EPTNBA Playoffs 09 - Page 77
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no_comprender
Australia91 Posts
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Ace
United States16096 Posts
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no_comprender
Australia91 Posts
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no_comprender
Australia91 Posts
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igotmyown
United States4291 Posts
On May 14 2009 14:35 Ace wrote: The Lakers have had tougher competition than Denver. The Nuggets have had the easiest path of any team, including the Cavs. Under what rubric? + Show Spoiler + Let's look at total wins records of first two round opponents Lakers: 101 Cavaliers: 88 Nuggets: 99 Boston: 100 Orlando: 101 Or how about espn's week 24 rankings (sum of opponent first round ranking) Lakers: 20 Cavaliers: 27 Nuggets: 19 Boston: 15 Orlando: 20 Or then there were some people saying how the mavericks were good and denver was bad. Are you just arguing that since the lakers have lost more, and the nuggets are axiomatically a bad team, the nuggets must have an easy schedule? And the rockets have had the toughest schedule, obviously. | ||
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SK.Testie
Canada11084 Posts
no.8 in the west has a higher season % than no.4 in the east. If you're going by statistics Denver has one of the harder roads. I really don't think Orlando or the Celtics had it tougher than the Nuggets. It just seems that way because the Celtics are missing key pieces to their lineup like KG and Powe. Like if the Cavs were missing Lebron they'd really be in a shit storm. The east is the only one blessed with easy first rounds. That said the Lakers should still beat the Nuggets. As is always the prediction when the #1 seed faces any other team. | ||
Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On May 14 2009 14:17 Ace wrote: I have a feeling the Lakers are going to beat the Nuggets 4-1 or 4-0. I'm curious to see what the Nuggets to with Kobe. I hope they put KMart on Pau because I think he can give him fits, and the rest of the team D can try to deal with Kobe. I'm 99% sure Chauncey will dominate the 1, but it'll be interesting to see how well Smith plays with Kobe defending him. Also, no one is stopping Carmelo but I also expect Odom to have a great series. | ||
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jyhlol
243 Posts
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XaI)CyRiC
United States4471 Posts
On May 14 2009 15:44 Jibba wrote: I'm curious to see what the Nuggets to with Kobe. I hope they put KMart on Pau because I think he can give him fits, and the rest of the team D can try to deal with Kobe. I'm 99% sure Chauncey will dominate the 1, but it'll be interesting to see how well Smith plays with Kobe defending him. Also, no one is stopping Carmelo but I also expect Odom to have a great series. I agree that KMart will make things very difficult for Pau, but Bynum gives Nene problems. He put up 16 and 7 with 63.6 FG% in the last game of the season (his first back from injury). Since Pau is a great passer and facilitator, I don't think it'd be fatal for the Lakers to have Bynum score more against Nene and have Pau act as a setup guy for other players if he struggles against KMart. The Nuggets don't really have an answer for Kobe. He averaged 31 ppg with 47.8 FG% over this season, and that's including the one really ugly game the Lakers lost where they got into Denver at 4:00 a.m. and ended up shooting the worst they had all season. Chauncey will give the Lakers problems, as is evidenced by his great production against them during the regular season, i.e. 18 and 7 with 47.4 FG%. The emergence of Shannon may be relevant, but he's a bit too young to not fall for Billups' great big bag of tricks to draw fouls and get 3s off. Fish and Farmar are just too small, although Fish will at least be able to keep from being pushed around with his strength. As for Melo, he has done very poorly against the Lakers for a while now (even when it was Walton/Radman guarding him). He's been held to 14.5 ppg at 32.8 FG% during the regular season with 3.9 TO/g. What's promising for the Nuggets is that Melo had a very nice game in their last game against the Lakers, even though they ultimately lost to LA. Ultimately, I still have doubts about Denver's improved defense as a whole (in light of their competition), and think that they may struggle to simply outscore the Lakers like they have against NOR and DAL. If it comes down to a scorefest with no defense, I'm pretty confident that the Lakers will win. Denver only has a shot if their improved defense turns out to be the real deal, which it may turn out to be (in which case, watch out Lakers). P.S. This is all premature as the Lakers still have to finish off the Rockets. | ||
