Houston Question...

[DubaLakers]

I gotta admit I had no clue about HOU, I didn't see a HOU/LAL game prior to the second round matchup this year. I assumed they were going to get steam rolled. Looking back what are your answers to these 3 questions. They took us to 7 games without Yao Ming who was dominant in the early games of that series. His back to the basket game is near unstoppable, he was buttery from mid range, and Larry Bird at the FT line, they have maybe the best two lockdown defenders in the game, and a waterbug for a PG the LAL couldn't catch...

Do you think HOU would have won that series with a healthy Yao?

Do you think HOU would have won that series with a healthy Yao and TMac?

If yes, do you then assume they would go on to win the title?

[Snip]

Yes to all!

[fareweatherfan]

Houston wouldn't have beat us under any circumstances this post-season.

However, had they beat us, I believe they would have won the Chip.

[crazyeights]

Houston was playing worse with Yao. We had that team figured out. It was only after the injury that we had to go back to the drawing board, it became an entirely new series. One that we had the obvious advantage of, so our guys took their foot off the pedal.

The second question is a trick, because it'll never happen. (T-Mac is going to be sold down the river this off-season...)

[LAKESHOW]

this is what ive been sayin in the rubio thread. with this threat. and the portland threat. and the dwight howard improving his game threat. no way we should get smaller. the top threats in our conference, not to mention those top teams coming out of the east, boston and orlando specifically, those are INTERIOR teams. thats where we got whipped last year.

unless we get another bigman for bynum, bynum is good to stay and should stay to battle guys like yao etc

[lakersfanatic]

I think we would still have won. reason why:

Yao is big and slow. Most likely the offense would run around him thus if he played bad, which he was during the first several series, we would win. Our bigs could adjust like they did with howard and give yao a hard time.

If Yao wasn't out of the picture, then adelman wouldn't have gone that small thus probably not knowing the potential abilities of his guards. He didn't see it until he was forced to use them that way and it was a super positive for them.

With mcgrady in the picture, he would be running the offense too much. For being the franchise player, he would command the ball more thus giving less touches to the same guys that took us to game 7.

But i admit, if they all played together as one, this rocket team would be deadly. If the team continues their chemistry, i see them going very far in the playoffs

[Gus McCrae]

No to all. Yao slowed them down too much, it was their group of loose cannons playing small ball unorthodox basketball that threw us off. With Yao, we run Gasol who's much faster can beat Yao down the floor and pull moves on him.

WIth a healthy Yao or T-Mac they'd have had a gameplan we could disrupt. Without either they're guys just came togehter and messed us up.

Oh, if they beat us, they would not have won the chip this year. If they beat us WITH Yao and Tmac they'd have won the chip.

[dockingsched]

if yao was healthy lakers would have taken them out in 5 or 6.

[TonyMontana]

Houston series was a fluke, we didnt take that series seriously and we didnt go in that series with killer instinct to put them away. We felt that we could beat them and Yao being injured gave us even more reasons not to be concerned about them. It ended up back firing in our face. Also the time we took off from the Utah series made us lazy as it does with most team that sweep their series as you saw with Cleveland.

[microfib4thewin]

The thing is Artest has been playing awful next to T-Mac because he doesn't get enough touches to get good shot selections. A healthy T-Mac could very well mean a less happy Artest and worse team offense because you have two ball stoppers at the perimeter. Unless they found a way to help Yao against Pau-Kobe's pick and roll the Lakers could probably finish it in 6.

[KObe Bryant]

We didn't give our A game against them.

[Verbal]

I gotta admit I had no clue about HOU, I didn't see a HOU/LAL game prior to the second round matchup this year. I assumed they were going to get steam rolled. Looking back what are your answers to these 3 questions. They took us to 7 games without Yao Ming who was dominant in the early games of that series. His back to the basket game is near unstoppable, he was buttery from mid range, and Larry Bird at the FT line, they have maybe the best two lockdown defenders in the game, and a waterbug for a PG the LAL couldn't catch...

Do you think HOU would have won that series with a healthy Yao?

Do you think HOU would have won that series with a healthy Yao and TMac?

If yes, do you then assume they would go on to win the title?

Don't take this the wrong way.. but:

Did really you think you could beat me in the Finals w/o me having to bench my roster in the second week of the Finals?

[DubaLakers]

C'mon Verbal, only championships matter, you know how we work, just like the Lakes. Only Kno mattered.