The Lebron '20 Thread (Pt. 5)

[Greyhound]

The arrogance and overconfidence of some of you is absolutely nauseating, as it pertains to a potential Portland matchup.

I sure hope the Lakers are not drinking the juice and take Portland as the threat they clearly are.

There is an appropriate fear that should exist.

Portland playing for their season (since day one in the bubble) has sharpened their focus. Their key players are playing 40 minutes a game and their regulars are already in playoff mode.

The Lakers are playing meaningless games, their coach is goofing around with lineups, and they appear to be in poor overall shape as a team. In a week they will be playing playoff minutes, at playoff intensity, against a team that has been in that mode for two weeks.

That is concerning.

I expect the Lakers to win, but I am concerned.

very dramatic..


Lakers gonna winter the first round easy. It’ll be 5 games.

It’s “very dramatic” to warn against overconfidence and hope that the team does not take their opponent lightly (all things considered).

Good to know.

[Greyhound]

The arrogance and overconfidence of some of you is absolutely nauseating, as it pertains to a potential Portland matchup.

I sure hope the Lakers are not drinking the juice and take Portland as the threat they clearly are.

There is an appropriate fear that should exist.

Portland playing for their season (since day one in the bubble) has sharpened their focus. Their key players are playing 40 minutes a game and their regulars are already in playoff mode.

The Lakers are playing meaningless games, their coach is goofing around with lineups, and they appear to be in poor overall shape as a team. In a week they will be playing playoff minutes, at playoff intensity, against a team that has been in that mode for two weeks.

That is concerning.

I expect the Lakers to win, but I am concerned.

LOL if youve been a part of the Lebron thread for years u know this is the same song and dance for a Lebron team heading into the playoffs. There was a team when ppl thought that fraud Hawks team was gonna beat them. Blazers will win a game, maybe 2 at best but they have no shot winning the series

Ad will play the 5 more and may even start for playoffs. If Javale and Dwight are the 5 then Dame will eat since u have to drop with them but with Ad he is getting shut down from the blitzes and traps

This is not the same LeBron James and these circumstances are unprecedented. To speak like you have history on your side in this circumstance is comical.

Once again, I expect the Lakers to win, but I do not think it will be a walk in the park and I hope the Lakers approach this opponent with the appropriate level of fear required.

If they enter this with close to the level of cartoonish arrogance displayed in this thread, they will be in trouble.

———-

For the record, I have been active in these LeBron threads going back to 2010. I am well aware of the ebbs and flows of public opinion (around here) through the years.

I am not new here, so spare me the hilltop wisdom.

[KTM_2813]

If the Lakers play in the playoffs as they played during the bubble - can't hit the broad side of a barn, disinterested, and with terrible rotations - then Portland can absolutely beat them. If we assume that they will perform at a level that is, let's say somewhere between where they are now and where they were in March, then I would personally favor them pretty solidly. It all comes down to whether they continue to play as they have been playing, which they probably won't, considering it's a LeBron team.

[Dupp]

The arrogance and overconfidence of some of you is absolutely nauseating, as it pertains to a potential Portland matchup.

I sure hope the Lakers are not drinking the juice and take Portland as the threat they clearly are.

There is an appropriate fear that should exist.

Portland playing for their season (since day one in the bubble) has sharpened their focus. Their key players are playing 40 minutes a game and their regulars are already in playoff mode.

The Lakers are playing meaningless games, their coach is goofing around with lineups, and they appear to be in poor overall shape as a team. In a week they will be playing playoff minutes, at playoff intensity, against a team that has been in that mode for two weeks.

That is concerning.

I expect the Lakers to win, but I am concerned.

very dramatic..


Lakers gonna winter the first round easy. It’ll be 5 games.

It’s “very dramatic” to warn against overconfidence and hope that the team does not take their opponent lightly (all things considered).

Good to know.

The first line of your post was very dramatic. Don’t try play it off as me meaning something else.


Bucks and clippers also playing crap and gonna steamroll the first round too. It’s not lebron/laker specific. That’s just basketball. The good teams usually dominate the first round matchup.



There is major concerns like lebron and the teams shooting. Lebrons athletic state etc but I do t see Portland being close enough for that so be an issue at all. You can start worrying when they face the rockets.

[JLei]

Portland will be mildly annoying but ultimately they suck too much on defense to really beat the Lakers (DRating in the Bubble is 120, which would be 4 points worse than the worst defense in league)

Davis and Lebron are particularly bad matchups for them. Davis eviscerated them (Nurkic/ Collins were on the team) 2 years ago, and Carmelo and Hezonja isn't what you really need to contain Lebron.

