Will there be any team that has a legitimate chance to beat the Lakers in a 7-game series next season? Pick your team and state the reasons. I pick the Spurs. Offensively, you got have a shooting center to draw Shaq out of the paint. Rasho is also good at setting pick. If Shaq is still reluctant to come out to defend the 1-5, 2-5 pick, Rasho would get his 12-15 points. However, when Shaq does come out, Malone would cover the paint, but he's no match for TD. Also, I think Parker has the ability to get pass a 36-yo GP. Defensively, the new assignment for the Spurs is to defend GP's low-post game. Parker will get killed at 1-on-1. TD, Rasho and Bowen cannt leave their men. So Jackson or Manu has to help double GP, hoping Fox miss couple of shots. I don't think Spurs could play zone, coz Kobe and GP are too good jump shooters.
A healthy Sac Kings team...a team that moves the ball well...that has some good perimeter defenders...that is quick and young...a team that passes well out of the post. That's the kind of team it will take to beat the Lakers, I think. I will not be surprised if the Lakers implode...it's hard to pick against them on paper...but games aren't played on paper. Ask the Pippen/Barkley/Dream Rockets.
You beat the Lakers by running. Pound that fat swollen 7'2" baby up the court as much as possible. That's whay Portland lost that 4th qtr lead 3 years ago; they started playing tight & quit pushing the ball. That & Bryant was allowed to rout his man out of the post 7 or 8 feet everyother possession.
Hire Jeff Gillooli and Tonya Harding to hit Shaq and Mailman on the knees with a pipe in the hall leading to the lockerroom.
We can hang with the big boys, especially if we can get someone like Rasheed Wallace and another guard for depth.
im not so sure malone would completely be overmatched by duncan. hed do better than martin did in the finals, my feeling anyway. he was MVP not 5 years ago. hes in great shape and i kind of think while some of his decline can be attributed to age, some also may come from not really being in it. while a great competitor (dont wanna start a riot here just stating the facts), his jazz teams havent exactly been contenders since those finals losses. im sure id be somewhat complacent too. tim duncan is the best player in the NBA today tho......i just dont think itd be a wash
Good point about teams on paper, MadMax. And you forgot the Kings' mad depth! I think the Lake show will be those four guys and a bunch of folks making the league minimum, whereas the Kings have a ton of fresh bodies off the bench that could be starters on most teams. Nobody can compete with the Sactown bench and what will PJ do to counter the Kings when they play both Bibby and Bobby Jax in the backcourt? Both of those guys would eat Fisher's lunch, so whoever Payton didn't guard would go mad, especially if Shaq plays the French style defense he played in the middle last season. I think that Sactown is the only team capable of beating them.
The only way other teams have a chance to beat LA next year is if Shaq gets injured. The lakers where not that far from winning it all this year with absolutly no talent besides Kobe and Shaq. With Payton and Malone willing to take complementing roles the Lakers can't be beat IMO.
I'm not worried about the Lakers mental side too much. Payton and Malone know they come to ride the coattails of Kobe and Shaq. They know who are the bosses. They will defer to the 2 and 5 because they know this year or next are the only chances for them to ever wear a ring. I don't think any team can beat the Lakers in a 7 game series.
I agree. Some guy sai about a good shooting center to draw shaq out of the paint, but i guess he didn't see what Shaq did to rasho in the playoffs. The few weakness the Lakers had are gone. Teams used to win the pg and pf matchup, but with Malone and Payton, at worse those will be draws. I think the Kings have the players to give them a run in 7 games, but i question Webber in big games. I don't thhink anyone will beat the Lakers in 7 games. People can come up with scenerios on top of scenerios and I don't there have ever been a team assembled like this one. I'm not talking about role players hanging on to superstars a little past their prime, I'm talking about superstar players in their prime, having won rings and getting the best pg in the league and a top 6 pf who is hungry. I think the only debate is how many games will they win and how bad will the win in the finals. Ido like Jersey if Zo can play like he did the last season he played. Can you picture Kidd vs Payton,Jefferson vs Kobe,Martin vs Fox,Zo vs Malone and Dike vs Shaq at some points during the finals. That would be the best.
