In all seriousness, Brian Cook could be the X Factor

This thread made me smile.

 

I said it before game two when we were talking about fronting. With Cook, instead of spreading the floor out to the Free Throw line, he brings another defender further out with him. How many power forward have killed us by playing on Yao and making him move out from the key? Okur does it and even Troy Murphy is making a career out of doing it.

We need to try it early in game 3.

 

If we can't defend Aldridge, then why not try Cook? We are not stopping him so why not try it. Or maybe when they "twin tower LOL" play together put him in the game and play zone on the other end.

I will try it, if we got a decent lead and a few Time outs in case that doesn't work.

 

I'm not going to convince you , but think about this.

The rockets have a strongside triangle with yao on the blks being fronted, brooks on the wing, scola at the ft line, artest on the other wing and shane in the corner. Since shane isn't a dribble drive threat, his man is on the blks opposite yao. Since scolazs range is 15 ft, his man is at the ft line. If yao is being fronted, shane or scola's man can get to the lob.

Let me take out scola and insert cook and set that same triangle and insert wafer and take out shane. Now the strongside triangle has cook at the 3pt line. If yao is on the left blkand brooks on the wing, cooks man with have to be 20 ft out vs under the ft line and wafer's man has to be 6 more ft closer because he can get to the rim That lob everyone wants thrown has more room. Even if brooks fakes the pass and the 4 man moves back, cook is like a 40% 3 pt shooter. Also, can he do a worse job than scola that has no legnth? I'm not saying they should run it for 30mins, there should be spots when he can have this lineup.

 

Lakers fan here, I would be very wary of relying on cook, he is a horrible defender, he didn't improve when we traded him to Orlando, and now is a bench player for you guys. Do you really want to depend on someone who hasn't improved an ounce since he arrived in the league? Also cook has to be the most un-athletic PF in the league, he doesn't work out and his 3 point shooting is streaky at best. Dangerous straights if you ask me.

 

If we want to use a perimeter shooting four, I imagine Adelman would sooner play Artest and Battier at the forwards and Von/Lowry at guard than give Brian Cook any minutes. It's not like Cook gives you a much better interior or rebounding presence.

 

Why not? If cook goes in and drains 4 out of 5 or 4 of 6 3 pters that will shut the doubters up. If it does not work, then guess what--you sit his azz down. Wow, that was hard.

 

It's worth a shot. Novak won a couple of games for the Rockets with his shooting. If not they could try moving Artest there.

 

No chance he even hits the court, at least when the game is even
remotely in the balance.

 

Maybe that's a good idea.

 

I actually wouldn't mind a Cook experiment. He killed us when he was playing for the Lakers, if anyone still remembers.

 

I agree it could work.

If he can get some momentum going it'd help out tons. If he can force the Blazers to play Yao differently it'd help A LOT more. It is worth a shot...as I said though it's a shame this wasn't tried in the middle of the season.

 

You see this is exactly why we should do it.

If defense is all we're worried about, it's fine. We should put him on Przybilla and he'll put enough effort or foul him. Win-win.

On offense he will really really open things up.

I don't like the idea of moving Artest to the 4 because we need Artest and Battier on the wings. Artest and Battier can both also hit at a 40% clip. I think we can nail them with our shooting, and Brooks can thrive in this situation too.

Again, this is a situational thing, he won't be part of the rotation. Just 10-12 minutes MAYBE.

I would do it if Yao doesn't shoot at least 4-5 times in the 1st quarter.

 

The problem with using Cook is that his shooting percentage isn't consistent enough to draw defenders out.

Blazers may decide to allow cook to be open and let me how much shots can he make. however our team still need to find a consistent plan to fight off fronting. fronting and double is here to stay, everything. we better come up with some ways to beat it.

we need landry as he is a great finisher, but he hasn't been able to play well enough at this point.

When Yao's fronted or double. it draws the open lane and we need cutter and finisher in the middle, which we have in von and landry. we then need shooters around the arc, which we have in brooks, battier, and berry/artest.

against roy. we need a quick runner who run around and making roy chases him. Which it comes to Von, however in order for von to draw roy's attention. he first needs to be a dominate offense.

hopefully in game 3 at home, we will see a better performance on landry.

 

I hope to god Brian Cook does not read Clutchfans.

 

i really like the idea. but i don't think we are desperate enough at this point. cook would be perfect for getting yao the entry pass because he is tall and either oden or aldridge would have to come out and defend the 3. he is also a big factor because he can just spot up in the corner. this which will disrupt the double teams of two bigmen on yao. if they sag on cook, he can knock that sucka down from behind the arch. cook as bad as he is on defense does add size and length and is better at blocking shots in the lane than both scola or hayes. i think it's a valid idea but we would have to be pretty desperate to try something like that. if you look at the series right now, we're not in such bad shape going home 1-1

 

we are not desperate. We easily could have won last game so definitely no reason to change the starting lineup. Please putting cook at the 4 takes scola out. I'll pass on that all day. Scola has a good jumper range.

I would like him to get a few minutes though since he does hustle and is a bigger body. His 3's look much flatter than when he was LA. Anyone notice?

Overall I think he's a solid role player and hopefully gets a few minutes, but def not a starter or first option 2nd string

 

If he plays for 5 minutes and misses his first 3 or 4 shoots, we take him out and are no worse off. If it isn't Cook it will be Artest jacking up off-balance threes.

 

He may be another 6 fouls.

He may be another 6 hard fouls.

He may be another 6 minutes of relief for the real back-up center.


If that's a "X Factor" then so be it. But I doubt, if he gets in at all, he does much more than play garbage time in a lead... Which I'm all for.