god shammgod wrote:prophet_of_rage wrote:We do need Amar'e. The only way you get away with being undersized long term in the NBA is if you're flat out better and physically able to handle the size mismatch. The Grizz exposed the Knicks last night. It had nothing to do with the refs and nothing to do with the back-to-back. They are too talented and big in the front court for us. That's why they smashed other high-level small ball playing teams in the HEAT and OKC, too. That's why they're on a seven game winstreak. They had the players to chase us off the three point line and they didn't need to double anybody in the post. on the other end they pass too well to double and they exploited every mismatch they had.
Think, the only team to beat them was the Clippers. Why? Because they can match up. They can have the natural matchup of Jordan on Gasol and Griffin on Randolph. Melo isn't winning any matchup against a PF like Randolph. That's why they hid him on Gasol. They figured he'd be in less foul trouble because Randolph was exploiting the mismatch early and offensive rebounding everything.
The problem is the Grizz aren't stupid and they went at Melo whereever he was. Z-Bo is too strong and too low for Chandler so he just bodied into his legs and got him out of rebounding position. Chandler had 0 rebounds in the first half. I know we've been complaining about the officiating but the bigger, stronger team got the calls.
What Amar'e does is let Chandler go up against the natural matchup in Gasol. Amar'e matches up with Z-Bo who has to track his athleticism and gets Z-Bo involved in more centre of the floor pick and rolls where he can be exploited. Then Melo also has the advantage of dealing exclusively with Rudy Gay.
The game changed a little bit when Woodson freed Kurt Thomas. z-Bo didn't rebound as well against an equally groud bound Thomas because he couldn't just push him in the back and send him under the rim. Amar'e can give you that same resistance from the start and be more of an offensive threat.
i think not matching up with them was a mistake on woody's part. we kept it close in the first half but it was obvious that they were exploiting us. he should have adjusted. i hope he's more flexible with our lineup when we play bigger teams in the future.
Agreed. When Amare went down and Woody said he'd adjust the lineups based on who we're playing, I assumed last night would be on of the nights. I thought Melo at the four was a bad idea, but seeing those tweets that Melo would be guarding Gasol had me scratching my head.
