Most important game of the year playing on the road in a hostile building where the Lakers play very well. PJ Kobe and Pau are cocky about their chances playing at home. Adelman needs to pull every rabbit out out of the hat and every trick up his sleeve to take away home court from the Lakers. Couple of adjustments to throw them off. How about coming in with Scolandry to start and having Chuck come off the bench, reverse the # of minutes between the 2, give Landry more minutes than Chuck. We get more offense, rebounding is a tossup, Hayes is a better defender but Landry can shot block and body up Gasol. Like Mark Jackson mentioned during the last game, he thought it was dumb of the Lakers not to cheat off Hayes because he gives you nothing on O to help on hot shooters. The Lakers will probably make that adjustment for game 7 but we could take that away if we start Scolandry and play them more minutes. Also, Adelman seems to like that Brooks/Lowry backcourt but Lowry hasn't been giving us enough offense, how about giving Von more minutes and only play Lowry when Brooks needs a blow. Wafer seems to be in Adelmans dog house but he needs to put that aside for game 7.
This could actually help, if you put Landry on Scola on Odom and Artest on Gasol you can leave Landry for Ariza who i think he can handle. The most possitive aspect is that i am almost 100% sure that the Lakers will double on Scola, so given that last night when they did that we countered by pairing him with Landry, that´s when the lakers were 2 points behind us and Scola was having trouble inside, after that Landry scored and Scola was free to score 7 more points. The countermove worked as we finished the third up by 9. The defensive adjustment is what has to be made almost perfect in order for this to work.
Hayes came out early in game 5 with 2 fouls and all hell broke loose. I bet the Lakers strategy will be to take out Hayes early again.
One underrated asset Chuck brings to the table is that Rockets do not need to double Gasol in the post when Chuck is on him. In game 6, when Chuck went out because of foul trouble and Landry was on him, Rockets constantly brought double team to him, and Gasol was forced to pass out and Lakers swung around for wide-open shots. The difference was that the Rockets closed out on open shooters quickly enough and/or Lakers were just flat out missing shots, but we can't count on that happening in game 7. Chuck is the cornerstone of our defense out there. I'm against starting Landry over him.
Hayes is probably the biggest unsung hero of this series... under-appreciated and over looked... he has done a great job on defense.. there's no way we can sacrifice that. Plus, we need Landry's energy for the 2nd unit coming off the bench.
The danger in starting Scolandry is that one of them can get in quick foul trouble which would greatly decrease our offensive output which we can't afford. We need to have Chuck there from the beginning in order to establish a defensive presence. If he gets in quick foul trouble,Landry can come in.
Are you another "experter"? They wrote off Rockets because Rockets are full of Shane and Chuck who can influence game without scoring. Now you want to bench Chuck.
As much as we need a quick offensive start, we also need to play hard-nosed defense from the get-go and take their frontcourt players out of their game. And as others have mentioned, Hayes is the key to our defense of the Lakers. As for Scolandry, the ideal situation is that they split the game up and each take over for one half, like what happened in Game 6. That gives us a great one-two punch and a consistent inside game, which would open up the court for our perimeter guys. And while Wafer is good for an offensive shot in the arm, Lowry is better for keeping the overall offense flowing. Lowry might have missed his layups, but he's been pretty stable and quietly contributing to our wins.
Well, I think it depends on what the Fakers do. If they start Bynum, then I am all for keeping Chuck in the starting line up. But if they go back to starting Odom, which is a possibility, I am all for starting Scolandry. The Fakers will play off of Chuck even more in this game 7 and I expect them to come out like they did in the 3rd quarter of last game and look for a lot of early steals and turnovers. I think we will definitely have to play a good amount of Brookowry to keep the turnovers down to a minimum when the Fakers second team comes in. Chuck is definitely a key to our defense against Gasol though, so it's a hard choice. That's why Adelman gets paid the big bucks.
No, Hayes is very important for his defense. Very important. Landry will be useful off the bench to come in for foul trouble and to bring in energy in the 2nd unit. Leave the starting lineup alone.
I disagree about giving Landry more minutes than Hayes, and I love Landry (no homo). Hayes completely changes the floor out there by changing the way the Lakers approach the post and wreaking havoc in the passing lanes. There's no way I'd just take him out and call it 'pulling a rabbit out of a hat'. If you notice, it isn't offense that we need, it's defense. The Lakers' point totals are much more dramatic in wins and losses than ours. It is pretty much the trend that we lose if the Lakers get over 90. We need LOCKDOWN D. Chuck Hayes can do it, assuming he doesn't get too many phantom foul calls.
Scola and Landry hardly played together in the last game. Chuck was the key to our defensive stand. No way you take him out of the starting lineup.
I'm terrified that they're going to give hayes 2 early fouls from the get go. We need hayes D to set the tempo for the first Q and the entire game.
Soon as Chuck got his 2 fouls in Game 5 it was pretty much all down hill. I am not so sure about Wafer being in RA's dog house. I feel more like Vujacic and Wafer are inside Wafer's head. I personally think he might be trying a bit to hard and probably has something to do with being a former team. He can still play a big part if he just doesn't look good out there this series. He will do better against Denver.
I don't think this would be a good idea. They would go inside early and try to get easy score on us. We cannot let that happen. If they miss some early shots in the post then we will have a good chance of stealing the game.
Landry serves better off the bench. We need the offensive spark from that second unit. Lowry hasn't done all that great this series and Von has been playing limited minutes. When Chuck starts we set a nice defensive tone for the game and plus Gasol does not get any type of rhythm with Chuck.
