http://basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=438 Kevin Pelton has an article on the Lakers defense. They play a very aggressive style meant to pressure and double players on the strong side and force turnovers. They are currently in the top 5 in all 4 major defensive categories (field goal defense, defensive rebounding, forcing turnovers, and limiting free throws). This to me seems like a very scary matchup for the Rockets. One of the weaknesses of our offense early on is that we haven't moved the ball side to side quickly to exploit openings on the weakside. This plays right into the Lakers hands. One of the things mentioned in the article, and this was somewhat of a surprise, is that Bynum has exhibited above average quickness/mobility for his size. He apparently was successful fronting Nene. How does Yao react to that? How does Tracy and Ron, both of whom tend to hold on to the ball and not do much without the ball, reacting to their traps? This will be a very good test for our offense, and I don't think our ball movement is where it needs to be for us to handle it.
You need a PG that can penetrate and collapse the defense and then players on the perimeter that can knock down shots. And you need a center who is aggressive. It will be interesting, I think the Rockets are reeling a little bit with an identity crisis..... If they somehow win in LA though, it helps their morale a lot, IMO. DD
We already faced a similar defense when playing the celtics who play a more agreessive style with that type of defense. Jeff and tom created the strong side defense here in houston, it ain't nothing that is new to tracy,rafer,yao who played for jeff and practiced against that defense everday. The difference with us we have Yao and nene is know where near the low post scorer or has thesize that yao has,if they want to put everybody on the strong side against yao he should be finding people for layups all day and our players are tough we got dudes like ron with strong hands and tracy being so tall and such a terrific passer see's right through double and triple teams we should be getting AND one and layups all day. Our offense is tailor made for that defense because we run the offense through the big guys at the high post therefore we force their bigs out high and we run our corner series that they can't sit on lock up and zone so easy and we can kill them making cuts back door everytime, this forces them out of their double and triple team zone on the strong side because we have our offense rigged to go back door so they have to be somewhat be honest zoning up like that. We move make our cuts and just swing the ball to the other side we are cool + knock down shots. Eventually as the game wears on they will have to play some sort of man defense which will end up in our favor just like we saw with celtcis when we played them it took us a little bit to figure out what we needed to be done but in the second half we forces them to out of their zone to more of man to man D. The lakers D is a softtt gimmick, we move the basketball just little bit run our corner series we should be fine because eventually they will wear down and they are not as tough as the celtics, we should see their soft side come out exposed.
The stats aren't fooling me. They played the Clippers twice, once on the "road", the Nuggets(close game) and a Blazers team that for some reason thought Greg Oden was a primary option.
Well we just have to move the ball around more...everytime one of the big 3 get it they tend to hold on for a few seconds before making a move which allows the defense to set up and makes the offense stagnant.
The scariest aspect of Laker's defense is their "Ref Defense." No matter how well you play, you can't beat "Ref Defense"
They lack foot quicknessbut have a shot blocker in bynum and gasol. They have a lot of long players. I think Brooks will kill in this matchup. Also, we should start Artest in the post vs radman who wants no part of artest. If Yao doesn't wake up, we will see bynum control the middle and dominte the game. Scola and his mid range shot better be ready as well as landry. They have been good defensively mainly because of bynum. He plays big, but yao usually has his way with him. Yao normally has his way with Kaman too, but it wasn't the case the other nightn Ariza off the bench is also a good defender. It will be interesting the rox transition defense. The lakers are a good transition team.
Attack consistantly with Yao Bynum deffense is mad suspect. A lot of pick and rolls with Scola they help deffense asre late on help deffense. Last but not least Aaron (not the former QB of the Saint) Brooks need to be aggresive you can always hurt the Lakers with point guard aggressiveness.
I think the Lakers are the one team in the league that has a "Big Four" and not a Big Three. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they blow us out of the building tonight. Even when we are healthy and rolling towards the end of the year, it would still be a tough tough matchup for us, or for any team.
I would say it is more like One Big Great one and 3 good ones. Bynum is still unproven, while Gasol is 2nd or 3rd tier star at best (he's no Duncan, Garnett, or Amar'e) and is not great defender. If there is a list of PFs I do not want to face, he probably wouldn't crack the top 8. While, Odom is very inconsistent. But, they do run good system and a little depth, which gives them the age against alot of teams.
Pau has averaged like 25 points and 9 rebounds against us the last two seasons. And he's got enough length and quickness to give our PFs real problems defensively.
I was speaking more in general (not just Houston), he might be problem against us...but against a team that has good big man and play very good defense. I think he can be cancelled out on occassions. Also, I think the reason he has had such success against us is that he generally didn't have to guard anyone for good part of the last 5 years. Also, he really doesn't defend in Yao in most cases Memphis would throw another big body one him or front/guard him with smaller players.
Lakers' defense isn't very good, but their offense is outstanding. The key is our own defense. If we can stop them, we will win.
as always, kobe will not have a good game against the rockets ((((T-MAC PLAYING)))) because he'll prob try to outscore mcgrady which means he'll be hogging the ball and missing a lot of shots (ron guarding him).remember that the last time kobe beat the rockets (with mcgrady) was in 05-06 season.last year they won the 2nd game when t-mac left because of his injured elbow.
The thing about Kobe is that against us, ever since we've been a playoff team in this decade is that he does fair against us. He's really really good against us, or really bad ( or a non-factor). I don't know in some games with JVG (pre-Battier), the Rockets did a fair job against Kobe, while other times he had his way with us. I don't think he will have a big game tonight, it will be just good enough for everybody else to beat us.
