Rockets = biggest threat to Lakers in playoff

dunleavyjr · Post #1 » by **dunleavyjr** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:26 am

Lakers beat Magic in a 4-1 series.
Magic hardly shown any threat to the Lakers.

Rockets is the only team in this year's playoff who forced the Lakers to go onto a game 7.

Am i correct to say that the Rockets is the only team challenged the Lakers?

I know the Lakers are afraid of this Houston team.

HTown_TMac · Post #2 » by **HTown_TMac** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:27 am

Morale victory <<<<<

Post #3 » by **TMU** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:39 am

HTown_TMac wrote:Morale victory <<<<<

2010: Morey Victory!!! Book it, quote it, sig it!

(sry, that was terrible)

Post #4 » by **TMACFORMVP** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:51 am

T-Mac United wrote:2010: Morey Victory!!! Book it, quote it, sig it!

(sry, that was terrible)

I like it!!

texasholdem · Post #5 » by **texasholdem** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 5:43 am

I had a feeling the Magic would lose when they said Jameer would play in the Finals. Rafer is too emotionally unstable to handle something like that.

at least Dwight doesn't have a ring before Yao does.

YoungMoney23 · Post #6 » by **YoungMoney23** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 6:37 am

Our season was a success that's all that matters

Yao21 · Post #7 » by **Yao21** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 6:46 am

As long as all the Rocket's key players can run up and down the floor, no team can beat us in 7 next year.

hackle · Post #8 » by **hackle** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 7:39 am

so I am saying this one more time, if we had mutumbo and Yao all the way, we could have won it. but damn.

syj805 · Post #9 » by **syj805** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 5:53 pm

That was a physical series if I ever saw one...and probably the most intense D ever. Wow, I think this message board is becoming active again xD

tayzer · Post #10 » by **tayzer** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 8:26 pm

I'm a Lakers fan, and I'm not afraid of your team. Next year I'll prob more worry about Portland's improvement.

Yao doesn't match up well with the Lakers. Lakers didn't even defend your three point shooters most of the time. In the later series Lakers actually worked harder to defend the parameter. Plus, your team help prepare the Lakers for the Nugs and Magics. After the Nugs series Lakers got better on offense and defense. If we had a rematch, it would be a whole different Lakers team.

moofs · Post #11 » by **moofs** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 9:24 pm

Heh, I'm not sure where we're going to be next year yet, but you're blind if you think that we weren't a threat to you this year. Honestly, Lakers fans are just.... special. Not sure whether to say we'll be better or not, with or without Artest. The dude shot Rafer-like percentages, yet was given a pass by the majority of fans on this board because of his "heart and desire to win", his defense was mediocre, and yet it's he that somehow makes us winners? The dude shot .381/.277 against you, and it wasn't because of great defense.

Patterns · Post #12 » by **Patterns** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 11:00 am

dunleavyjr wrote:
I know the Lakers are afraid of this Houston team.

I honestly don't think the Lakers were ever at point afraid of this Houston team. I will never be afraid of the Rockets as long as Yao is the best player on the team.

rockybalboa11 · Post #13 » by **rockybalboa11** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 1:31 pm

yao murdered the lakers front line for the three games he played

i don't get it

xingjianma · Post #14 » by **xingjianma** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 2:59 pm

rockybalboa11 wrote:yao murdered the lakers front line for the three games he played

i don't get it

Exactly. I didn't watch all 3 games, but from what I saw and heard, Bynum was benched most of the time due to his incompetence against Yao, and Pau was doing horribly. he kept missing those mid-range shots.

Assuming Yao cancels out Pau and Bynum, production-wise, we've got Shane and Ron (assuming he comes back) who at least give Kobe a lot of trouble, and the Lakers can't even contain Brooks or Scola. If we had Yao for 7 games, Mutombo the whole way, I'm pretty sure we would have won the series. Now consider the fact that T-Mac is coming back next year, and it's most likely that Lakers will lose some of their pieces, I think the Rockets will be quite a threat to Lakers next season.

Patterns · Post #15 » by **Patterns** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 11:14 pm

xingjianma wrote:
rockybalboa11 wrote:yao murdered the lakers front line for the three games he played

i don't get it

Exactly. I didn't watch all 3 games, but from what I saw and heard, Bynum was benched most of the time due to his incompetence against Yao, and Pau was doing horribly. he kept missing those mid-range shots.

Assuming Yao cancels out Pau and Bynum, production-wise, we've got Shane and Ron (assuming he comes back) who at least give Kobe a lot of trouble, and the Lakers can't even contain Brooks or Scola. If we had Yao for 7 games, Mutombo the whole way, I'm pretty sure we would have won the series. Now consider the fact that T-Mac is coming back next year, and it's most likely that Lakers will lose some of their pieces, I think the Rockets will be quite a threat to Lakers next season.

