I don't see how we choke this away. Kobe will feel obligated to win this one by himself, and throw up 45 shots.
I'm RocketExpert . My friend is a member of LakersGround and I wanted to see if he knew if it was me on there lol.
With Dwight, Gasol and Hill all out, there is no reason to lose this one. Yes, Kobe will be Kobe. But he will have to do it virtually single handed tonight.
My first instinct was to feel the same way. A perfect game to have a let down and blow because of youthful overconfidence. But Kobe's playing, and it's the freakin' Lakers. Our guys will be up for this one.
Remember when we lost Tmac, Yao, and Deke and still took the Lakers to a seven game series? Chuck Hayes was starting at center and we were blowing them out. NBA basketball is funny like that.
Hmm, I said I was gonna do this same type of thread for the Lakers, Heat, Utah, Chi, OKC, after I did the NY game. Are you gonna do a post game Laker fans' quotes thread also? If so I'm not gonna bother.
Amen to that! Anyway, without their regular front court could be a curse in disguise for us. They might actually match up better against us with a smaller but faster team.
At least several of their best bloggers are giving us out props calling us one of the best in the west. http://www.silverscreenandroll.com/2013/1/8/3849586/preview-lakers-at-rockets "This should be interesting. The 15-18 Los Angeles Lakers limp into Houston tonight, trying to overcome a tidal wave of injuries and defeat the 20-14 Rockets at the Toyota Center. Yesterday, three Lakers big men were ruled disabled for a week or more, with Jordan Hill, Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard being hung out with various injuries. Regardless of whether or not the trio were healthy, LA would be the undeniable underdog here The Rockets have been absolutely rolling as of late, winning 9 of their previous 11contests, with road wins against the Knicks and Bulls and home W's over the Grizzlies, 76ers and Hawks. Houston has racked up 111.4 points over that span, scoring in triple digits nine times and owning an average point differential of +9. In other words, the Rockets aren't just winning--they're winning big, blowing out teams and putting up scorching point totals. Despite an early season swoon which had them at a middling 9-11, Kevin McHale has gotten his team to harness their youth and athleticism. Jeremy Lin and James Harden have begun to find ways to complement one another, as Chandler Parsons, Patrick Patterson, Omer Asik, Marcus Morris and Greg Smith fill in the gaps around them. The Rockets are an average defensive team, but seeing as they play at the league's highest pace, they actually fill out as having the NBA's 16th best defensive efficiency. In many ways, they're exactly the team the Lakers hoped to be, before anyone cared to notice that the team didn't have the requisite athleticism to do so. And thus, LA comes into tonight's contest as the mirror opposite of the Rockets. They've lost four out of five games, after a five-game winning streak that feels a century old. However, the team that's played for the past two weeks isn't anything resembling what's going to take the court in H-Town. With Mike D'Antoni's entire big man rotation sidelined, Antawn Jamison will be unshackled from the bench, as he and Robert Sacre, along with Metta World Peace, will take up a majority of the minutes usually given to Howard, Gasol and Hill. Earl Clark could see some minutes as well depending on how well Jamison and Sacre play, and how much MDA wants to taunt the Lakers fan base. The Lakers are going to adjust on the fly after a Monday practice and a Tuesday shoot-around with essentially an all-new rotation. As I said last night, I expect D'Antoni's new plan to be to run, shoot and repeat, as this team is ill-equipped to play as much half-court offense as they've been doing with Howard and Gasol. LA should struggle to rebound and protect the paint with nary a non-Sacre player over 6'10" in sight, so better communication on defense and a commitment to play with effort is an absolute must if the Lakers want to slow down Houston at all. However, perhaps this more athletically inclined Lakers team will be better equipped to handle the slick shooting, trigger happy Rockets. There's very little expectation for this undermanned squad to take down one of the Western Conference's best in the Rockets, but maybe that's exactly the position D'Antoni's team needs to be in to keep the ship afloat while the bigs get better."
