RealGM

If you look back to all the games we've lost this season and teams we have struggled against in the past...there is an overwhelming coincidence that all the teams we tend to lose to have PF/C that can shoot.

Detroit earlier this year - Sheed killed us
Indiana - Rasho Nesterovich killed us
Sacramento - Brad Miller always kills us
Orlando - Rashard Lewis
Celtics - KG always has good games against us
Hornets - David West lit us up


When Pau has to go guard a Power Forward on the perimeter we tend to struggle because we have a defense that allows us to have 2 bigs for our last line of defense and when you take 1 of them away there's a lot more fouls called and obviously more dribble penetration.

I don't see what teams can really do about it if they don't have the right personnel they can't take advantage of this. But for the teams that do we might struggle.

Ex: Imagine that Cleveland game where we won. What if Zydrunas played..do you think we could have bottled LeBron up like the way we did? Pick and Pop is our worst D

We basically have 2 centers playing together. Pau is too slow to close out on 3 pointers.

Also, our defense allows 3pt shooters to flourish because we basically pack it in.

But yea, shooting PF's give us big troubles. I am looking at you Okur.

This will be a huge problem once Odom leaves. IMO Odom's ability to defend perimeter bigs has been overlooked by most fans, add to it that he can defend the 4s and 5s regardless of where they operate Gasol will need to improve by leaps and bounds this offseason if he wants to bring the same impact as Odom does.

The Cleveland game worked in our favor because Big Z was out, had he played Drew would have guarded Ben and Pau would take Z. The fact they were missing Z made them have to cross match for the best possible match up which favored us. I told Cav fans that Ben would be neutralized because he would have to guard Pau.

So yeah I still believe we would've bottled up LJ. It's a two way street on this and some of those guys will never shoot that well against us again, with the exception of Lewis but that's it.

With 7-footers Bynum and Gasol in the same frontcourt, the Lakers are actually just figuring out how potent it can be. Remember that Jackson considered the incorporation of Bynum with Gasol so complex a task that the coach wasn’t really jazzed about tackling it late last season in the event that Bynum made it back from his knee injury.

that quote was written by Kevin Ding of the OC register.

although he was talking about the offense I think it also applies to the defense as well. I think that as time goes by they will learn to overcome the "Big that shoots" problem.

it is just something that they don't see often enough to really prepare for adequately. I think that in 7 game series they will adjust properly and overcome.

most teams have problems if they see bigs that can hit from outside.

i'd much rather the lakers own the paint than the perimeter. there are less bigs that can hit an outside shot consistently than bigs that need to work from inside.