Yao does not and will not cancel both Pau and Bynum. Pau creates match up issues for Yao too. Bynum, when healthy is very capable of containing Yao.

And even if TMac gets healthy, he will still suck against the Lakers. TMac has never been able to show up vs Kobe. He always plays bad against Kobe for some reason.

Even if you guys had Yao, you wouldn't have won. Remember we beat you guys in game 3 and took the series lead. I believe that if you guys still had Yao, we would have won in 6 games.

You guys played better without Yao. The reason? Without Yao, the paint was open for Aaron Brooks to look like Chris Paul.

Like I said before the series started, Battier and Artest both and cannot contain Kobe. They are both Lebron stoppers because they match up very well to Lebron but not Kobe stoppers. Kobe has, historically, put up huge numbers against both of them.

Someone said the Blazers are the biggest threat to the Lakers next year. I agree to that. The Blazers match up with the Lakers the best.

bigbreakfast · Post #16 » by **bigbreakfast** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 11:44 pm

Patterns wrote:Bynum, when healthy is very capable of containing Yao.

Bynum is one of the best centers in the league; non-Lakers fans just don't know this. :lol:

I much rather have gasol match up with yao; at least gasol can hit face up jumpers and run the PnR with kobe and attack yao's weakness on defense.

BaYBaller · Post #17 » by **BaYBaller** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 4:13 am

Nobody in the league contains Yao 1on1. It's team defense and ball denial. Gasol definitely guards Yao better because he tries to deny Yao the ball much more aggressively. Bynum's apparent lack of focus on the defensive end would be a major concern of mine if I were a LA fan that's for sure. And non-Laker fans are skeptical of Bynum because guess what, he hasn't proven much of anything yet. It's like saying Oden is one of the best centers in the league, just that non-POR fans don't know it.

And Hou would take Gasol/Bynum mid range jumpers all day.

Back on topic though it's obvious that LA wasn't taking HOU seriously. I thought DEN gave them more of a challenge even though that series only went 6 games. That's to be expected given we were out our 2 best players. If T-Mac and Yao were healthy I think it would be foolish to think HOU wouldn't pose the biggest threat but as always with HOU that's a big big if. HOU was very underrated this year because their supporting cast pretty much outplayed expectations but with no closer and no bigs (when Yao went down) that was a bit too much.

It'll be interesting to see how LA looks come the start of the season. I don't see them resigning everybody and if they lose Odom I see them being much weaker. Odom was such a x-factor for that team IMO.

moofs · Post #18 » by **moofs** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 4:33 am

Patterns wrote:You guys played better without Yao. The reason? Without Yao, the paint was open for Aaron Brooks to look like Chris Paul.

Like I said before the series started, Battier and Artest both and cannot contain Kobe. They are both Lebron stoppers because they match up very well to Lebron but not Kobe stoppers. Kobe has, historically, put up huge numbers against both of them.

http://www.nba.com/playerfile/kobe_brya ... stats.html

2 very good games, 2 very bad games, and 3 passable-but-very-subpar games
No, of course Houston cannot defend him.
Artest can't, I'll support that, but Kobe really doesn't do well against Battier, something I've said since [b]long[b] before that NY Times article (like, 07). He'll get his point totals, and sometimes he'll have great games, but he very, VERY often shoots 40%+/-3% against Shane, and tends to shoot a LOT against him.

Of course we played bad in game 3, our center broke his foot in the first quarter, then played 40 minutes anyway.

Yao wasn't the key to our playing good or bad. It was called by several people on this board.
http://www.nba.com/playerfile/aaron_bro ... stats.html
(I was going to say Artest, too, but good luck correlating those stats to anything. By any stretch, he did not have a good series)

tha_rock220 · Post #19 » by **tha_rock220** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 11:56 pm

Laker fans need to go ahead and admit they fear Shane Battier guarding Kobe Bryant. Every time it happens on national TV Kobe gets farther and farther away from ever being Michael Jordan.

I found an online petition signed by Lakers fans and sent to David Stern asking him to suspend Battier for Lakers-Rockets games citing his "dirty defensive tactics". :rofl:

DEEP3CL · Post #20 » by **DEEP3CL** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 5:51 am

Truth be told the Rockets were the only team that didn't back down from the Lakers. With or without Yao, they played hard nosed ball for 7 games. In fact after the series was over I went back and watched some of the games over. Bottom line I'm glad the Rockets pushed them to limits and made them realize nothing was going to be given to them.

But everybody is a threat to the Lakers not just the Rockets, but I respect the hell out of them.