Why the Lakers are rooting for the Rockets.

hofccsaint — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:07:56 -0000

Although the Lakers aren't exactly afraid of the Blazers, and while I think he is being generous... Zephid makes some clear points here as to why the Lakers are really hoping the Blazers lose. (One does have to wonder if he is just getting into some early mind games with the Rockets...)

Check it out here.

On offense against the Blazers...

"The Blazers, on the other hand, have two legitimate seven-footers in Joel Przybilla and Greg Oden. Both of those guys are true bangers, and as we’ve seen in the past, they could easily outmuscle our guys underneath and get a ton of offensive rebounds. LaMarcus Aldridge and Channing Frye also have good size to use against Odom, so that match-up loses it’s luster. On the perimeter, Nicolas Batum has been very aggressive against Kobe, doing fairly well at taking him out of his comfort zone, while Travis Outlaw is long and tall enough to bother a lot of Kobe’s shots. Overall, all the beautiful mismatches we have against the Rockets we simply do not have against the Blazers."

On Defense Against The Blazers

"While the Blazers have similar models to our team, the one difference is they are a jump-shooting team. The Rockets are able to contain them so well because they have a lot of great individual defenders. Lowry, Battier, Artest, Landry, Hayes, and even Scola and Yao to some extent are very good individual defenders who don’t require help. This way, Portland isn’t getting any uncontested jumpers unless it’s off Roy’s penetration. Compare this to our defense, which has a penchant for giving up open jumpers, and is especially weak against sweet-shooting bigs, and you can see why we’ve lost 2 games to them this season."

SB Nation User Blog: hofccsaint

Why the Lakers are rooting for the Rockets.