The Lebron '20 Thread (Pt. 7)

[Dupp]

Have Lakers run much ad/bron/morons front count this series?

this should be their starting frontcourt moving forward

I figured that after last series but here we are

[Dupp]

Have Lakers run much ad/bron/morons front count this series?

Do you mean Morris or Morons (Dwight and Mcgee)?

Meant Morris.. damn phone

[Ursusamericanus]

I'd be worried if it were Game 1, but the Lakers still have a 2-1 lead to sit back on. Thinking this goes 6 games. I don't see Vogel making any major adjustments so I expect the lack of spacing and inability to cover the Murray-Joker PnR to continue to really hurt the team, but AD and LBJ have some monster games left in them, and I think that''ll be enough to squeeze out 2 of the next 5 games.

Yeah, Lakers in 6 was my prediction pre-series and I am sticking with it. Of course, if/when they lose game 4 or 5, people will again panic. I agree, Vogel is unlikely to adjust (unfortunate) so the Nuggets will keep it competitive. But AD is not going to have another 2-rebound outing and LeBron is due for something special.

[nzahir]

Have Lakers run much ad/bron/morons front count this series?

this should be their starting frontcourt moving forward

I think Dwight should start IF, AND A BIG IF, he controls himself and doesn’t foul too much. Getting us in the penalty early will kill us

We can’t start Kieff, need a C on Jokic

Kieff should maybe play a bit more versus Kuzma and McGee

But I like Dwight inside. Our shooters aren’t great anyway, I rather get Dwight in their for offensive boards and alley oops/dunks

Hard to close a game with AC, Rondo, Kuzma, Bron, and AD. Nobody is a real threat from 3. Lebron is the best guy there, not good

Should close with:
AC, 2 of KCP, Green, and Kuzma (maybe Kieff if he is hot), Bron, and AD

If we need Rondo in because of Vogel, then I just don’t see how AC can play with him

[Heej]

Anyone else feel like people on the GB overreact to single games far too much? Despite LeBron's TOs, the sluggish effort, and the godawful rebounding and shooting, they were within striking distance of a win. Lakers will take this in 5 or 6.

Short answer, yes.

Not only GB, but here as well. It's like LeBron is not allowed to lose a single game, or have a bad game in general. Every single time he loses there's a couple of people here that are making absolute conclusions based on a small sample size that usually encompasses all the things that went wrong for him (and his team) and thinking the other team has unveiled this fool-proof blueprint to expose him...

It was like this after Game 1 vs. Portland and Houston. LeBron and the Lakers were 'exposed' and are in trouble if they don't do xyz, and they can't stop Lillard, or can't matchup against the Rockets... What happened then is the Lakers turned around and slap both of those teams with ease.

In the WCF so far... The Lakers have dominated Game 1. Were up 16 points in the 3rd quarter of Game 2. They won both games. Game 3 you could see the difference in urgency from both of these teams and yet the Lakers were still hanging on there... All of a sudden people think the Nuggets have figured them out or something... I mean, it's not that hard to figure out the Lakers. They're a pretty straight-forward team. The question is can you stop AD/LeBron and consistently beat their defense for 4 games...

Completely disagree. After both Portland and Houston I'd wager about 90% of the posters in this thread called a backdoor sweep. Because there were indications in both those games that the Lakers can score on them and stop them, and the longer the series went the more it looked like the Lakers were winning the schematic battle vs the star players and thus LeBron and AD were bound to win that base matchup.

I think it goes 5 or 6 just because the Lakers automatically get 1 game from the role players shooting well and another game from the Nuggets role players shooting poorly, but at no point in this series does it seem like the Lakers will be able to do anything against the Denver stars as the series goes on. They've already shown their final Trump card in the 2-3 zone on Jokic, so no matter what scheme or coverage you throw at the 2 they're going to score efficiently and basically play Bron and AD to a standstill. Now it's on the supporting casts and the ancillary defense to decide the series, whereas before the defenses were able to slow down the stars and allow Bron and AD to decide it.

That's my take on it anyway. Cuz the feel of this series is completely different than the other 2. Previously the Lakers defense was slowly putting the Blazers and Rockets in a vice grips, now it feels like it bursts at the seams containing Jokic and Murray. With that being said, maybe I'm just completely wrong and the Lakers just play 30 minutes of sustained defensive intensity vs the 15 minutes of it they played in the last game and salt the game away.

