Laker Vs Cavs 1/13/13 6:30 Pm PST (Howard TO START!!!)

[Jajwanda]

Happy about the win but this team has to start creating good habits. 22 turnovers may work for a home game against the Cavs, but it won't work against hardly anyone else.

100% correct, any other team and we'd have have gotten destroyed by those turnovers

I'm going to take a wild guess and say a huge number of those came from the scrubby ball-handling of the second unit.

[GAME TIME]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIeWjLC_SB0[/youtube]

[Mamba Mentality]

Happy about the win but this team has to start creating good habits. 22 turnovers may work for a home game against the Cavs, but it won't work against hardly anyone else.

100% correct, any other team and we'd have have gotten destroyed by those turnovers

I'm going to take a wild guess and say a huge number of those came from the scrubby ball-handling of the second unit.

Quite the contrary actually, 18 of the 22 were from our starters. Dwight and Kobe had half of them. We had two/three different sloppy spurts tonight.

[Jajwanda]

This is why I don't like those two handling the ball all that much. I like them finishing plays. When Pau returns the offense has to run through him in the post, even if it's just for the sake of initiating the offense, slowing the game, and helping the transition D.

The final product of this team will be very triangle like except it'll be a loose system. I'm still waiting for that Dwight as L.A.'s Ibaka switch on defense.

[Doormatt]

to be exact it was howard with 7, kobe and clark with 4, and nash with 3. howard really turns the ball over way too much given how easy some of the possessions he gets are.

[Jajwanda]

The Lakers have a 1.20 1.11----> offense/defense rating with the full starting lineup. The 1.20 is fine, I'd argue it could go towards 1.25-1.30 if Pau were in the post area, playing inside outside ball.

It's the defensive rating that sucks. 1.11? If you flip the match ups I'd estimate something in the .90-.98 range based on what Gasol-Hill do together on D (Gasol at C, Hill at PF).

[Doormatt]

i wouldnt put much faith in those numbers at all, nash and gasol have barely played together (really nash featured with all the starters has barely played together.)

for example the exact same lineup with blake replacing nash has their defense going to 0.94. SEVENTEEN points better just replacing blake with nash. and the offense only gets 11 points worse with blake.

[Jajwanda]

You're right about that however remember that number was thrown by that Bickerstaff's stretch of games. Bickerstaff's free flowing offense posted up Gasol (one of the changes L.A. will be making). If they can finally make the defensive switch, they'll be the best starting lineup in the league.

[Doormatt]

yes if everyone is healthy and gasol stops playing like drew gooden they could very well be the best starting lineup in the league.

[Slava]

Is it just me or did anyone else think Bible Kemp pouted like someone pissed in his cereal all game long?

[Jakay]

Kobe is good. Kobe is not Kobe + Dwight good.

Jordan wasn't Jordan + Scottie good.

[Run-MKE 311]

Solid win, let's see where things can go from here.

[DEEP3CL]

Got off the snide at least. Clark was good last night, he's playing with confidence. Looks like he could be our next version of Trevor Ariza, after the failed experiment with Ebanks who I still like but it looks like Clark can fill the role. Ebanks problem was he can't stay consistent.

[desertlakerfan]

The Lakers have a 1.20 1.11----> offense/defense rating with the full starting lineup. The 1.20 is fine, I'd argue it could go towards 1.25-1.30 if Pau were in the post area, playing inside outside ball.

It's the defensive rating that sucks. 1.11? If you flip the match ups I'd estimate something in the .90-.98 range based on what Gasol-Hill do together on D (Gasol at C, Hill at PF).

The defensive rating sucks because Gasol cannot defend PFs at this stage in his career. On top of that, he's also too slow to rotate properly(helping the helper) or box his man out.

Compare that to Earl Clark, who's been incredibly active on the defensive end of the ball every minute he's on the court. He and Dwight together last night were a glimpse of what our defense could look like if we could move Gasol, it was a very small sample size against a inferior opponent but the team's DEff was 88.1 when they were on the court together. Again it's not just the man defense Clark brings, its the amazing help defense covering for Dwight's man when Dwight covers the penetrating guards.

We need to trade Gasol in the worst way, no way does he accept a limited role backing up Dwight while sitting on the bench in crunch time.