Do teams have to play a Godly performance to beat LA?

Iggyemu · Post #41 » by **Iggyemu** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:02 pm

They are the most talent packed team in the league and among that talent is the leagues best and most competitive player. Borderline playoff teams and bad teams are just not going to have a chance. Thats just a given. The good playoff teams will win their home games against LA as they should.

Celtsfan1980 · Post #42 » by **Celtsfan1980** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:04 pm

It seems that a majority of Lakers are either whining about being "cheated" months after it happens or bragging about how great your team is. One of the games they play against a Davis who didn't play much in the preseason and no Camby, so it's a little different than beating a healthy Clippers team. Wait until they play some of the best teams before a thread like this.

MrCheerios · Post #43 » by **MrCheerios** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:10 pm

Of course teams have to play godly well to beat the lakers. They were hard to beat last year and added Bynum and Ariza to the rotation. The only team that can legitimately "take it easy" against them is Boston.

legacyinthemakin89c · Post #44 » by **legacyinthemakin89c** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:17 pm

I agree. Lets not play the season and just hand the trophy to LA right now since they're gonna go 98-0.

GreenWithEnvy · Post #45 » by **GreenWithEnvy** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:26 pm

ok lets go over the first two games of the season for the Lakers

VS PORTLAND
portland didn't do ANYTHING on offense. They stood around most of the time which was not a testament to the Lakers defense. When the Lakers threw that weak double on the wings on a Portland player they drove right by them and found a teammate who consequently missed an open jumper. Portland could not BUY a basket and they had plenty of open looks
on the flip side, Portland couldn't defend. With Oden out, their middle looks like hot butter
Also, Portland is playing the wrong type of ball. They should really turn the tempo up and run more with that many young, athletic players.
However, the Lakers played above average defense

VS CLIPPERS
Lakers fans should not be gloating about this game. Please. 10 new players, Marcus Camby not playing, Baron Davis playing like ****. This Clippers team will look a lot different in the upcoming months. Also, the Clippers, like the Blazers, did not defend AT ALL. The Lakers had open 3pt looks for daysssss.

Basically, the Lakers did a good job taking advantage of their opponents deficiencies but are not "godly". far from it. How bout we see if they can sustain this above average defense and this energy the whole season. You wont get a real taste for how good this Lakers team is until next sunday against Houston.

they play a lowly Denver team who plays no D and the Clippers again.

Celtsfan1980 · Post #46 » by **Celtsfan1980** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:26 pm

I haven't seen the Lakers' games, but if they put the emphasis on defense and it succeeds(with the numerous incompetent defenders on LA, I'd be surprised if it did) along with Boston's success, maybe there will be more emphasis on defense in general in the future. The Celtics will have started yet another trend in basketball.

Storm Surge · Post #47 » by **Storm Surge** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:28 pm

Cracked Fingers wrote:Houston struggles to beat Memphis.

Phoenix barely beats a Spurs team missing Manu and Oberto.

New Orleans barely beats a Golden State team missing Monta.

Lakers blowout two teams and eh their opponents suck......

Typical.

Yeah except you don't see their fans going out and making a post called "Do teams have to play a godly performance to beat (insert team here)?

If you want to make a topic calling your team the greatest in the league by far expect some criticism from the fans of the other 29 NBA teams.

JellosJigglin · Post #48 » by **JellosJigglin** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:31 pm

Celtsfan1980 wrote:I haven't seen the Lakers' games, but if they put the emphasis on defense and it succeeds(with the numerous incompetent defenders on LA, I'd be surprised if it did) along with Boston's success, maybe there will be more emphasis on defense in general in the future. The Celtics will have started yet another trend in basketball.

Celtics have one good defender. And no, they did not invent good defense or a zone.

GreenWithEnvy · Post #49 » by **GreenWithEnvy** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:33 pm

JellosJigglin wrote:
Celtsfan1980 wrote:I haven't seen the Lakers' games, but if they put the emphasis on defense and it succeeds(with the numerous incompetent defenders on LA, I'd be surprised if it did) along with Boston's success, maybe there will be more emphasis on defense in general in the future. The Celtics will have started yet another trend in basketball.

