Let’s address Lakers weaknesses and see if we can attack them 1 Attack Derek Fisher's lack of an ability to guard speedy point guard. If you look at his past you will se a list of players which Fisher has trouble with which used there speed against him in the playoffs. Going play unto the 2002 playoffs you can see the trend of players who have had great series against the Lakers. Mike Bibby, Troy Hudson and just last year against Rondo fisher were dominated. 2 Having a true low post threat. Even though the media will try to tell you Andrew is a young star player he has yet to play big against other big men. Gasal is no a shot block therefore attacking there inside defense is not impossible. 3 Keep a priory of giving Kobe Bryant different looks defensively and make him try to play one on 5. When Kobe is taking more than 25 shots in a game the Lakers are less likely to win. You can defend Kobe by making sure you have a good defender on him at all times and use help in smart circumstances like when the shot clock in getting low which makes him have to take a tough shot and now give him time to get a team involve because its not enough time on the clock. 4 Play tough team defense. The Lakers defense has not shown they can shut a team down. So if you fall behind you can still get back in the game with good intense defense because the Lakers will let up. 5 Play smart limit your turnovers and not make bad fouls. If your going to foul somebody make sure they feel it but still keep your composure and they might loose theirs. 6 Don't buy into the Lakers hype. The media is driven to push the Lakers franchise as the prominent in the NBA and they will always be overhyped. I see the Rockets have the ability to do all these things so get ready to shock the world because the Rockets will take 1 in LA and this series will go a minimum 6 games.
I was listening to Darel Morey interview on 610 today. Morey said they were going to look at the defense that was played by Celtics in the last year's finals. Apparently, it was strong side zone defense and double teaming Kobe when he puts ball on the floor. There is a thread about this kind of defense on the Laker's forum http://forums.lakersground.net/viewtopic.php?t=86079. I found some videos on Youtube where some Laker/Kobe fan is talking about this. If you can ignore the commenting guy's man love for Kobe then I thought the following videos were interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQaVvf2VOsc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kYBeNQdSCc It seems like the basic strategy was to not let Kobe beat you and make the other guys beat you. I'm not sure if this will work this year though as I think his supporting cast has improved a lot and Kobe has been passing the ball well as well.
Well, you mean aside from actually praying? I got an idea or two... The first thing every Rocket has to do is recognize the challenge in front of them. The Los Angeles Lakers are the best team in the league. You can love the Rockets more than your own teeth, and that's still the truth. Saying it out loud isn't a crime, it isn't quitting, and it isn't rooting for the Lakers to win. It's accurately assessing the level of competition you're facing. Going into this series thinking that there's a ton of weaknesses that the Rockets can exploit against the Lakers is stupid. And it makes me glad somebody other than some of these forum fans are coaching. The Rockets HAVE to control the tempo of the game. Period. The Rockets have a few more options offensively than they've had in the recent past, but not enough to get into a shootout with Los Angeles. The Lakers are going to score no matter what you try to do to them. The Rockets' best chance lies in making sure that the games stay half-court affairs as much as possible. Sine the Lakers don't need help scoring, don't turn over the basketball or let the game degenerate into a track meet. What we're going to see from the Lakers is a team that not only has more talent than the Rockets from one to eight (truth, not homerism or Laker-butt-kissing), but a team that has had their playoff mettle tested TOGETHER for the most part, for the last four seasons. With the exception of Pau Gasol, most of these Lakers have been here since Shaquille O'Neal was traded. They've played together. They've grown together. They've won and lost, together. Chemistry doesn't do justice to what the Lakers have. Chemistry can certainly be created in a small amount of time (our '95 Rockets could attest to that), but don't think for a second that the Lakers won't be ready for whatever the Rockets can throw at them. It's not so much that the Lakers don't consider the Rockets a challenge. Far from it. But their focus is such that the Rockets are a step on the road to where they want to go. The Lakers will treat the Rockets like a legitimate threat. The Lakers won't be bullied, they won't be fooled, and they won't beat themselves. If the Rockets want to win, they HAVE to play: 1) with discipline. Lapses on offense or defense for any length of time will be death. 2) with resilience. The Lakers are so good that they will hit the Rockets with 10 or 15-point runs on more than one occasion, no matter how well they're defended. The Lakers do have a habit of letting people get up off the mat. But they almost always give themselves enough of a cushion that they can recover and regain control. The Rockets do not score enough to let the Lakers play with a lead of 8-to-12 points for any extended period. 3) with efficiency. The only real chance the Rockets have is to play through Yao Ming, no matter how the Lakers defend him. If the Rockets have any clear advantage matchup-wise, it's with Yao. If playing Portland taught the Rockets anything, it's that they'd better be ready to counter how the Lakers defend Yao. The Lakers will be much more effective and less predictable with their defenses. They'll mix fronting with one-on-one defenses and weak-side double-teams. Yao has to be decisive. And his teammates have to make the Lakers pay. This is the time of year when it's fun. And I'm not one to go into predictions about who needs to win what matchup and who has to do this and who has to do that. But I will say that The Rockets have a much smaller margin of error than the Lakers. I still think that the Utah Jazz are one of the top 4 teams in the conference, and it took a monster game and a half-hearted effort from the Lakers for the Jazz to win one game. I can't wait to see how this all shakes itself out. We'll watch the Rockets cut their playoff teeth in this round. Like I said...a lot of fun...
When you say it that way it sounds impossible but there's only 4 other people on the court with Kobe at one time. I think it's easier to stop the other 4 than it is to stop Kobe.
I am amazed Lakers management is able to surround so many talents around argubaly the best player of the NBA. It is really extremely challenging or seemingly impossible to shut down most of or all these Kobe helpers at one time especially in consideration of Roy and Aldridge duo punch has put us into a situation which Rox have to pull all out in order to win. I agree that Kobe will come out with his numbers consistently, compared with Roy Kobe is more versatile, experienced and explosive. One point we can be relieved is that Kobe may be not a master of PnR. In order to pull off wins against lakers, Rox should fully exploit Yao's mismatch, try best to cut Kobe's connection to the rest of Lakers, shoot open triple looks at high percentage, come out with consistent tenacious D, benchs have to show up big, last but not the least continually bear the heart of champion.
Neglecting height and athleticism will really hurt the Rockets this series. The Lakers are going to get a lot of second chance opportunities due to this. This is what worries me the most. Also, they have three 7 footers they can throw on Yao and wear him down while Houston has nobody over 6'10" other than Yao (no Scola is not 6'10"). Other than what has been mentioned above, I think the Rockets can play the Lakers tough. One strategy could be to let Kobe get his and make him work hard to get those points and make him play defense as well, but try to shut the other guys down - especially the role players.
As some people have pointed out already, in our past games, Kobe didn't even need to jack up shots and put the load on his shoulders in the beginning, and they were beating us this way because his surrounding teammates are too talented. The risk of gearing our offense to shutting down Kobe completely is that their teammates will get very open looks, similar to what Blazers did Yao. Only these guys are better and won't miss as many shots as the Blazers did. In the past, we always tried to play very tough defense on Kobe, clearly it didn't work this year. Kobe is good enough to still play a high level if we give him our full attention. We have a better chance at reducing the effectiveness of his teammates than we do Kobe.
I see u don't watch La much. The rox have no one who can guard odom. Ok, put artest on him, then that takes artest off kobe. Ok put shane on Kobe, what about ariza?