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igotmyown
United States4291 Posts
If I recall correctly, Carmelo had some elbow problem for the first half of the season. He'd be an interesting matchup with Kobe. His defense has improved, but he picks up a lot of touch fouls. He might be on lamar or ariza. Fisher is like Chauncey's mini-me, by which i mean, a lesser version of Chauncey. Chauncey can definitely score more on his own than fisher, but fisher's not going to find a much better matchup defensively. Billup's scouting report: + Show Spoiler + Billups is a great shooter, but he's also a big, powerful guard who can absorb contact near the basket and overpower smaller guards on post-ups. He's not overly quick but is fantastic at changing speeds. He'll lull a defender to sleep then turn on the jets. Another clever trick of his is to come off a screen and then jump backward into his jump shot -- inevitably causing the guard trailing the play to foul him. About his only real weakness is a reluctance to push the ball in transition -- he's very much a half-court guy. Defensively, he struggles against quick guards and seemed to have an especially hard time last season; often he cedes the job of defending them to Richard Hamilton. However, his size and strength allows him to defend many shooting guards, so the two complement each other extremely well. Fisher's scouting report + Show Spoiler + Fisher might be the league's strongest point guard. It makes him virtually impossible to post up against, even for much taller players, and helps him greatly in taking the punishment of drawing so many charges. It keeps him on the court, too -- he didn't miss a game last year, the fifth time in six years he's played all 82. However, his strength is of surprisingly little use on his drives to the basket -- with short arms and a lack of elevation, he's annually among the worst finishers in the game. Instead, he's become a long-range specialist who floats in high-arcing jumpers, either off the catch or after taking a dribble or two around a screen. He loves to pull up for the jumper in transition, too, even from the 3-point line. Fisher is a solid one-on-one defender against bigger guards but really struggles against quicker, smaller players, a fact that was laid bare when Boston's Rajon Rondo ran circles around him in the Finals. I think Kenyon Martin will defend Odom. Unless Bynum's in, and he's been spotty, Denver can throw Nene, birdman, or Kleiza against Gasol. Denver has a much better bench, the lakers lose huge leads when their bench goes in. Denver has been playing more consistently, the lakers have more potential. Both teams are young and quick. Denver could probably double team and pick off passes. And Denver looks better on paper then they've played against the lakers this year. And sometimes they play like a 60+ win juggernaut, it's very confusing. | ||
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KOFgokuon
United States14894 Posts
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[X]Ken_D
United States4650 Posts
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On May 14 2009 19:57 igotmyown wrote: Denver and the lakers have a lot of similarities. Agile, dominant inside play, can run fast, gets a lot of turnovers, quick perimeter scorers. If I recall correctly, Carmelo had some elbow problem for the first half of the season. He'd be an interesting matchup with Kobe. His defense has improved, but he picks up a lot of touch fouls. He might be on lamar or ariza. Fisher is like Chauncey's mini-me, by which i mean, a lesser version of Chauncey. Chauncey can definitely score more on his own than fisher, but fisher's not going to find a much better matchup defensively. Billup's scouting report: + Show Spoiler + Billups is a great shooter, but he's also a big, powerful guard who can absorb contact near the basket and overpower smaller guards on post-ups. He's not overly quick but is fantastic at changing speeds. He'll lull a defender to sleep then turn on the jets. Another clever trick of his is to come off a screen and then jump backward into his jump shot -- inevitably causing the guard trailing the play to foul him. About his only real weakness is a reluctance to push the ball in transition -- he's very much a half-court guy. Defensively, he struggles against quick guards and seemed to have an especially hard time last season; often he cedes the job of defending them to Richard Hamilton. However, his size and strength allows him to defend many shooting guards, so the two complement each other extremely well. Fisher's scouting