Am I the only one scared for Sunday. Yao is playing with zero confidence n Bynum will push him around all game. Then throw in Gasol n eek
If Yao doesn't wake up and Artest doesn't find his shot, it's going to get red alright. Red with Rockets' blood.
i'm actually not worried. it's the centers that noone talks about that give Yao trouble. Perkins, Darko, Okur, Dalembert...these guys can all single cover Yao and block his shot, but Bynum is lazy on defense and Pao is soft. However, Bynum dunking and grabbing lots of boards over Yao is a real probability.
Unless something drastic changes between now and Sunday, we are going to get manhandled on the boards by the Lakers... possibly far worse than last night. Possible drastic changes: 1. an early return by Battier 2. better communication, defensive coaching 3. try harder, fight harder, don't take plays off no matter how tired you are or how much pain you are in, especially the last play of the game when a win or loss is on the line
Yao better manup, because bynum is a pretty skilled big man. not only that, he is a very good rebounder and above average shot blocker. so yao has to breakout this funk ASAP.
Here's a link to a thread on lakersground.net titled "LA's real test will be on Sunday" started by a guy named "Aces FULL". Obviously, this thread is concerning the Rockets' upcoming game with the Lakers Sunday. Since the Lakers' next game is that game with the Rockets Sunday, people on that board can actually discuss and talk about that game while I don't think we can since the Rockets have to play the Clippers tonight first. http://forums.lakersground.net/viewtopic.php?t=75106
I pulled his little factoid off that thread: Lakers: #1 in RPG (51.8 RPG) Lakers: #1 in RPG Differential (+12.3) Uh oh...
An interesting post from that Lakers forum: "Watching the Rockets against Blazers tonight. Some things I notice: - Gasol should dominate Scola, no ifs, ands, or buts. He seemed to struggle against forward with finesse game which is what Gasol is. - Even with Yao Ming in the middle, they're not a good defensive rebounding team. Bynum and Odom has to try to get easy baskets from hitting the offensive boards hard - Run fast break with Yao out but overall not too fond of it. Careful of Aaron Brooks though. He likes to push the ball and he's fast with it. - Stop Yao and you stop most of the Rockets offensive sets. They will sometimes run isolation through T-mac and Artest but better let either of them shoot lower percentage than Yao's high percentage. - Artest can not stop Kobe anymore as long as Kobe has 1 thing set in his mind. Drive, drive, drive and then drive some more. Still very good at challenging shots but Artest now is slow footed compare to him 3-4 years ago." ---------------- The guy makes some good points, imo, especially about the rebounding.
I am really looking forward to that Lakers game. They are basically the cream of the crop right now. If they annihilate us, so be it. We will learn a good lesson early in the season and give Morey more data about our weaknesses. To be optimistic, if we figure some things out between now and then and play a good game, we will realize that we have less holes than we think.
I'm cringing at the thought of rafer trying to defend jordan farmer. i'm hoping adelman allows brook to take him. then there is who is gonna defend odom off there bench?. maybe hayes?. what about ariza? I also would switch artest on gasol and let scola take radman at times. also having hayes there should help us even farthar on gasol. there bench posses a few matchup nightmare for us. withAriza, odom, sasha and farmar.
Have you been watching Ariza this season? He is extremely athletic and is turning into a pretty well-rounded player. The Lakers are ridiculously deep. We have a lot more to worry about than just Kobe and Gasol. We have to worry about how we are going to match up as a team against them. They dominate us in length. They dominate every team in the league in depth. There are very few weaknesses on that team with Bynum back. They rank among the best offensive AND DEFENSIVE teams so far. Everybody talks about them being an offensive juggernaut. They're leading the league in rebounding and several defensive stats, too. They owned the Blazers who just outplayed us. You think rebounding was an issue last night? Wait until Sunday and maybe even tomorrow (Camby, Kaman, even Thornton and Thomas). Again, if we don't make some drastic changes, this rebounding issue is going to become an ongoing thorn in our side. We beat the Blazers last night by 10-15 in regulation if we don't let them get an ungodly number of offensive boards. Forget about Yao, McGrady's and Barry's ineffective defense, Ron's inconsistent shooting and Rafer Alston for a second. If we just rebound like we've done with this same team for the past 4 or 5 years, we are at least 4-1 right now, maybe 5-0. Rebounding and team defense are the biggest issues in my mind at this point. Why? Because that is something we've been good at for so long that you expect it to be there. Getting Ron and Brent acclimated to the team, inconsistent PG play and other things were expected. But rebounding, especially defensive rebounding... that's been one of our strengths for years and it's inexplicable how it's disappeared so quickly. Battier isn't a great rebounder. Maybe his communication is that important. Deke wasn't even playing early last season. Get the rebounding issue fixed, and we will take a huge step toward getting this ship back on track.
Ariza prpbaly along with brooks are early season candidates for the MIP. from what i've seen trevor has finally developed a realiable jumpshot. we all knew he was an athletic freak whop was very good at finish around the rim, but know he has the ability to hurt you if you step off him from the primeter. he is a very, very, very good player.
