Lakers-Rockets series breakdown Story Highlights The Lakers won all four regular-season meetings against the Rockets The Rockets have two strong perimeter defenders to use against Kobe Bryant Can Houston generate enough offense to threaten the Lakers in this series? No. 1 Lakers (65-17) vs. No. 5 Rockets (53-29) Decrease font Decrease font Enlarge font Enlarge font kobe-bryant-ron-artest.jpg With Ron Artest set to guard budding rival Kobe Bryant in Round 2, the Lakers-Rockets showdown is sure to get physical. Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images Season Series: Lakers won 4-0 Nov. 9: LAKERS 111, Rockets 82 Jan. 13: Lakers 105, ROCKETS 100 March 11: Lakers 102, ROCKETS 96 April 3: LAKERS 93, Rockets 81 Home team in CAPS NBA Team Page NBA Team Page ADVERTISEMENT OVERVIEW: This is when it gets good. The Jazz were too inconsistent to capitalize on L.A.'s inability to go in for the kill, and the Trail Blazers were too inexperienced and too thin to get Houston to clench up as in the first rounds of old, but Lakers-Rockets is a fair fight. No team has a better chance against Kobe Bryant, and every chance to stop the Lakers begins and ends with slowing Bryant. Ron Artest and Shane Battier will both get time on Kobe and are good defenders, both able to chase on the perimeter or play physically. Houston has team defense. It also has Yao Ming as a shot-blocking backstop for times Bryant gets in the lane. That's enough to qualify for intriguing possibilities, even if the Lakers did win all four regular-season meetings. *** THREE THINGS TO WATCH 1. How Andrew Bynum plays. Maybe we should think lower: If Bynum plays. The Lakers went from being very encouraged about his timing and conditioning just before his return from a 32-game injury absence, to watching him play well at the end of the regular season, to pulling him from the starting lineup during the opening round. Bynum averaged just 15.4 minutes -- along with five points and three rebounds while shooting 39.1 percent -- against Utah. Doing better against Houston and Yao is crucial for L.A.'s hopes. 2. The Rockets' offense. Houston finished 22nd in shooting and 17th in scoring in the regular season, and in the last four games against the Trail Blazers managed 92, 77, 89 and 86 points. The Rockets have to generate more heat to make the Lakers, a good defensive team, expend energy at that end. 3. Bryant vs. Artest. And not just because it's the featured matchup of any second-round series. They will lean on each other, jaw with each other, put a shoulder into each other, try to outsprint the other and muscle each other without cloaking emotions. It will be a great time for the cameraman in charge of the isolation shot. But it will not be boiling bad blood -- Artest likes Bryant and Bryant likes Artest. *** X-FACTORS • Where are the Lakers' heads? They consistently blew leads against the Jazz and didn't play with the focus of a championship team. That can obviously be flipped into laser mode. But L.A. had the chance to snap out of it in the first round and didn't. Now comes another opportunity, but against a tougher opponent. • The Rockets need to get Yao's offense out of hiding. His 19.7 points a game and 13.4 shots a game in the regular season dropped to a complementary 15.7 points and 10.7 shots against the Trail Blazers. Be that unassertive again, and Houston, it could get ugly. *** UNDER THE RADAR: Speaking of "it could get ugly," Phil Jackson and Rick Adelman have a history, and it's not a polite one. The heated Lakers-Kings playoff matchups earlier in the decade, most notably the historic seven-game Western Conference finals of 2002, included Jackson poking at his coaching counterpart. Jackson is never going to be popular at a coaching convention, but he has been particularly below the belt with Adelman. *** PREDICTION: Lakers in 6. Houston's biggest hope is that L.A. doesn't find its swagger, a fair possibility. Short of that, though, the Rockets' offense can't keep up with the Lakers' offense and the Rockets' defense can't counter every Lakers weapon. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/scott_howard-cooper/05/01/lakers.rockets/index.html
1) yao has GOT to dominate this series. we could get away with yao playing a secondary role, but he has to have a 23-25ppg, 12-13rpg, 2-3bpg series for us to have a chance. 2) ron artest has to be more consistent on offense. the lakers are going to leave him on an island with ariza all day long and he has to take advantage of that. 3) brooks, wafer, battier, scola all have to continue to play lights out like they did v. portland. we MUST score to beat this team. defensively, we can slow them down to around 90-95ppg for the most part. but we WILL need to score consistently throughout a game. this is where yao and artest have to take over. the lakers won't double much so those 2 will have a chance to get theirs and dominate. hopefully it'll happen.
We need everyone to bring their A game for this series...but we cant be discounted this is the playoffs afterall and anything can happen. We need to bring out the fire from the opening tip off and set the tone for the series
They don't. But why sweat it? Their ignorance prior to the series won't affect the outcome, but it does allow us the sweet opportunity to prove them wrong.
On a side note, I really hate ESPN's series page. Half of the junk there isn't even related to the Rockets. Considering they have about 20 analysts, they need get off Lebron and Kobes jock and start providing some real insight and articles.
I hope that the rockets will be watching last years finals to see how the celtics took down the lakers in addition to what happened in the regular season games against them. If we win this series, it is going to be because we win ALL of our home games and we are able to steal one in LA.
Sadly, the same could be said for half of Clutchfans. Is anyone else really, really happy that we're not going to have to deal with a full on fronting defense the entire series? At least...let's hope we don't...
I pretty much agree with the analysis for the most part. My head tells me that LA is going to win in 6 or 7, but my heart says Rockets in 7. I think we can do it, but we HAVE to play 4 games where every single player brings his "A" game and we continue playing tenacious defense. This is the NBA, where anything can happen, and we hopefully have some swagger. But on paper, it looks as if LA is almost too much to handle. Go Rox...I believe!
after seeing what portland did, i'd be be shocked if they dont employ the same defense.........or they'll just wait till the first game yao burns them big, then they'll go to fronting.
they don't double. they will front most likely, but with just one man. deron went off on them several times and they still played their normal D, same with boozer. however, we have to watch out for kobe. he's a "roamer" as i like to put it. he will disregard shane for sure and force shane to make shots like he did earlier this season. shane might play a very big role. kobe will go around and double whoever, esp. yao. but yao should have his touches this series.
In the last 3 games, after we had finally adjusted for the fronting, Yao averaged 14 shots per game. Add in that LA probably isn't going to front him and yeah, kind of a misleading comment. Yao will be more of a focus in this series than he was in the Portland series.
The Lakers don't front Yao but they do send help from the weak side which usually ends up in a turnover for Yao as he loves to bring the ball low for some reason. If Yao does not make adjustments to prevent this from happening, the increase in touches he gets will only hurt the team. Hopefully our guards are able to get the ball in faster to Yao this series but this can only happen if Yao can position himself even faster than he did in the last series. Like I have said before, I believe it will eventually come down to bench scoring. The Rockets CANNOT afford to go 4-5 minutes without scoring like they did in the 4th quarter of game 6 vs. the Blazers. They must have productive minutes from all of their guys.
Very fair analysis. He doesn't rule us out, but basically says things have to go very very well for the Rockets to beat the Lakers. That's true and it could happen. It happened once in 1986, though that Rocket's team had tremendous upside on the talent spectrum. Also that Laker's team was better than the present one.
Good read. By the way, can anyone give me a good sig (graphics) idea to promote the Rockets during the series? Picture stock would be appreciated.
Let's not assume that right now. After PJ noticed that fronting is so effective, he might try it as welll with Gasol~