report + Show Spoiler + Fisher might be the league's strongest point guard. It makes him virtually impossible to post up against, even for much taller players, and helps him greatly in taking the punishment of drawing so many charges. It keeps him on the court, too -- he didn't miss a game last year, the fifth time in six years he's played all 82. However, his strength is of surprisingly little use on his drives to the basket -- with short arms and a lack of elevation, he's annually among the worst finishers in the game. Instead, he's become a long-range specialist who floats in high-arcing jumpers, either off the catch or after taking a dribble or two around a screen. He loves to pull up for the jumper in transition, too, even from the 3-point line. Fisher is a solid one-on-one defender against bigger guards but really struggles against quicker, smaller players, a fact that was laid bare when Boston's Rajon Rondo ran circles around him in the Finals. I think Kenyon Martin will defend Odom. Unless Bynum's in, and he's been spotty, Denver can throw Nene, birdman, or Kleiza against Gasol. Denver has a much better bench, the lakers lose huge leads when their bench goes in. Denver has been playing more consistently, the lakers have more potential. Both teams are young and quick. Denver could probably double team and pick off passes. And Denver looks better on paper then they've played against the lakers this year. And sometimes they play like a 60+ win juggernaut, it's very confusing. Chauncey's lost a step since 2004. Fisher has lost 5 steps. | ||
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citi.zen
2509 Posts
Both teams tried to fill in the leadership gap by bringing in a point guard: Chauncey has worked out, Bibi (and before him Joe Johnson who was supposed to play PG) not nearly as well. So close and yet so far :-) | ||
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Ace
United States16096 Posts
On May 14 2009 14:56 no_comprender wrote: come on theres no way noh < det and mavs < atl, nuggets have won 4-1 4-1 and looked pretty good doing it That's not even a relevant argument. But ok let's assume this was the scenario: 1.) A battered down New Orleans team has no chance vs Detroit. In fact they were probably the weakest of all 16 teams in the playoffs. All of their starters were hurt. 2.) Atlanta probably would have destroyed Dallas. Dallas got to beat down on the injury ridden Spurs - yay? On May 14 2009 15:06 igotmyown wrote: Under what rubric? + Show Spoiler + Let's look at total wins records of first two round opponents Lakers: 101 Cavaliers: 88 Nuggets: 99 Boston: 100 Orlando: 101 Or how about espn's week 24 rankings (sum of opponent first round ranking) Lakers: 20 Cavaliers: 27 Nuggets: 19 Boston: 15 Orlando: 20 Or then there were some people saying how the mavericks were good and denver was bad. Are you just arguing that since the lakers have lost more, and the nuggets are axiomatically a bad team, the nuggets must have an easy schedule? And the rockets have had the toughest schedule, obviously. once again, another argument that doesn't make sense. You can't look at regular season records or rankings because - DING - look WHO the Nuggets played and when. I'm not even calling the Lakers losses as meaning they have had it difficult - look at who they played and when. They played a full strength Utah team, and now they are playing the only team left (Portland gone) that could reasonably have given them a run. Denver played an injured New Orleans team that had no one in their starting 5 healthy, and now get to play Dallas. Yes, the same Mavs team everyone wanted to see in the first round except the injured teams because they are terrible defensively and have no legit carry the team superstar. Ok yes, Rockets have had the hardest path of all teams but between LA and Denver it's not even close. On May 14 2009 15:15 MYM.Testie wrote: Yeah that's true. no.8 in the west has a higher season % than no.4 in the east. If you're going by statistics Denver has one of the harder roads. I really don't think Orlando or the Celtics had it tougher than the Nuggets. It just seems that way because the Celtics are missing key pieces to their lineup like KG and Powe. Like if the Cavs were missing Lebron they'd really be in a shit storm. The east is the only one blessed with easy first rounds. That said the Lakers should still beat the Nuggets. As is always the prediction when the #1 seed faces any other team. Thats because the West has the majority of the bottom of the barrel teams in the NBA this season. Overall the East was the stronger conference this year. Sure you can look at those middle of the pack Western teams but that doesn't paint the picture: they get