Celtics have one good defender. And no, they did not invent good defense or a zone.

Not a celtics fan but thats what makes what they do so great. They really only have a few good defenders but they play excellent collective defense. U kinda contradicted urself

Celtsfan1980 · Post #50 » by **Celtsfan1980** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:38 pm

JellosJigglin wrote:
Celtsfan1980 wrote:I haven't seen the Lakers' games, but if they put the emphasis on defense and it succeeds(with the numerous incompetent defenders on LA, I'd be surprised if it did) along with Boston's success, maybe there will be more emphasis on defense in general in the future. The Celtics will have started yet another trend in basketball.

Celtics have one good defender. And no, they did not invent good defense or a zone.

Pierce played very good defense last season. Garnett played great defense. Rondo is a very good defender, and even people who don't like the Celtics admitted Rondo should have been on the all defense team. Perkins plays very good defense as well. Among reserves, Scal, Pruitt, Tony Allen, Big Baby, and even Giddens are capable of playing good defense. It's a little more than just one. The Lakers got beat because of Boston's defense. They see this, and they are trying to change things based on everything I have read. Therefore, Boston possibly started a trend. It's pretty much what the Celtics have done historically, yet get little credit for what they have done to help the sport.

JellosJigglin · Post #51 » by **JellosJigglin** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:39 pm

GreenWithEnvy wrote:
JellosJigglin wrote:
Celtsfan1980 wrote:I haven't seen the Lakers' games, but if they put the emphasis on defense and it succeeds(with the numerous incompetent defenders on LA, I'd be surprised if it did) along with Boston's success, maybe there will be more emphasis on defense in general in the future. The Celtics will have started yet another trend in basketball.

Celtics have one good defender. And no, they did not invent good defense or a zone.

Not a celtics fan but thats what makes what they do so great. They really only have a few good defenders but they play excellent collective defense. U kinda contradicted urself

I did not contradict myself. The guy I quoted doubts the Lakers can play good defense because they have "numerous incompetent defenders". I don't see how that's any different than the Celtics, who also have "numerous incompetent defenders", yet still find a way to play good team defense.

microfib4thewin · Post #52 » by **microfib4thewin** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:45 pm

Celtics have three good to great man to man defenders. Posey, Garnett, and Rondo. The other guys only look great because they can afford to be more aggressive and not get burned because they know there's help defense backing them up.

And will Pox kindly stfu for once? I haven't seen one constructive topic coming from him. This one is no exception.

JellosJigglin · Post #53 » by **JellosJigglin** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:52 pm

microfib4thewin wrote:Celtics have three good to great man to man defenders. Posey, Garnett, and Rondo. The other guys only look great because they can afford to be more aggressive and not get burned because they know there's help defense backing them up.

And will Pox kindly stfu for once? I haven't seen one constructive topic coming from him. This one is no exception.

I don't know if you're referring to last year's Celtics team or you may have forgotten, but Posey is with NO now. Garnett is the one good/great defender I was referring to. Rondo's man defense is good but not great. Crazy wing span and quick hands with decent lateral speed. But perimeter defense is hardly allowed in today's NBA. He benefits from having Garnett roaming down low, as any point guard would.

Blame Rasho · Post #54 » by **Blame Rasho** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:57 pm

Um no...

Bgil · Post #55 » by **Bgil** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:57 pm

DEEP3CL wrote:
Patterns wrote:Their intensity is high right now. They won't be able to sustain it.

Look for them to calm down by December and start playing closer games.
Your probably right Patterns, it takes energy to play defense anyway. But everybody raving that this is a "new" defense is completely wrong..........all they're doing is rotating and closing out a lot better then they were last season. It's nothing new about what they're doing it's common sense basketball defense, for those who've played will understand what I'm saying.

Rotate and close out, coaches teach this stuff in grade school. If you do it consistently you'll cause teams problems..........period.