Who beat the 1999 Rockets in the playoffs? Shaq and Kobe. The Lakers have more experience at winning huge games than any other team. There's very little chance of Payton and Malone not being able to pick up the offense and assimilating their games to the rest of the roster. Shaq did. He's not exactly the brightest bulb... The '99 Rockets are an invalid comparison. The only guy who was within a mile's reach of his prime was Barkley. Try to convince me that a Rockets squad of Pippen, Barkley, and Hakeem (and throw in Drexler) would not have won the title in 1993 instead of 1999. That said, I think the main challenger for the Lakers has again become the Kings. Shaq destroyed Rasho in the T'Wolves/Lakers series this year. He and Kobe will still be SA's biggest worries, not Payton and Malone. Another thing is the very popular misconception that Parker runs rings around Payton. The stats certainly don't prove it. Over the last 9 head-to-head matchups (2002 First Rd & 2003 reg season), Payton has averaged 22.2 ppg, 6.6 rpg, and 7.4 apg against Parker. If you average in Parker's rookie year, those numbers grow even larger. Looks like Tony's speed isn't really making up for the rest of his game, does it? The Spurs will sorely miss Robinson as Shaq's post defender. Bank on it. The NBA fans hate it, but the Lakers are probably more prohibitive favorites to win the title this year than they were in any year of their three peat. If the Kings don't improve their roster, they'll lose too. They couldn't beat LA w/o Payton and Malone when the series boiled down to a nutcheck. Vlade has taken a few steps backwards from 2002 and you can set your watch to Webber's next knee or ankle injury. Things like that don't help Sac's case.
Beserker, that pretty much what I say. People want to throw rocks in a glass house and compare the team of Pippen,Barkley and Dream to this team which isn't fair. To better judge a team like this take Hakeem in 94-95, throw in Grant Hill of that same yr and you have Shaq-Kobe. To make matter worse, add Barkley of 97 and KJ of 95 and that the cast you would have. Could a jordan led team beat that one? I doubt it. To have the most dominant center in the game with the 1st or 2nd best swing man in the game is plenty, but add in the top pg and a top 6pf is scary. These guys are hungry and Malone and Payton are none as no nonsense type of guys. You can't even compare this team to the Blazers teams of the past few yrs because of the different leaderships this team has. Its pretty much a race to 2nd place.
To beat the Lakers: -Hope they have a real bad night -Hope injuries take their toll on their older players
It's all up to the chemistry of the Lakers team... can Malone & Payton accept their role, can Shaq & especially Kobe control their egos & share the ball with the other hall of famers... Personally I believe it will turnout to be another case of too many generals & not enough soldiers... we'll see...
the only way to beat the lakers is if dallas and houston combined as one team ming nowitzki finley francis nash thats the only way the lakers will go down... or maybe if all 3 texas teams formed one texas team?? ming duncan nowitzki finley francis now the lakers would be dead (i hate the lakers for ruining my nba season)
It is really quite simple, all you have to do is take a blade to Kobe, Payton, Shaq and Malones Achillies. Sever that tenden and they will lose all their lift in their leg and their form on their jumpers will go kaput.
I'm not going to pick a team to beat them in a 7 game series (because I'm not sure there is one), but I'm going to tell you how you can beat the Lakers. 1) Do not worry that much about Payton and Malone. Yes, they are stars, but they are not the players they once were (even if they are close). It's still Shaq and Kobe you need to worry about - they are the better players, they've played together much longer, and they will still get the majority of the shots. There will be familiarity issues with all four players on the court, at least at the beginning of the year. 2) You must stop Kobe. Trying to stop Shaq is futile for 99% of the NBA. However, there are a certain few players who can contain and even dominate Kobe Bryant on any given night. Having one of those players is a must. 3) Do not let the role players get their points. I'm not talking about Malone and Payton here, I'm talking about their shooters and role players - the Rushes, Fishers, and Georges of the world. Their combined output should not be above 15pts. 4) Run. Tire the Lakers out. Despite their signings, they do not have much depth - at least that is proven, anyway. Fisher is ok, Rush is still unproven, Walton and Cook are just rookies, and Medvedenko just isn't that good. Tire out their top 5 and you'll have some success. ---- The problem with the West's top teams is that none of them have excellent swingmen who can play with Kobe Bryant....or at least none that can play with him on both ends of the court (even though some can match him on one end or the other). And, the problem with the East's best is that their frontcourt talent typically isn't good enough to stop Shaq and Karl Malone. Call me a homer, but - I think the Magic can beat the Lakers in any given game. A 7 game series? Probably not. But in one game, they could. McGrady has proven to be able to stop Kobe Bryant. The Magic have the big men to at least slow down Malone and Shaq and make them work on both ends of the court. Reece Gaines is a bigger guard than Payton, meaning he won't so easily be backed down upon in the post. The Magic's bench outweighs the Lakers bench by a fairly substantial margin, and Gordan Giricek is better than anyone the Lakers could throw out there at SF. I do think the Lakers are the better team, but it takes a particular team to be able to beat them in one game...and, well, I think the Magic could do it. They've done it in the past.