to play Golden State, Clippers, Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Memphis 2-3 times each in the season, and in some cases 4. Easily inflating their records. Whereas in the East those bottom of the barrel teams are playing Cleveland, Boston, and Orlando - all 3 top teams with only the Lakers having the same status. So comparing East and West teams by win records is impossible since the East had 3 of the top 4 teams in the league each with dominating records while the West had the worst of the bottom feeders. Orlando - played Philly. Boston - played Chicago. Orlando has no Nelson (ok) but a banged up Turk and Rashard Lewis. Boston - no KG, no Leon Powe. Brian Scal just comes back after missing months with recurring concusions. Philly and Chicago are both already with their intact teams, only exception being Chicago has no Luol Deng but they have John Salmons. They are a much better team since the trade AND they came into the playoffs on a hot streak. Denver plays....New Orleans. I've already proved how this was such an easy match up for them. On May 14 2009 15:44 Jibba wrote: I'm curious to see what the Nuggets to with Kobe. I hope they put KMart on Pau because I think he can give him fits, and the rest of the team D can try to deal with Kobe. I'm 99% sure Chauncey will dominate the 1, but it'll be interesting to see how well Smith plays with Kobe defending him. Also, no one is stopping Carmelo but I also expect Odom to have a great series. K-mart is going to destroy Pau, but it won't be consistent. Bynum is a no show so for now let's forget about him. Now Smith - he's fucking garbage. As much as Chauncey will rape Derek Fisher in the back court Smith is going to be a liability. Dallas and N.O. just couldn't play any defense to save their lives. Against the Lakers Smith won't be going off and as always his defense is suspect. very suspect. | ||
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Ace
United States16096 Posts
On May 14 2009 19:57 igotmyown wrote: Denver and the lakers have a lot of similarities. Agile, dominant inside play, can run fast, gets a lot of turnovers, quick perimeter scorers. If I recall correctly, Carmelo had some elbow problem for the first half of the season. He'd be an interesting matchup with Kobe. His defense has improved, but he picks up a lot of touch fouls. He might be on lamar or ariza. Fisher is like Chauncey's mini-me, by which i mean, a lesser version of Chauncey. Chauncey can definitely score more on his own than fisher, but fisher's not going to find a much better matchup defensively. Billup's scouting report: + Show Spoiler + Billups is a great shooter, but he's also a big, powerful guard who can absorb contact near the basket and overpower smaller guards on post-ups. He's not overly quick but is fantastic at changing speeds. He'll lull a defender to sleep then turn on the jets. Another clever trick of his is to come off a screen and then jump backward into his jump shot -- inevitably causing the guard trailing the play to foul him. About his only real weakness is a reluctance to push the ball in transition -- he's very much a half-court guy. Defensively, he struggles against quick guards and seemed to have an especially hard time last season; often he cedes the job of defending them to Richard Hamilton. However, his size and strength allows him to defend many shooting guards, so the two complement each other extremely well. Fisher's scouting report + Show Spoiler + Fisher might be the league's strongest point guard. It makes him virtually impossible to post up against, even for much taller players, and helps him greatly in taking the punishment of drawing so many charges. It keeps him on the court, too -- he didn't miss a game last year, the fifth time in six years he's played all 82. However, his strength is of surprisingly little use on his drives to the basket -- with short arms and a lack of elevation, he's annually among the worst finishers in the game. Instead, he's become a long-range specialist who floats in high-arcing jumpers, either off the catch or after taking a dribble or two around a screen. He loves to pull up for the jumper in transition, too, even from the 3-point line. Fisher is a solid one-on-one defender against bigger guards but really struggles against quicker, smaller players, a fact that was laid bare when Boston's Rajon Rondo ran circles around him in the Finals. I think Kenyon Martin will defend Odom. Unless Bynum's in, and he's been spotty, Denver can throw Nene, birdman, or Kleiza against Gasol. Denver has a much better bench, the lakers lose huge leads when their bench goes in. Denver has been playing more consistently, the lakers have more potential. Both teams are young and quick. Denver could probably double team and pick off passes. And Denver looks better on paper then they've played against the lakers this year. And sometimes they play like a 60+ win juggernaut, it's very confusing. I was with you until this part of the post. Denver has a better bench than the Lakers? When has Denver's bench EVER been credited this year as being one of the top? Seriously I'd love to see an article supporting this. Denver has never played like a 60 win juggernaut. Not once this season. | ||
