gmoney411 wrote:lazybatman wrote:Nacho Bidness wrote:Lol Dwight can't defend on the perimeter. I saw plenty of him here. How do you expect me to take you serious? AD can but it's gonna depend on who. I wouldn't want him on Russ or Harden too often.
I say again Dwight and McGee are gonna play less than 20 mins combined in this series. They're both here to cheer lead the Lakers, not play against small ball. Dwight could've been productive, if he didn't pick up a foul for every 2 minutes on the floor, but well..
AD and Lebron, and 6'11 and 6'9 are average and good respectively at the perimeter D, and great at rim defense. Harden and Eric Gordon are gonna torch both of them and some of the Laker guards on some switches(Key word being -
SOME) And we're gonna miss Avery Bradley so bad.
That said, AD is gonna just walk to 35-13-5 stat lines a game. Rockets don't have a shout against him, except maybe Tucker in the post sometimes. And then whose gonna guard Lebron. This is a terrible match up for them. Rockets don't have a shout outside of getting crazy hot from 3 in the fourth, while the Lakers are gonna feast at the rim with double digit rebounding advantages.
Rockets wanted the Clips in the semis, and the Clips wanted to avoid them at all costs for a reason.
The Rockets did not want the Clippers. They have two elite perimeter defenders and matchup perfectly with the Rockets when they go small. The Rockets would much rather take their chances exploiting switches on the Lakers bigs.
Eh.. can't disagree about their perimeter defensive prowess. Not saying they're winning against either LA team.
I just think they would've matched up better with the Clips, considering the lack of rim protection once they punish Zubac, and how their stocky smalls(Harden, Tucker, Eric Gordon and Austin Rivers) are able to match up against Kawhi and other combo forwards.
They are built to exploit teams who don't have agile elite bigs who can punish them offensively(extremely rare in today's game), as PJ Tucker, Harden & Gordon are underrated defenders in the post. And offensively, they leave you in a pick your poison situation -
- play a big and give them open 3s
- burn the naked defender on Harden / Westbrook, who will drive and finish / pass to the helper's man. They're both elite passers, which increases the threat.
More power to D'Antoni and Morey for creating something so audaciously brilliant, but they're still a one trick pony, which got derailed due to Harden's whim CP3 for Westbrook trade.
AD and Lebron are gonna be nightmares for this experiment on offense and defense. Lakers are not the most talented defense, but they are the most well connected one.
I believe Jazz would've been a tougher match up for Lakers, than Rockets, because of Gobert, but neither team were very good defensively in their 7 game marathon.
