There were a few things making Thunders successful on defensive side. They were athletic and had some size. They averaged most blocks among all teams in regular season. They had one of the best perimeter defenders in Sefolosha. Suns had neither. If they go small without Lopez and play zone, Lakers can use penetration and cut to destroy it.
He's talking about doubling the post and forcing LA to take perimeter shots in which LA wasn't very good at... which I would agree with. Sefolosha had nothing to do with that series on the defensive end... he wasn't even a factor. Suns do have two of the good perimeter defenders in the league, Grant Hill and Jared Dudley, although like I said, it won't be anything Kobe hasn't seen before so I don't see it as a threat. Even if the Suns go zone, you have a Kobe Bryant and a Shannon Brown to break down the defense yeah. I just don't see how the Suns play that tough of defense to not allow anyone to get inside the paint or at least penetrate the lane. San Antonio did it, but they just weren't able to convert layups.
The Thunder averaged a whole 0.8 blocks a game more than the Suns in the regular season, BFD. And while Sefolosha is a very good defender, so are Hill & Dudley. It's not about Kobe, anyway... he's going to get his points if the Suns play this strategy (which they should). Utah showed that a team with a crappy defense can still give the Lakers a run if they simply clog the perimeter (see game #3, very winnable for Utah). The Lakers are one of the worst outside shooting teams in the NBA while being the best (by far) inside team, so it should be pretty obvious how to play them. I don't think the Lakers can reliably beat the zone with penetration. While Kobe is excellent at getting to the hoop and Odom can do it occassionally, that's all they've got. Everyone else on their team is only comfortable in the post (or is a scrub like Farmar, Brown, or Walton... and those guys only take bad outside shots anyway). The Lakers are actually very poorly constructed because they don't have the outside shooters to complement their presence in the post. It's only a matter of time before a team exploits this, and if Phoenix doesn't Boston or Orlando certainly will. BTW, the Artest for Ariza swap was horrible specifically for this reason. Artest is just as good of a shooter as Ariza but he's terrible at spotting up (wheras Ariza was very good at it). He needs the ball to be effective and there are just too many guys on the team that demand it. So expect him to get, and brick, many open shots in this series (that Ariza would have hit, or at least did hit last year). Sure, Artest is an upgrade defensively but the Lakers real problems this year are on the offensive end. Artest "locking down" Grant Hill isn't going to make much difference in this series.
Lakers didn't have Suns in mind when they signed Artest. It's about Melo, PP, LeBron. Artest is not a good spot-up shooter, granted. But if you let him shoot wide-open 3 like in practice without any attempt of contests, he's gotta hit 40%+ of it. I think Artest will guard Richardson, who's been hot in the first 2 rounds getting 20+ points on 50%+ shooting. Artest will keep that under 15/45%.
Well, he may prove me wrong, but what I've seen of Artest is that he can only hit shots on the move. Almost all of the threes he's taken this postseason have been wide-open and he's been just awful (esp. compared to Ariza in the 2009 playoffs). It even got to a point where he was passing up wide-open shots because he was bricking them so badly. I think the Lakers will rotate between Kobe & Artest on Richardson. Agreed that he won't go off in this series.
Not if the Suns can get out in transition and run. Also if Channing can get hot and spread the floor the Suns have a great shot. I think the X-factor is J-Hood Rich. If he can play Kobe well and get his at the same time Lakers could be in trouble.
Once again.... J-Rich will not be defending Kobe. It'll be Grant Hill and probably Dudley off the bench at times.