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eStoniaNBoY
Switzerland439 Posts
Lakers are a GOOD (like Pistons were if you don't include their 2004 win) team, but they are not a CHAMPIONSHIP team. I'm glad that Sir Charles Barkley finally spat it out - the Lakers' effort just sucks. | ||
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XaI)CyRiC
United States4471 Posts
For those who think the Nuggets have a shot against the Lakers even when both teams are playing well (which includes me), I offer the following analysis: PG: Billups > Fisher (no brainer; although Fish's strength and experience do give him a reasonable shot of not having Billups completely dominate the matchup, and the Lakers now have Shannon as another bigger, stronger guard, Billups success against the Lakers this season makes him strongly favored) SG: Kobe > Jones (Denver really has no one that can guard Kobe, and this is their biggest weakness against the Lakers) SF: Melo > Ariza (Melo has historically struggled against the Lakers, but he's shown a lot of growth this year and has played well in the playoffs; I'm going to assume that it's not just because of the poor competition, and really even if Melo is playing at 50% he's still better than Ariza) PF: Gasol = KMart (I think KMart will do a very good job of guarding Gasol, but I don't think he'll be able to take advantage of the matchup on the other end either, so these two will probably battle to a draw; however, I do think that Gasol will have a few good games, which may swing the matchup in the Lakers' favor) C: Bynum = Nene (while Bynum has struggled in the playoffs, he has historically done pretty well against the Nuggets because he's just to big and tall for Nene; as far as Nene, the Lakers are one of the teams that gives him the most trouble, as is indicated by him averaging few points against them than against all but a few teams, but he did very well in the last game against them and I'm not sure how well Bynum will be able to keep up with him with his "85%" knee) Bench: LAL > DEN (Denver's bench has stepped up and played quite well as of late, i.e. J.R., Birdman, Kleiza, and J.R. in particular has done well against the Lakers this year; the Lakers' bench has dropped off, i.e. Sasha can't shoot, Walton inconsistent, Farmar MIA until just recently, but Farmar and Shannon have played well in the past few games, Walton has been facilitating and playing pretty good defense, and Odom coming off the bench makes the second unit significantly better) In the end, it looks pretty close. The other factor to consider is that the Lakers went 3-1 against the Nuggets, and took the last game despite the Nuggets being on a roll at that time (8-game winning streak). On the other hand, the Nuggets have looked really good in the postseason, albeit against banged or inferior opponents. I have to give the edge to the Lakers still because matchups seem to slightly lean in the Lakers' favor and the regular season record and last game are the best evidence we have. | ||
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Xeris
Iran17695 Posts
just because a team isn't playing up to expectations NOW doesn't mean they won't win when it counts. | ||
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XaI)CyRiC
United States4471 Posts
On May 15 2009 03:37 Xeris wrote: why are people saying the Lakers have no chance to win? has everybody forgotten how terribly Boston played in the playoffs until the finals? they BARELY got out of the first 2 rounds (against a horrible Atlanta team nonetheless)... didn't win a road game until the East finals, and then TOTALLY RAPED in the finals. just because a team isn't playing up to expectations NOW doesn't mean they won't win when it counts. I know you guys are tired of Hollinger articles, but he really does the best job of citing to statistics and history. In this article, about halfway down, he discusses how the last six champions all struggled like the Lakers have, and that people may be premature in saying they're done. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2009/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=PERDiem-090511 | ||
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