The X factor will be our defense on Kobe and our defense on the 3pt line. If we let Kobe penetrate, or dish to open 3pt players the Lakers are a very good 3pt shooting team when it cares. If we defend the 3pt line well, and keep kobe out of the paint Gasol won´t win the game by himself. He is soft as a bubble.
Gasol is the softest post player in the league, just watch him when he plays Howard he just abused, but if yao played like that he'd get called for fouls left and right, lakers lost twice to the Magic this year because Howard dominated inside and their perimeter players made timely shots
I am with you. And another x factor is whether Ron could stay cool, not trying to be hero in front of Kobe.
Another X-Factor is Kyle Lowry, He should and will get more minutes than Aaron Brooks here. Many times this season he has actually done a good job against the Lakers. There PGs are not that much superior than ours, especially since we have Lowry. Lowry does a good job getting everybody into their sets and a good job stabilizing the offense. Aaron Brooks doesn't even run the offense from what I see, If anything Yao is the guy that tells everybody want to do.
The Lakers are the only team who really seem to know what Scola is capable of so they frequently double team him. Very intelligent coach and players like Gasol and Kobe who respect Luis's game because they have suffered it. So Scola is not an X factor because they won't leave him open. Now, whoever gets Scola's assists should be the series' X factor.
Landry is the x-factor. with no mutumbo,we need him tostep up and perform like he did before the flesh wound. scola is a vet and knows what to do. hayes will be important too
Pretty much this. I watch the Lakers regularly and the Lakers tend to be red-hot from the three-point line. All their role players can hit the open shot and that will definitely stretch our defense. We're not as offensively talented as their team by a long shot especially if we don't pound it into Yao regularly, so I'm really hoping our defense will be rock solid so we can grind out all the wins we need. Defending the three point line needs to be a pretty big priority. Obviously if Kobe feels like it he can dagger us from there whenever he wants so it's pretty key that we don't let the role players get open shots as well.
