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

[Bgil]

we'll have AN IDEA of how dominant this Lakers team is from November 9th until the 14th..in that stretch, they play Houston, @ Dallas, @ New Orleans on a back-to-back, and the Pistons..

I don't think that's a good test. First it's really early in the season and Houston and LA have a lot of meshing to do (Battier is still hurt, right?). Second, the Lakers are playing an entirely new style of defense. We won't know how good they really are until someone finds the crack in it. That may not come until mid-season or, in the case of the Celtics, the first round of the playoffs.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Lakers beat all 4 of those teams simply by having a new defense those teams haven't seen before.

I'm a big Laker fan, but I don't see how having a new defense helps us "confuse" other teams offense truthfully. Having Bynum and Gasol obviously improves are defense, but they don't scheme away to throw off other teams or anything.

That being said I'm going total Laker homer and asking on the upper.....sane, realistic, side how many games could a completely healthy for the full year Lakers tram win this year?

64 <-- That's my realistic high end number

The upper sane side with complete health? 72. My guess is about 64 though. But 72 is certainly possible now:

The West isn't as strong as it was last season. DEN and GS are weaker. D'Antoni is gone. Manu is hurt....
We're also (potentially) a much more consistent team now that we can bring defense every night. Defense is what's going to stop us from losing games to non-playoff teams like MEM, MKE, CHA, NJN, SAC, and POR.

That's at least 6-9 games right there. We can also survive an injury on our frontline without crumbling. In previous years that's killed us. That's probably another 4-5 games.

The additional depth from Odom off the bench plus a healthy Bynum and Ariza is going to make a big difference. Farmar's improvement alone is worth a game or two. If Ariza's shooting holds up and Vlad's defensive intensity hold up we will have filled virtually all of our weaknesses from last year.

The only thing that really worries me is Pau's jumpshot. If he has a cold stretch then we could lose some games.

Our bench is much better than last year too... even without Ronny.

[Sedale Threatt]

Not just Pau's jumper -- just about everything fell over these first two games.

We basically beat up on a bad Clippers team (redundant description, I know) and a young Portland squad that is still finding its way.

I'm going to reserve judgment until I see how we do on some of our long road trips. Plus, we have yet to see how this team will respond against an opponent that is equipped to slug them in the mouth, a la the Celtics.

That said, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't salivating over our potential. We appear to have made noticeable strides on defense, our biggest weakness last season by a huge margin, and we're significantly improved with two major contributors back in the rotation.

If this team maintains the same defensive intensity we've seen at this ridiculously early juncture, and it stays healthy, I love our chances.

EDIT -- Also, I love Utah fan's phrasing. "Probably" the best team in the West? When healthy, the Lakers are a full level better than the team that bounced that ass in six en route to the Finals. Put another way -- there are probably three teams in the West that I'm wary of, and the Jazz ain't one of them.

[Bgil]

To beat the Lakers in the regular seaosn or playoffs it is how you beat any good team: play defense, and play smart basketball (little mistakes). The Lakers have plenty of weaknesses, they don't guard the 3 well, and I still feel like they are poor against dribble attack if they are attackted by a very aggressive player through the middle. (Pierce, Lebron)... but these are usually weaknesses to any team. The Lakers do look like they are going to be in the 55+ wins range again this season, possibly 60+.

Even with Ariza and the no-fly zone (Bynum and Gasol) you think they're still vulnerable to PP? I don't. The J-Rich/G. Wallace combo always gave them major problems in the past and although it was pre-season they seemed to have solved that riddle. You saw it again against B. Roy and T. Outlaw. The penetration defense looked amazing IMO. We're giving up a few too many open three's but no one is getting to the basket.

I think the biggest flaw this year is on offense. The first unit is too slow and doesn't have the spacing I would like to see. Everytime Kobe goes into the post he gets insta-mobbed. Even on the second unit I worry about the shooting... Ariza's shot has certainly improved but he's not Fisher, Kobe, or Sasha yet (i.e. he can't hit one wih a guy in his face).

[Bgil]

I have a bad feeling about us playing the Celtics. On the plus side we won't get dominated on the boards and that may be the difference in the series but I can forsee the C's really taking advantage of our spacing issues on offense.

All of that can be solved by not posting Kobe though. I don't know whose idea it is to post Kobe when you have LO at SF, and two seven footers on the floor but someone needs to be shot.

[lalalisa]

^ No excuses dude; Portland was proclaimed as a dark-horse contender in the WC coming into the Season.. In fact they are more hyped up then the Utah Jazz and thats disrespectful. so in the NBA's eyes the Lakers beat a good portland team.

You're telling me no excuses, but we're two games into the season. Isn't it a little early to be making such resounding conclusions?

[Frosty]

It's practically still the pre-season. Give it some time before you proclaim them godlike. So many teams made changes it's going to take some time to sort things out.

[DaDragicShow]

Dude the lakers arent good team, just cuz they beat a young blaers team, and a bad clipppers team doesnt make them godly good.