The book on beating the Lakers is pretty simple. Contain one of the stars, hope everyone else is cold. Beat them with guard play attacking Javale and Dwight.

Even with everyone else cold, Lebron and Davis will kill them. I think they probably take reduce Javale's minutes closer to 0 and trap Lillard. Vogel is a smart coach and particularly good at devising defensive schemes (those Pacers teams over achieved in the playoffs IMO, beating the Knicks in 2013 and challenging the Heat who were wayyyy better).

And we can all do this with acknowledging that Lillard is going to probably score 35+ a game in the series.

[PistolPeteJR]

I have some level of concern for the Lakers because of the following reasons:

1) Last second roster subtractions and additions, including to key roles.

2) Lack of consistent shooting thus far in the bubble. There is some truth to the whole "Teams hold their cards closely to their chest" right now, but that doesn't speak into their cold shooting overall.

We can't simply lean on history because first off, the bubble and everything that goes with it (eg. the long layoff) is unprecedented; secondly, LeBron is two years older with crazy miles, and no matter how consistently amazing he's been throughout the years, reality says that won't last forever.

Having said all of that, I do believe they will be better once roster and rotation stability kicks in vs continuous experimentation; in addition, their deadliest offense will be LeBron/AD PnRs + LeBron postups, both of which they've BARELY done in the bubble. So if you're rooting for them, you can take solace in those two things at least.

[Mos_Heat]

I don't think that a mediocre jump shooting team can go through Blazers/Rockets/Clippers/Bucks and win the chip. To me, that's almost impossible even with Lebron and AD. They need some serious luck in the playoffs

[thebigbird]

The arrogance and overconfidence of some of you is absolutely nauseating, as it pertains to a potential Portland matchup.

I sure hope the Lakers are not drinking the juice and take Portland as the threat they clearly are.

There is an appropriate fear that should exist.

Portland playing for their season (since day one in the bubble) has sharpened their focus. Their key players are playing 40 minutes a game and their regulars are already in playoff mode.

The Lakers are playing meaningless games, their coach is goofing around with lineups, and they appear to be in poor overall shape as a team. In a week they will be playing playoff minutes, at playoff intensity, against a team that has been in that mode for two weeks.

That is concerning.

I expect the Lakers to win, but I am concerned.

very dramatic..


Lakers gonna winter the first round easy. It’ll be 5 games.

It’s “very dramatic” to warn against overconfidence and hope that the team does not take their opponent lightly (all things considered).

Good to know.

You've been dramatic about things throughout the season, though.. Just a few days ago it was that LeBron was going to lose his double-digit assist and 25 ppg season averages.

The Bucks and Lakers are both 3-4 in the bubble. The Clippers are 3-3. The Lakers' three wins are against the Clippers, the Jazz, and the Nuggets, so it's not like they haven't beaten anyone good. They clinched the #1 seed a week ago and haven't been trying since.

[Dupp]

I don't think that a mediocre jump shooting team can go through Blazers/Rockets/Clippers/Bucks and win the chip. To me, that's almost impossible even with Lebron and AD. They need some serious luck in the playoffs

Lebron and AD need to start running the pick b roll a lot in the post season

[JLei]

I think many of you forget in the playoffs it takes an incredible defensive team (or god level offense) to beat the bum hunt strategy.

It's why Lebron is Lebron. In the most intense games even of this year (That Clippers game in March and funny enough the damn all-star game 4th quarter). Where's Lou, Where's Kemba....set screen....profit.

I do think he's too good of a shooter to drop and go under (and not switch/ drop go over). But I want to see a team let him score 60 on wide open 3's. I've seen him this year get frustrated because he was refusing to shoot while bum hunting, don't think it will happen in the playoffs though.

[dcstanley]

I don't think that a mediocre jump shooting team can go through Blazers/Rockets/Clippers/Bucks and win the chip. To me, that's almost impossible even with Lebron and AD. They need some serious luck in the playoffs

It's unfortunate they have a much more challenging set of opponents than the Clippers with no homecourt advantage to remedy that. They definitely have a tough hill to climb.

[yoyoboy]

I doubt this team will actually lose to Portland but I definitely think it’ll go 6 games. Lillard will have a few games where he just goes absolutely nuts and there’s nothing anyone on the team will be able to do. And all you need is couple decent CJ nights and those together are usually recipes for wins. Luckily for LA, CJ is pretty inconsistent (especially if this back injury is legit) and Portland’s defense isn’t good enough to compete with great teams in games where Lillard isn’t nuclear and CJ is subpar.

