Clutchfans Game Thread: Lakers @ Rockets 9/10/2020 (Playoffs Round 2, Game 4)

What are you defining as Moreyball? Because the Cavs and the Warriors made the most 3’s in the league when they won.

 

it is so easy to be blinded. you do know that the Sacto Queens, the poster children of NBA irrelevance, are also in Calif, no?

just the facts

GS had been irrelevant since Nellie left, more than 2+ decade ago. then a change of ownership changed the team culture / fortune.

Clips had been a perennial doormat since the 1970s, until the owner was forced out and then entereda new billionaire owner

LAL had been on the decline since Jerry Buss's dumb son took over, missing the playoff for 6 consecutive yrs.
only after he was forced out, replaced by his competent sister, did things got better.​

 

Of course every analyst picked LA to beat us - everybody knew that we didnt have the interior defense to try to hold one of the top pitp teams at bay - we are too freaking small! Of course, when everybody predicted LA to beat us they were just a bunch of biased haters though, right...

But are you really going to sit there and contend that they didnt game plan to expose and exploit our small ball lineup? Are you really gonna say that planning to run our guys off the 3pt line and turn the game into an inside the arc competition wasnt a full on exploitation of our game plan and roster? Are you really gonna say that they didnt identify that it was easy pickings inside after game 1 and increasingly hammered it?

And as aforementioned, idk how people can truly claim that LA went small to counter us... they went small-er by not utilizing McGee and D12 - but they still had a 6'10 AD vs 6'5 PJ (and D12 is 6'10 as well) and 6'9 Bron, 6'8 Kuzman, 6'8 Morris - and we had 6'8 Green and shorter... c'mon, man 3/5 of their starting lineup were bigger than anybody in our starting lineup... they went smaller to try to keep up with the speed - but they didnt resort to small ball as their sole identity...

 

Yes we forced both our opponents to realize that playing their regular rotations would end in bad news.

OKC realized Gallo at the 5 was their best bet. Fortunately they took a little too long to realize it and we out talented them in the end in that battle.

LA quickly realized the rotation that netted them the 1 seed was worthless against our “gimmick”. Unfortunately their talent level playing our game is in their favor. Not every team has an AD to rely on to be able to credibly guard our quicker lineups, defend the rim and punish us offensively.

Any Rockets fan should know that matchups can make or break you. Seattle used to give us fits. Then we didn’t face them and good things happened.

The man @Clutch tweeted it himself.



A flawed strategy would enable superior teams to play THEIR game and dominate us OR enable clearly inferior teams to exploit our strategy and punch above their weight talent wise.

Neither happened.

And to ignore the fact that we were forced to try to integrate the most useless 40 million dollar anchor the league has to offer is a disingenuous evaluation of what this strategy is really supposed to be. 5 SKILLED players. Westbrook made that impossible.

 

noooo..... If you run a gimmick, and a team makes an adjustment to counter that gimmick - and they dominate you... then the gimmick has been thwarted... no soup for you!
just because a team makes an adjustment to offset something you're doing doesnt mean it was a sound strategy... If your strategy can be countered and lead to your being dominated that kinda makes it a flawed strategy...

 

Somebody was out there this whole season saying this and getting blown up on this site....oh yeah that would be me. APOLOGIES accepted!!!! First in line should be that idiot named D Rock.

 

Just to add.....for all you saying blow it up, here is the sad reality: Minus trading Harden, we have nothing (no contracts) nobody else wants. No market out there for House, Green, McClemore, Rivers, etc. Morey gave away all our first round picks for the future, so there is literally no hope. Each and everyone on this board deserves this for ripping on me for stating these facts all season long. Now all of a sudden you all see the light??? Enjoy small ball because you are stuck with it as long as Morey is here and that will be another three years as your cheaparse owner ain’t paying his guaranteed huge salary to someone else. Hope our 23 year old center enjoys a prosperous NBA career. It will be fun in a couple years watching him at age 25 go up against our re-signed 37 year old center.