should just keep eyes wide open and watch the coming season. it is too early to draw any conclusion now.
T-Mac if even close to healthy is not much worse than Kobe. He's a worse one-on-one scorer, but a better playmaker/floor general. We have the advantage at PG, SF (seriously, MacYao, why the hell are you so impressed with the Lakers' SF rotation? Artest/Battier destroys their three spot), and C. At PF the Lakers may have a slight advantage (though a disadvantage depth-wise), but Gasol isn't going to kill our guys the way you make it sound like he will. If he starts going off, put Chuck on him, and he'll be quiet. If we need some offense, put Scola or Landry in -- Gasol won't be able to stop either of them. You are being way too pessimistic.
Dont forget Kobe's advantages in defense and mentality. Also, lets call Tmac's playmaking what it is...the pick and roll. Its effective, but it can be stopped. And when its stopped, Tmac doesn't really have a plan B. But in any case, I foresee him being asked to be a playmaker only when Yao and Artest are on the bench. Based on what grounds? Fisher is far more consistent than Rafer. In fact, I believe that Farmar is comparable to Rafer. You think we have an overall advantage at center? Why? We have the best individual center, but I'll be surprised if he plays more than 40 minutes. And in any case, the more minutes he plays in a game, the less efficient he'll be. On the other hand, the Lakers can rotate in Bynum, Gasol, Mbenga, and Mihm at center. Chuck may be great at defending opposing power forwards, but Gasol is more like a center that plays pf. The advantages that Yao generally has over other centers.....Gasol would have those same advantages against Chuck. We do have better depth at PF, but thats somewhat negated by the number of centers that the Lakers can rotate in as PFs. I can see Scola scoring on Gasol, but IMO, the only way Landry can score against Gasol is if he's shooting jumpers. Also, Landry would have problems guarding Gasol.
Damn that was hilarious. But yeah, I remember tmac hyping himself up against the Lake show just to go at it with Kobe. I think against their starting lineup, we should play rafer, tmac, artest, battier, yao. It'd be pretty critical on who can guard gassole, but artest switching on him should be enough.
Look at there SF rotation, c'mon Odom is a joke! He is a good player, but when it comes to clutch time, he and he fellow Gasol, always disappear! Moreover, it takes five to win a game, and I have confidence in our defense system. Hopefully, with addition of Ron, we become even better on the defense end! So after all, I like our chance of beating Lakers. I think we can switch Ron to guard Kobe and play Tmac on Odom. When needed, we can even double Kobe with Ron and Battier.
Did you see landry guard KG when we played boston? He guarded him well, and even got a block on him, gasol is 1 inch taller but alot less athletic, I think Carl would be a great match up against him.
honestly these paper matchups are getting annoying now. the lakers have the most talent in their starting 5 as anyone in the league yes, how they all play together (with bynum) is still somewhat unproven, you can say they will be great thats for sure, how great is undetermined. same with the rockets they'll be great but unproven and who knows how it will work. just let the season start and i dont even think the early season matchup will mean anything maybe the mid-season or the late season matchup with the team will be a better indicator of who the better team is then. i am not going to worry about any of the other teams in the league. this team if it stays focused every night is talented enough to beat any team in the league and win the championship (majory injuries barring) this year thats all that matters to me
u do know we've won the past few yrs against the lakers without yao right. this yr may be tougher b/c of bynum AND gasol. but our defense is good enough to maintain without yao when he's on the bench for a small stretch. you make it seem like we're doomed without yao in every post.
Some valid points, although on Bynum people were saying Yao's injuries were "freak accidents" before they started recurring. To me, even though it only happened once for him, the fact that Bynum had to sit out half the season for something that was originally supposed to put him on the shelf for a month is a red flag that more complications might develop in the future. Finally, on the Lakers fearing us, you probably missed the two threads in the offseason linking to the Laker msgboards right after the Artest trade. They were in full-on panic mode. Their fans think Odom is trash and probably underestimate him more than we do. I think he's a skilled player, but the Finals did demonstrate his propensity for disappearing and lack of toughness. In the end, THAT is the edge the Rockets have over the Lakers. We've always played well against them in the past, which is why I think most fans here have less concern regarding them than the Jazz, even though the Jazz might be far less talented. Fact of the matter is, no matter who was on the court we've beaten the Lakers pretty decently since Shaq left. Now that we have Artest, we have that added mental advantage to the matchup, the one that LA lacked in its series against Boston and the one all their fans were clamoring for in the offseason with the hopes of switching Artest in for Odom. Now that we have him, I would say that the Lakers are definitely underdogs to our team in a head-to-head matchup. The Rockets don't match up nearly as well against other contenders in the West, particularly ones with great point guards like Utah, New Orleans, and SA.
In fact, Gasol is underrated. Look at his team since his arrival. He's very talented and when he plays with intensity (playoffs) he's a though player to play against. Tell to Boozer, he beated us, but Pau beated him, Pau is very tall and has speed for his size, when he plays hard, Boozer can't score over him.
There isn't a person with any kind of objective bone in their body can say they like the rox bigs off the bench vs the lakers bigs. What happens if yao gets in fould trouble? Right now we don't have deke. So now we bring in a undersized player. Now the team has to double on bynum and gasol. If bynum or gasol gets into foul trouble, they can slide gasol over to center and slide odom to the 4 which makes the rox slide artest over and bring in a non offensive player like battier. Or they can just bring in mihm or mbenga to play center. Either way they have someone that can challenge a shot at the rim and the rox don't. That's going to be a problem for the rox.
Odom is mainly going to play the 4 as their sixth man. I would say they have the upper hand at the 4, but we have an advantage on 3. the PG position's virtually a toss up, Fisher's more consistent, but Rafer can have break out nights (and slumps too). SG, i would give the lakers an edge, Kobe's far better than Mac, but he also has more defensive pressure on him (battier + artest is not fun ) vujacic is younger than brent but barry's craftier. i think with Pau and bynum taking turns at the 5, they're comparable to us. Overall, it will be an interesting matchup and frankly, either team could win.
Very good observation, we get lost in our love for the Rockets. After the Olympics in which Kobe took over and won the gold for the US, when everyone else was choking was epic. No one else could have done what he did that night period. Kobe is the man and we shouldn't hate on him We do have 2 people to give him some grief though Ron Ron and SBat.
Everyone else was choking?? Did you watch the game? Wade was incredible. He had a better game than Kobe and was responsible for lighting a fire under the team. Kobe finished strong. CP3, LeBron and Melo were all good, too. No one else could have done what Kobe did? Somebody did. Dwayne Wade. Wade: 27 pts (9/12 FG = 75%, 4/7 3PT = 57%), 4 STL Kobe: 20 pts (7/14 FG = 50%, 3/8 3PT = 38%), 6 AST, 2 BLK
without wade, we would have lost that game. kobe was HORRIBLE in the first 3.5 quarters before finally becoming himself. wade scored like 17-18 pts in the first half to keep us from being down by double digits, with the way spain was scoring on US.
The Rockets play better defense for sure, but the Lakers have the triangle offense down to a habit, while the Rockets still don't run Adelman's offense with any continuity. The Lakers also have a better chance at getting far into the postseason with health not as big of an issue as the Rockets.
