Good point. The Lakers team I saw was not only not competitive but seemed indifferent at times. Even Kobe lacked the passion and fire that supposedly sets him apart from all other NBA players. As good as the Boston defense is you have to give a lot of credit to the Lakers themselves for sucking so bad. Some of the important pieces of that team look like they need a gut check. Odom has always been of questionable heart and Gasol has always been a guy who looks like he is already planning his vacations when he should be grinding it out in playoff games.
I have "scouted" the lakers in some detail during the preseason and here are some of my conclusions: Most of the guys in lakerland think bynum is the missing piece for a laker championship. This could very well be true because this guy is built like Dwight Howard, he is 7-1, athletic, long and has good hands. But in the preseason, most of his offense came through conversion of alley-oop's and putbacks against terribly defenses. he tried posting up petro by going one on one but his moves were slow and were easily defended. he could not get points through post-up isos. I think yao can guard him one on one easily, so look for kobe-bynum pick-roll to get bynum going. laker offense: Kobe, odom, and gasol are going to get their points. there is nothing the rockets can do to stop kobe when his jumper is on. but artest, battier and mcgrady(for very small stretches) can give kobe different looks on defense,which can slow him considerably. Odom if contained to the perimeter can be slowed too and gasol if positioned in low post likes to shoot jumpers and jump hooks, nothing scola can do because he is 6-9 and gasol 7ft. he also runs really well for a big guy. This matchup does not favor the rockets well. Their triangle offense is used mostly by their bench to get farmar and vujacic open looks. fisher is a better shooter than rafer. kobe will be better than T-mac, yao will OWN bynum and artest will OWN space cadet. Overall they like to run and take shots early in the shot clock, something the rockets have trouble stopping. laker defense: this is where the lakers lost in the finals and it seems at least in the preseason that they have not improved their defense one bit.Their main strategy is full court press/traps and doubling the post. This tactic will work against the weaker teams but not against fellow title contenders.if brooks is in the game he should exploit this tactic easily. When yao is posted up look for fisher and kobe to double team him quickly. Rafer will always be open during this, hope scratch that PRAY he can shoot it at a good clip. he is the biggest key if the rockets are to beat the lakers in the playoffs. one one one defense- kobe, fisher, ariza and vujacic are the only above average defenders on the lakers. kobe can slow mcgrady and is wily enough to harass artest if matched up. fisher main duty is to get the ball away from yao, he will leave rafer wide open most of the game. ariza has no offense and will be another long defender on mcgrady. Vujacic and barry is another key matchup both are great shooters and can get hot in a giffy. vujacic can defend whereas barry being 36 yrs old cannot. Barry has to play defense by offense. Farmar, gasol, odom, walton and mihm are either foul prone or defend rarely. landry will OWN his matchup with walton. farmar will get the better of brooks but if brooks has improved his defense, he can win this matchup.head and ariza will cancel out. So how can the rockets win? Its through defense and keeping farmar, radmanovic,vujacic and bynum under 30pts combined. Its a tall task but it is doable, the celtics did it, why can't we?.
I don't think it will effect them. The Lakers believe the reason why they lost to Boston is because they didn't have bynum.
To me this is where sometimes people let fandom get in the way of reality. I totally agree with what you're saying about the Lakers. I think the Lakers have the best team in the league as far as talent. Now the only thing they have to overcome is toughness. Kobe and fisher is tough, but the rest are question marks. I mean to be truthful about it, when u think about Odom off the bench is enough to say wow. Its not like the guy ahead of him is a scrub either. Radman is a good player offensively. Sasha is deadly from 3pt range and is a pesky defender. Bynum and gasol can play effectively together because Gasol has range and can take guys off the dribble. If the rox play la, they have to double gasol in the post because he's too big for scola and too quick for yao as we'vre seen over the yrs. If they bring in hayes, then now that a zero for offense. That have lineups that the rox will have trouble with because they have big versitile players and the rox dont. When they bring in odom, all problems start from there. If he comes in and they leave gasol and radman out there, now the rox have to play battier,mcgrady,and artest at the 2,3,4, which is cool to me, thats ok. When Odom comes in for radman, now the mismatch is scola or landry vs gasol. They also run the triangle like the back of their hand. The rox will have to out tough la if they want to win a series aganist that team.
i seriously doubt that the Phil Jackson is going to run that set up. There is a reason why its called the preseason fellas. Its to test out things. Giving Bynum more looks was probably due to that fact that the kid didn't get a lot of PT last season. He wanted to see what he could while we all know what Pau can do. Pau will be in the low post during the regular season and will be the second option behind Mr. MVP. Run-n-gun teams will have the advantage against the Lakers mainly because getting into that paint will be like getting into Eden. Hopefully Yao, Oden, and Howard will be able to muscle into the promise land.