[Mos_Heat]

Have Lakers run much ad/bron/morons front count this series?

this should be their starting frontcourt moving forward

I think Dwight should start IF, AND A BIG IF, he controls himself and doesn’t foul too much. Getting us in the penalty early will kill us

We can’t start Kieff, need a C on Jokic

Kieff should maybe play a bit more versus Kuzma and McGee

But I like Dwight inside. Our shooters aren’t great anyway, I rather get Dwight in their for offensive boards and alley oops/dunks

Hard to close a game with AC, Rondo, Kuzma, Bron, and AD. Nobody is a real threat from 3. Lebron is the best guy there, not good

Should close with:
AC, 2 of KCP, Green, and Kuzma (maybe Kieff if he is hot), Bron, and AD

If we need Rondo in because of Vogel, then I just don’t see how AC can play with him

If you start Dwight, then Vogel would again play that terrible Morris Lebron Kuzma lineup.

[Dupp]

If you start moriss Davis is gonna guard joker. Not big mismatch.


Also closing lineup needs to lose rondo. Just so hard to score in late game situations when the game is close

[yoyoboy]

In the 18 Kuzma-LeBron-Morris minutes this series, the Lakers are posting an 89.5 ORTG and a 131.6 DRTG while posting an AWFUL 41.7% DRB% (compared to 78.8% on the season). LeBron grabbed 4 rebounds during that time while small ball 5 Morris grabbed 2 and Kuzma 1.

That lineup absolutely needs to never see the floor again in this series. Morris just refuses to box out and Kuzma's not a threat on the boards either, so it leaves just LeBron trying to secure rebounds, and even he can be prone to forgetting to box out.

[nzahir]

this should be their starting frontcourt moving forward

I think Dwight should start IF, AND A BIG IF, he controls himself and doesn’t foul too much. Getting us in the penalty early will kill us

We can’t start Kieff, need a C on Jokic

Kieff should maybe play a bit more versus Kuzma and McGee

But I like Dwight inside. Our shooters aren’t great anyway, I rather get Dwight in their for offensive boards and alley oops/dunks

Hard to close a game with AC, Rondo, Kuzma, Bron, and AD. Nobody is a real threat from 3. Lebron is the best guy there, not good

Should close with:
AC, 2 of KCP, Green, and Kuzma (maybe Kieff if he is hot), Bron, and AD

If we need Rondo in because of Vogel, then I just don’t see how AC can play with him

If you start Dwight, then Vogel would again play that terrible Morris Lebron Kuzma lineup.

I would hope he wouldn’t
Play AD with those guys or a few McGee min

[nzahir]

If you start moriss Davis is gonna guard joker. Not big mismatch.


Also closing lineup needs to lose rondo. Just so hard to score in late game situations when the game is close

Jokic is tough for AD even, too big and strong

Will take a toll on AD to do it for a lot of the game

4th Q is a different story

[trickshot]

In the 18 Kuzma-LeBron-Morris minutes this series, the Lakers are posting an 89.5 ORTG and a 131.6 DRTG while posting an AWFUL 41.7% DRB% (compared to 78.8% on the season). LeBron grabbed 4 rebounds during that time while small ball 5 Morris grabbed 2 and Kuzma 1.

That lineup absolutely needs to never see the floor again in this series. Morris just refuses to box out and Kuzma's not a threat on the boards either, so it leaves just LeBron trying to secure rebounds, and even he can be prone to forgetting to box out.

The lineup's performance was bad. Think they also played with Rondo. In hindsight having a lineup with 3 players who are below average to bad off ball defenders against a team full of cutters is a bad idea. They were even spacing out and forgetting to box out

[Greyhound]

I disagree that they cannot start Morris.
KCP/ Green/ James/ Morris/ Davis is the Lakers best starting unit.

The James/ Morris/ Davis front-court would force Jokic to defend in space and possibly pick up fouls on attacks to the basket.

Right now he is being stashed on some bozo in the dunker spot (packing the paint with a couple of his teammates) and saving up all his energy for offense.

Davis can start the first 6 minutes of the game defending Jokic, then you can play Howard for 20-24 minutes off the bench to bang with him.
He would be defending Jokic just as much as he is currently. It would just be at different times in the game.

Right now those god awful Morris at center (with Kuzma, Rondo and LeBron) minutes are killing the Lakers. Maybe throw McGee in for four to five token minutes to start the 2nd and 4th quarters, then sub Howard in when Jokic comes back in.