[Bskey]

The Blazers played like the young team they are. First game of the season against the WCF champs and having more pressure on them than they should made even Roy, one of the calmest players in the league a bit jittery. When Oden went down I think it was a huge blow to them and they looked lost after that (well before that too).

Phil Jackson even said himself that his team didn't really have that much to do with the Blazers shooting so bad. It was a case of the jitters for a young team who had been taking it easy in preseason and wasn't prepared for a real game, especially against the Lakers. This was a good wake up call for them. One of the only players who didn't play like a rookie was a rookie, though only in name.

That's not to take anything away from the Lakers. as much as I dislike them they are already looking like the team to beat this year. In the opening game though the Blazers beat themselves as much as the Lakers did. Even haters know the Blazers are a better team than what we saw tuesday night.

[Dr Aki]

to OP no

but they do have to play a godly game to beat a godly LA, which we saw a little of the first 2 games

[celticspierce34]

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.

i dont understand, were the brady bunch good or bad a basketball?

[ClubLakers KB8]

Dude the lakers arent good team, just cuz they beat a young blaers team, and a bad clipppers team doesnt make them godly good.

They haven't just beat them, they've made it look like they were playing college teams.

[Big Bird]

Nah the 03-04 Lakers were rediculously good, but Kobe fell apart in the playoffs that year, and Malone was injured for half of the season, and came back at the end, and he was never the same in the playoffs, and got injured again in game 4. Kobe was a joke in the finals, shooting under .400. Remember the Colorado incident was a HUGE distraction that year. If not for all the crap, they could of been remember as one of the best teams of all time.

Malone played great in the playoffs up until he re-injured his knee in game 6 in the WCF. He was never himself in the finals, not even for a minute. The what if, Phil Jackson says was if the Lakers closed out the Wolves in Game 5 as he stressed. He made the injury even worse in game 4, where he just couldn't play at all anymore; however, he shouldn't have been on the floor in the first place even before he reaggrevated it.

Anyways... I hate this revisonist history,not to single you out because I think most people feel this way. Kobe played like crap, but that was (IMO) the last problem that just added to the dissarry that the Lakers were in the finals as a team.

Gary Payton: 34minutes, 4points on 33%+ bad defense, and bad attitude, added nearly nothing positive throughout the series.
Derek Fisher : 20minutes, 6points on 30%

So basically Smush Parker would have been a better player than Gary Payton, thats 34minutes of nothing from your point guard, another 14minutes of nothing shooting wise from point guard again with Fisher not being in any rhythm.
So Point Guard': Grade F

For power foward, you have a hobled Karl Malone putting up 6points on 33% shooting, playing bad defense because of his injury- basically a non factor on both ends. You have Slava Medvedenko, and Brian Cook backing you up- possibly the softest two guys in the league, they put up a combined 6points on 35%shooting - basically nothing.
So Power Foward: Grade F

Small Foward? Devean George, Old about to be cut/traded/retired injured Rick Fox, and rookie Luke Walton (Although Walton did play one great game). They provided nothing.
So Small Foward: Grade D- (only due to Waltons great game 2).

Now to everyones favorite: Kobe Bryant. This is why the Lakers lost the series.... or is it the only reason why they won a single game? Kobe played poorly, bad reading the defense,bad shot selection, bad chemestry... but other than Shaq, hes the only guy getting anything done for the Lakers in the finals. He played good on ball defense for the most part, played hard, but he just did play bad for his standards. He scored what 22 on 39% ... combine the rest of the HoF supporting cast (or those replacing them) and they don't even add up to that. Doesn't look that bad now does it?
Grade: D

Shaq: Got his baskets, but was shut down in game 3 which was a pivotal game. He played well, but wasn't dominant enough obviously, he was played mostly one on one, averaged like 27/11 on good percentages. Was the only guy that was able to play well, of course that was sort of the Pistons game plan. His defense and rebounds was still slow, and the communication of the entire team wasn't good on that end, with him being the anchor he gets some blame.
Grade: B

So what do we have? One good performances, and terrible performances accross the board. Still the other three positions combined for the Lakers didn't produce/help the game as much as Kobe did alone, and thats Kobe playing his notorious terrible crap series. The Lakers were BAD, really bad as a team, they were hanging by a thread toghether throughout the playoffs - and that thread was Karl Malone. Detroit deserves credit for playing out of their minds, and exposing/unraveling the Lakers in those finals, but its like giving Gavirllo Princep all the credit for WWI happening, the motions were already set for the Lakers to completley fall apart internally.

Sorry, about the long post. I just watched the series a week or two ago, and I just don't think popular opinion on that series is very close to the reality.


Anyways that 03-04 Laker team only played 21games or so together in the regular season, and they played 17 games in the playoffs. They were 30-8 in that span together (80%win). They were certainly much better than they are historically given credit for when fully healthy; however, they had their problems, chemistry/distractions with Kobe, but more so Gary Payton refusing to play the triangle and becoming a shadow of his former self, a shadow of even a scrub for christ sakes, Malones injury, Shaq's physical decline (although that was evident in the year before), and a very weak bench. Its actually pretty suprising they did what they did.