I just heard the most ridiculous thing.... Gasol/Bynum being compared to Ralph Sampson/Hakeem Olajuwon. Are they even as good Duncan/Robinson (older)?
Even though Gasol is a better low post player than he is face up player, he is a damn good face up player. He has a great mid range jump shot, can put the ball on the floor and is pretty mobile against most of the 4s he will be seeing. The preseason though has no real correlation to the season though; Bynum was trying to get back into basketball shape and was looking for his. Now the real games begin and so will the schemes. Vlad has been looking much improved defensively during preseason and can be seen tonight. Vlad has always had the ability to play defense, he has shown in spurs he can use his length to be effective. It's just that his head has never been into playing it consistently. And even if he goes back to his old self, Ariza has been hitting his jumpers at an awesome rate lately. He spent the summer workiing on that shot. Don't be surprised if he starts.
I was thinking the same thing. I didn't even know why the whole "alpha male" sentence was included. it was a tad disturbing to say the least
I disagree with you saying that the Celtics had the easier road to the finals. The reason why I say this because the Lakers were never battle tested. The celtics had to go through some battles to get to the finals. So when the finals rolled around, they were mentally tougher because of the battles they fought to get there.
Don't forget Yao/Scola combo has never lost until now (19?). The Rockets will challenge who's the best C/PF in the league on this Tuesday (vs. Celtics) and Sunday (vs. Lakers). __________________ Rockets "Deadly Team" should be: Big 4 (T-Mac, Yao, Ron, Scola "underrated International Superstar"), 2 Great Defenders (Battier, Hayes), 2 Rising Rookie Stars (Landry, Brooks), 3 Good 3pts shooter (Barry, Alston, Head) and 1 "Sleepy 4ever" Allstar player(Francis)
I don't see why Gasol/high, Bynum/low isn't the best way for the Lakers to go forward with this roster. If you watch Gasol over the course of his career, you'll see that he does not do especially well banging down low with physical players; in fact, contact shuts him down effectively. This happened often last year in the playoffs and in a big way in the Finals. He is effective scoring in the low post, but he is a more natural fit in the high post and seems to like his situation as a second option in LA far more than being the main man in Memphis. You can't play both Gasol and Bynum down low at the same time. Gasol has a nice jumper out to 20 feet, Bynum does not. Gasol is fair passing the ball around, Bynum isn't. Bynum is the stronger, more rugged guy, able to battle under the basket. With Odom off the bench, this is a pretty versatile and dangerous frontcourt for most opponents.
Stop talking sense. The whole point of this thread was for Rockets fans to find fault with the Lakers, not discuss them objectively. Ban yourself.
what an idiotic post, have no clue wtf ur talking about. at least watch a game b4 u embarrassing urself. Gasol is a natural 4. When God invented the triangle offense, he had Gasol, a great shooting around the key, at the 4 in mind. Bynum is still not back to where his was b4 the injury---the explosion is not there yet---but his merely presence at the defensive end adds about 2 blocks a game. Gasol's shooting touch keeps the opposing 4 honest, and has been able to easily go inside on the opposing 4. if any1 has been watching the LaL play this season---and ox4lyf hasn't---one will notice 2 major difference from last year's team. as a team, they've been employing a trapping defense more often, causing more TOs. And the 2nd unit is playing at a much faster pace than the starting unit. so far, not of their opponents's 2nd unit has been able to keep up. also, Arizza, now with a 3-pt shot, has been revelation, but ox4lyf did not mention that, that's because he hasn't been watching the LAkers. get a f***king clue, the Center-less Lakers had a skinning PF playing the post, and still manage to grind it out to game 6 of the finals ? get a F****kg clue. that's because the Mavs had never been to the Finals before; plus the team owner is a meddling fool. The LaL had been to the Finals for about 20 times; the owner has been one of the best in sports. the fact that they were defeated by nemisis (having lost 9 game 7 of the finals in a row to the Celtics), they will exact a revenge.