No, that's wrong. Rotations don't just happen automatically, they're schemed. A team doing this stuff impromptu will make 100x more mistakes and miscommunication. You'll notice when the ball is rotated to the open man you never see two players run to close out.. that's because the scheme dictates which offensive player is likely to be open and whose job it is to rotate over just incase the ball is moved.

Likewise, the location of that open player is schemed. If you watch the game you'll notice the open player is usually in the opposite corner from the ball. The clippers and blazers found the open man numerous times by throwing the ball cross- court... it was dangerous but the only option the Lakers were allowing.

Also note the existence of the half-court traps and where the third defender is playing. They're playing in such a way to take away the down court pass and making the lateral pass the only option. The third defender is placed VERY SPECIFICALLY. VladRad isn't just picking off passes on some random occurence.

Additionally, the other two guys not trapping are specifically placed to cover specific passing lanes so even if the third guy doesn't get the steal it doesn't result in a basket or open player down court.

Another thing to look at is how they are playing each type of two-man and three-man set. There are a fairly limited number of two-man and three-man sets a team can run. The Lakers have made pre-game choices as to how they are going to play each one of those sets and variations. You can see this every time there's a pick and roll, iso, or any other type of limited (i.e. less than 4 man) set. Typically, the choices they are making aren't ones that people just make on the fly and that's what makes them good. They're limiting the defense to certain things in order to force/dictate each half court set. Offensive players are forced to deal with defensive pressure and variations that they aren't going to see in practice or from other teams... they aren't going to have a pre-planned response to the way the Lakers are playing them.

It's all scheme.

JordansBulls · Post #56 » by **JordansBulls** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:15 pm

ChickenPox wrote:I don't think its fair for the NBA... I also think David Stern is gonna make sure Laker games don't become boring.. thus he will have refs favor the opponent at 1 point this Laker team is making the 03-04 Laker team look like the brady bunch in a bad kind of way.

Lakers needed to play well to show they really are angry about not winning last year. However, we must remember the first two games were technically in their own building and against teams that didn't make the playoffs the year before. In fact, they should easily start off 4-0. After that when they play Houston, Dallas, New Orleans and Detroit we will see.

ghills88 · Post #57 » by **ghills88** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:18 pm

I would say there is no doubt they are an improved team, and a very tough match up right now.

But if you think they beat Portland playing their normal ball I really doubt that. The Blazers came out way too nervous about the game and pretty much laid a goose egg. Thats not to say they would have won if they didn't, I just think we need to wait and see how they stack up over a larger sample size of games.

MrCheerios · Post #58 » by **MrCheerios** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:19 pm

Celtsfan1980 wrote:The Lakers got beat because of Boston's defense. They see this, and they are trying to change things based on everything I have read. Therefore, Boston possibly started a trend. It's pretty much what the Celtics have done historically, yet get little credit for what they have done to help the sport.

What did the celtics do last year that the spurs and pistons haven't done all decade? A great defensive team won the championship. I don't know how that's the start of a trend considering it's the fifth time it's happened in the last six years. Did the celtics also come up with the phrase "Defense wins championships"?

LLcoleJ · Post #59 » by **LLcoleJ** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:28 pm

Storm Surge wrote:
Cracked Fingers wrote:Houston struggles to beat Memphis.

Phoenix barely beats a Spurs team missing Manu and Oberto.

New Orleans barely beats a Golden State team missing Monta.

Lakers blowout two teams and eh their opponents suck......

Typical.

Yeah except you don't see their fans going out and making a post called "Do teams have to play a godly performance to beat (insert team here)?

If you want to make a topic calling your team the greatest in the league by far expect some criticism from the fans of the other 29 NBA teams.

Is ChickenPox a Laker fan?

LLcoleJ · Post #60 » by **LLcoleJ** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:28 pm

Mr Smoke Weed wrote:wow this is a big example of why people hate laker fans

Why is that? Because a non-laker fan opened this thread? well done