Remember the Courtney Lee moment from last year's finals? Matthews (and Lee) would have been the hero.
I really felt if Jazz won game 3 , they could even up the series. I think this will either end next game or in game 5 max.
Also, we do not have to even go back to 91 or 96. We could point to modern day games, and see that the tandem struggle mightily against big front lines or very physical ones. It's mostly against, the following teams: The Nuggets (at full stength, first 3 games): Nene, KMartin, Birdman, J.Graham, and Petro. The Celtics: Perkins, KG, Big Baby, and Rasheed. The Cavs: Shaq, Hickson, Big Z, Varejao, and newly acquired Jamison. The Mavs: Dampier, Nowitzki with newly acquired (Haywood) The Grizzlies: Gasol and Zach Randolph The Magic: Dwight Howard (with Gortat, Anderson, and Foyle), SVG should seriously give Gortat more minutes, if they playing the Lakers. The Spurs: Tim Duncan, Antonio McDyess, and Matt Bonner. The Suns (which I was surprised to see): Amar'e, Frye, and Lopez, their poor defense is really what has killed them against the Lakers, more than anything else. With Amar'e and the other two over the course of this year, they haven't been overwhelmed as much as people think against the Lakers frontline. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/players/3936/gamelog;_ylt=Am6hgAWwFbdnfKgFR64HQ70hPaB4 http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/players/3513/splits;_ylt=AmmJBZkoE8llJ4OfX7sI2hqOPKB4 They seem to have done the worst against the Cavs , mainly because of foul trouble (in 2nd game) and simply dominated in the 1st game. Followed by the Mavs, Grizzlies, Magic, Heat, and few other odd teams. Bynum, most of all has had alot of turkey games against these teams, while Gasol has a good game against them here and there, but is often off his seasonal averages. I'll say to a point that they are the opposite of Yao Ming (esp. Gasol), they look really good against smaller teams (or frontlines), but struggle against teams with good post defense or large size at center and power forward. While, Yao more often than usually plays his best against teams with good size and struggles mightily against smaller teams. Which is why I think if the Lakers tandem is compared to Yao, you would see two different types of players. People often knock Yao for being soft, even though, he probably gets most of his points in the paint, while tussling and wrestling defenders, which get up to 2-3 per play. Gasol usually needs space and breathing room to get points against larger centers or strong power forwards, if a larger defender is hovering on him with aggressive defense and matching him with athleticism. More times than not he is going to be taken out of game, same goes for Bynum in some scenarios. Kim brought Yao Ming up in previous post saying how he might have an easier adjustment in 90s. It's hard point to argue, because the talent level was so much higher at his position. Though, he still has that size advantage over most players, combined with post moves. He might struggle a little bit against some 90s players (possibly dominant against other ones), though I do not think he would struggle as much as Bynum and Gasol would.
Good game. The Lakers kind of got lucky towards the end with some of the wild and difficult shots they were making. I don't just mean Kobe -- everybody knows the "norm" for Kobe is taking low-percentage, well-contested shots and hitting them with regularity. I mean specifically Odom's pull-up three and Fisher's three towards the end. I almost felt sorry for Jazz fans after watching that one. Yeah, almost!
I just think it depends on the lucks of the draw. I'm trying to be objective in thinking back to those games, but everything was just so different...it's hard to say. So I'm looking back at the 95 Rockets run and I really see your point. Dream and Horry had to face Malone (monster 30pts 13reb in the playoffs) but the Utah other bigs were horrible (old Antoine Carr, old Adam Chambers, young Adam Keefe) and averaged like 6pts and 3rebs each. Then they took on Phoenix with Barkley (monster 25 and 13) and AC Green (solid 12 and 12), but their backups were terrible: Danny Schayes and Joe Klein (neither of which could make an NBA playoff rotation of any final 8 team this year). That said, Barkley and Green was a great front court. Then of course you have the Spurs which had MVP Robinson and league rebound champ Rodman (backed up by an old and horrible Terry Cummings). And then young Shaq and veteran Horace Grant in the finals. All in all, the Rockets faced 4 good to great front courts that championship run. Now you make the point that the Lakers have such an easy road with thin/long OKC, short Utah, and then Phoenix (even though I think Phoenix has decent size especially if Lopez is back)...and then Cle, Orl, or Bos. It's obvious that no matter what the path, the Rockets faced much tougher front courts in 1995, but is that due to League front court depth or just that particular path? A good counter example is the Bulls championship run in 1998. The Bulls had horrible centers (3 headed monster), played a lot of small ball in the FC with Kukoc and Rodman, and really didn't face awesome front courts. They swept the Nets with Keith Van Horn and Jayson Williams (both horrible). Then they took care of the Hornets in 5, who had Mason (15 and 8) and Divac (12 and 11)...both not great. Then the Pacers in 7 who had no 1 great player but a very strong collective in the Davis brothers and Smits. Then the Jazz in 6 who only had Malone and decided to play small ball because Antoine Carr, Greg Foster, and Ostertag all sucked. If LA goes on to win the championship this year, I don't see how one can argue that the front courts they have faced in 2010 are any worse than the front courts the Bulls faced in 1998. And there is no way any champ this year can say they faced tougher front courts than the Rockets did in 1995. So once again, I have proven nothing. lol. I just think too many people have this over inflated idea of how great the front courts were in the 90's and all I'm saying is it's a little complicated. The game was different then, and yes there were many dominant top 50 HOF legends, but that doesn't mean there weren't a bunch of scrubs and average and decent players too. Jordan won 6 titles in the 90's all without a great dominant front court.
Gasol with the Hakeem move the baseline fake and spin and hook. Nice to see..too bad it was Gasol doing it
YES, I was thinking the same thing. I think a lot more players are using Dream's moves this season. Side note - Carlos Boozer is getting exposed again, I don't know who will sign him but Boozer seems like a bad contract waiting to happen.
He's a solid PF but not elite. I hope he doesn't get the money. Not a big fan of his. I wonder if Kobe learning from Hakeem is trickling down to other players. Gasol actually looked like he knew what he was doing. I'm sure he's done that in practice a few times.