These Lakers? Too early too tell, but give me them any day of the week over those 03-04 Lakers, at least in terms of growth/potential. These Lakers have already proven to get you to the Finals without a key player, and now they could win it all. They don't have the internal issues, and at least your going to get what your going to get. It is only 2 games into the season, but based off last season they certainly should be considered the 2nd best team in the league this year (behind Celtics) and best in the West, (unless proven otherwise in the playoffs).

To beat the Lakers in the regular seaosn or playoffs it is how you beat any good team: play defense, and play smart basketball (little mistakes). The Lakers have plenty of weaknesses, they don't guard the 3 well, and I still feel like they are poor against dribble attack if they are attackted by a very aggressive player through the middle. (Pierce, Lebron)... but these are usually weaknesses to any team. The Lakers do look like they are going to be in the 55+ wins range again this season, possibly 60+.

Great post, I thought I'd bump it in case anyone missed it.

I watched a couple of the games from the 2004 Finals a couple of weeks ago (one is even on youtube.com - game 5 I think) and your observations are dead on. The Pistons that year were a young super athletic team that went up against a declining Lakers team; add the injuries, a short bench and all the other distractions and it's really hard to understand how the heck they managed to get to the Finals. The Pistons literally exploded all over the court in those games, played one of the best defenses I've ever seen, while the Lakers kept launching jumpers and playing reach-in defense because the older and slower perimeter guys (outside of Kobe who played good defense) couldn't stop their quick penetrating guards. Shaq was good when we had +3 days of rest, but mediocre (especially rebounding wise) when we played every second game. The thing that is rarely mentioned is also the Lakers lack of outside shooting, which was also brought up by the commentators during the final game. And, as you said, Malone was the thread that kept things from falling apart; he was a great locker room guy who kept the Kobe-Shaq feud at bay. The lesson for the 2003/04 Lakers was learned the hard way - you can buy great players, but you cannot buy chemistry.

As for this edition of the Lakers, I'll also reserve judgment until we've had a month or so behind us, but I can't help but to feel like a little school girl watching these guys play; these two games were absolutely beautiful. The scary thing is that the players are still somewhat rusty (turnovers, Bynum, still leaving too many open three pointers), so I can't imagine what happens when the machine gets fully calibrated... but those are pleasant worries to have. I just hope we can have a relatively injury-free season, because that's not been the case for 4 straight seasons now.

[High 5]

They look like a 60 win team for sure, but we have had plenty of those in recent years. Don't act like these Lakers are the '95-'96 Bulls.

[DEEP3CL]

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.

[Rocky5000]

The other team just needs to D up and you can beat the Lakers.

[Mr Smoke Weed]

wow this is a big example of why people hate laker fans

[Sedale Threatt]

Deep, what they are doing is definitely new, not just in terms of effort but strategy as well.

Jackson teams are typically straight-up, textbook man-to-man with as little double-teaming as possible.

Now they're adopting this soft zone that Boston has used to such great effect. It still requires the same basic principles you mentioned -- rotating and closing out. There isn't a single defensive strategy you can devise that won't you require you to do both. And you are 100% correct that we've improved in both areas.

But notice every time somebody isolates or posts up, we send one of our bigs to camp out right outside the lane. We almost never did this; now they're doing it on virtually every play. Jackson tried to downplay this as a minor adjustment, but it's really a pretty major departure from the way his teams have played.

Kevin Ding of the OC Register wrote a great column about this after the opening game:

Zone defenses have been permitted in the NBA since 2001, but it took seeing what opponents were making happen in recent seasons by loading up one side of the court to get Jackson fully believing.

The old-school coach in Jackson still cringes at how readily teams can get open 3-point shots if they just reverse the ball away from such defensive traps – but he cringed more during the NBA Finals when Boston’s blitzing of Bryant proved more valuable than even series MVP Paul Pierce.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lake ... nse-bryant

With the length and speed we have, it's a great move. We're going to give up 3s, as noted, but I'd much rather force a team to beat us from the outside if we can limit No. 1 options and scramble the games like we've been.

[G35]

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.

You are absolutely correct, however the addition of Bynum (and to a lesser extent Ariza) makes the players believe in the system which is huge.

Coaches can teach anything they want to but if players don't buy into the system it's not going to work. Having Bynum anchor the D and Pau at the 4 allows the perimeter players to take more chances going for steals and playing up in the offensive players space. Bynum and Pau are now altering shots at the rim which is causing hesitation in the opposing offense. Also the Lakers being so deep mean they don't get tired and can play that way for extended periods of time, they also played full court on Baron which takes time off the shot clock.

The Lakers are doing to teams what the Celtics did to teams but with better offense so far. Take Garnett away from the Celtics and see how effective their defense is. Laker opponents are going to have to win from the outside which isn't something teams can do in a 7 game series but you can do it in the regular season.......

[Cracked Fingers]

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.

[[SJJ]]

Nah, you don't have to play a "godly" game.
Even though i dislike the Celtics, i still think thy can beat LA whenever...
But Kobes pissed... and when Mr.Bryant is pissed