[SeniorWalker]

Assuming the Lakers win this series in 5 like I think they will....

It'll be interesting to see what happens if they get Miami in the finals. I think LeBron definitely wins FMVP against the celtics because they cannot guard him but I can see him having a slightly harder time against Miami. Then again, Miami has Adebayo for Davis who "might" (but probably not) give him trouble.

Anyway, assuming no injuries happen congrats on #4.

[Dupp]

I don’t even care about Starting that should just be the most used lineup and the closing lineup

[GSP]

Offensively it seems like lobs in the dunker spot from Dwight/Davis/Javale are the best bet to beat Denver's pre-rotating paint packing along with Kieff/Kuz as pick and pop threat to get space on drives when Denver stunts on them

Bron talked about it post game too prolly with Rondo. Think there's gonna be a lot more lobs. Jeremi is the only Nugget that can affect them

Prolly will be a lot more 3-2 zone as well. Denver looked lost when that happened

[Greyhound]

Assuming the Lakers win this series in 5 like I think they will....

It'll be interesting to see what happens if they get Miami in the finals. I think LeBron definitely wins FMVP against the celtics because they cannot guard him but I can see him having a slightly harder time against Miami. Then again, Miami has Adebayo for Davis who "might" (but probably not) give him trouble.

Anyway, assuming no injuries happen congrats on #4.

Seriously!

The Lakers are in a dog fight with the Nuggets right now. They are up 2-1, but could easily be down 2-1. This is not the time to be talking about Finals matchups.

It will not matter how they match up with the Eastern Conference champion if they are in Cancun.

Timing is everything, guy. If all goes well there will be time to ponder whatever you like. Unfortunately, that time is not right now.

[nzahir]

Assuming the Lakers win this series in 5 like I think they will....

It'll be interesting to see what happens if they get Miami in the finals. I think LeBron definitely wins FMVP against the celtics because they cannot guard him but I can see him having a slightly harder time against Miami. Then again, Miami has Adebayo for Davis who "might" (but probably not) give him trouble.

Anyway, assuming no injuries happen congrats on #4.

Is this a jinx post?

We haven't even won this series, jesus christ

IF we make the finals, I am not even sure who I rather play.

Brown, Tatum, and Smart are pretty damn good defenders. Tatum and Smart are all nba defense type of guys or are on the team

Hayward is solid if healthy

Theis is a mobile big

Who are we attacking? Only Kemba?

Not much rim protection though I guess

With Miami I feel like you can go at guys. Herro, Duncan Robinson, Nunn, Dragic, Jae can't guard quicker guys but we don't have that.

[Greyhound]

I don’t even care about Starting that should just be the most used lineup and the closing lineup

If it starts, you know it’s out there.

Vogel will not close with that lineup because he will not put in Morris over Rondo, Caruso or even Kuzma.

That is why we are getting these goofball Morris at center (lone big) lineups now.

Starting it make the most sense. Then you can mix and match throughout the game, depending on the play of individual players (game to game).

[Greyhound]

Assuming the Lakers win this series in 5 like I think they will....

It'll be interesting to see what happens if they get Miami in the finals. I think LeBron definitely wins FMVP against the celtics because they cannot guard him but I can see him having a slightly harder time against Miami. Then again, Miami has Adebayo for Davis who "might" (but probably not) give him trouble.

Anyway, assuming no injuries happen congrats on #4.

Is this a jinx post?

We haven't even won this series, jesus christ

IF we make the finals, I am not even sure who I rather play.

Brown, Tatum, and Smart are pretty damn good defenders. Tatum and Smart are all nba defense type of guys or are on the team

Hayward is solid if healthy

Theis is a mobile big

Who are we attacking? Only Kemba?

Not much rim protection though I guess

With Miami I feel like you can go at guys. Herro, Duncan Robinson, Nunn, Dragic, Jae can't guard quicker guys but we don't have that.

Yes, stay clear.

[Dupp]

I don’t even care about Starting that should just be the most used lineup and the closing lineup

If it starts, you know it’s out there.

Vogel will not close with that lineup because he will not put in Morris over Rondo, Caruso or even Kuzma.

That is why we are getting these goofball Morris at center (lone big) lineups now.

Starting it make the most sense. Then you can mix and match throughout the game, depending on the play of individual players (game to game).

Closing with kuzma and rondo makes no sense either. Rotations are always annoying as a fan.