Houston can legitimately beat this team though as they’ve looked like a bad matchup all year. That’s why I was really hoping we could avoid them in the 2nd round. Harden is going to cook, their game plan is going to be to just out-three us (and do it by a significant margin in at least 4 games), and I’m not sure Davis will be able to destroy their small ball lineup as much as we thought he would. PJ has the low center of gravity and strength to bother AD and they’re quick to rotate and help as we saw the last matchup where he had a difficult time getting to his spots or catching lobs.

[MisterHibachi]

Don't think Tucker will be as big a problem as he's been so far. Houston is very happy to switch every screen and there's no reason to have AD go at Tucker in the post when you can switch him off. AD should really target RoCo in iso. His man defense isn't great, but he's their best help defender so it would be good to have him guard on ball to take that away.

But I'm really hoping OKC can take Houston to 6 or more, because Harden with fresh legs is an all time monster. Pretty glad that Utah is an unlikely match up for Houston because that would be a quick 4 to 5 game series.

[Greyhound]

very dramatic..


Lakers gonna winter the first round easy. It’ll be 5 games.

It’s “very dramatic” to warn against overconfidence and hope that the team does not take their opponent lightly (all things considered).

Good to know.

The first line of your post was very dramatic. Don’t try play it off as me meaning something else.


Bucks and clippers also playing crap and gonna steamroll the first round too. It’s not lebron/laker specific. That’s just basketball. The good teams usually dominate the first round matchup.



There is major concerns like lebron and the teams shooting. Lebrons athletic state etc but I do t see Portland being close enough for that so be an issue at all. You can start worrying when they face the rockets.

Remove the bells and whistles and I said the exact same thing in both posts. I played it off as nothing at all. I simply cut to the chase.

Deem it dramatic, deem it baked beans, deem it whatever you like. I stand by that assessment. The cartoonish overconfidence around here is nauseating (at times).

I would both like and expect a Lakers victory, but I can weigh the situation as well. Regurgitating historical probability in a situation unlike any other is nonsensical at best.

There is a certain level of outside the box thinking needed in such situations. Situations in which the understanding of nuance (and the game itself) must be placed ahead of data crunching and the blind acceptance of historical norms.

[Greyhound]

very dramatic..


Lakers gonna winter the first round easy. It’ll be 5 games.

It’s “very dramatic” to warn against overconfidence and hope that the team does not take their opponent lightly (all things considered).

Good to know.

You've been dramatic about things throughout the season, though.. Just a few days ago it was that LeBron was going to lose his double-digit assist and 25 ppg season averages.

The Bucks and Lakers are both 3-4 in the bubble. The Clippers are 3-3. The Lakers' three wins are against the Clippers, the Jazz, and the Nuggets, so it's not like they haven't beaten anyone good. They clinched the #1 seed a week ago and haven't been trying since.

I think you have a loose definition of dramatic. A part of it is simply my shtick.

The milestones thing was a legitimate concern early. A few games in I was questioning LeBron’s ability to register five assists a game (with the way the team was shooting).

The milestones have been secured and I am pleased with that. I am all about the career book.

[nzahir]

We really need to add shooting this summer, regardless of what happens

A stretch big (Marc or Ibaka) with the mle and using our 1st and salary for a guard or wing who can hit 3s would be great

[dcstanley]

Don't think Tucker will be as big a problem as he's been so far. Houston is very happy to switch every screen and there's no reason to have AD go at Tucker in the post when you can switch him off. AD should really target RoCo in iso. His man defense isn't great, but he's their best help defender so it would be good to have him guard on ball to take that away.

But I'm really hoping OKC can take Houston to 6 or more, because Harden with fresh legs is an all time monster. Pretty glad that Utah is an unlikely match up for Houston because that would be a quick 4 to 5 game series.

Hopefully Bron matchup hunts Roco. He's not strong enough to guard him.

[dcstanley]

We really need to add shooting this summer, regardless of what happens

A stretch big (Marc or Ibaka) with the mle and using our 1st and salary for a guard or wing who can hit 3s would be great

Maginka letting Brook walk away to sign Javale is a blunder that doesn't get talked about enough. Might be the reason this team doesn't win the chip.

[PistolPeteJR]

We really need to add shooting this summer, regardless of what happens

A stretch big (Marc or Ibaka) with the mle and using our 1st and salary for a guard or wing who can hit 3s would be great

Maginka letting Brook walk away to sign Javale is a blunder that doesn't get talked about enough. Might be the reason this team doesn't win the chip.

I agree with this. That was a big brain fart.

[GSP]

Looks like Russ has a strained right quad. Really think Okc takes Houston out