The OtherArena

[JAG]

They're gonna be 55-60 win good.

Clips are the only real competition in the Western Conference. Rest are pretenders.

Jagdip

[Steve Yohe]

It feels like the old Lakers. --- Yohe

[JAG]

Championship caliber 4th quarter.

Impressive.

Great teams can sleep walk and still win.

Still coping with getting the Dwight I thought they were getting 7 years ago. ;)

Jagdip

[Steve Yohe]

I think we saw their weakness in Chicago. With three big guys in the starting line up....they are slow in a lot of ways. Chicago was quick & fast....& read their passing lanes. The LA Coach won that game by playing all the subs. Took away their advantage. They were never going to win, & they knew it. Get them to slow down & they will be bouncing the ball off their feet. I think the coach show'ed they could over come the weakness. They are fighting & they don't like to lose. Give big guys time, & they will win. I never thought we'd see the Lakers again. ----Yohe

[jdw]

The question is going to be how flexible Vogel becomes with this team. There are going to be match ups in the post season where you just aren't going to be playing McGee and Howard that much. They're averaging a *combined* 38 minutes a game. There are going to be opponents in the post season where Center+Davis+Bron has issues with a quicker, smaller combination of Bigs+Wings.

That's why watching the AD+Bron+3 line ups against certain teams is going to be interesting as the season goes on. That's going to be their crunch time playoff line up, even if they start McGee or Howard. Obviously Green will be part of the +3. Looks like Bradley will be. Kuzma needs to pick up the defense to be one, and hit the open 3s. I'm not sold that he's much of a switch defender that you need in a hard playoff series, and his 3 point shooting remains a massive question. KCP has the defense, but his three point shooting needs to pick up.

[Steve Yohe]

And everyone knows you can't win a NBA championship without someone named Green in the line up.

You can always take the bigs out & go small. But James can't be considered small. He is slowing down & at times he forgets about defense. He seems to be trying harder this year.

I also think you can also isolate the big guys & give them more space & time to take smalls apart. I think teams in the last few years have given up on their bigs too easily. It's the opposite of the Shaq years & before. We now have Davis …. we got to do it.--- Yohe

[jdw]

The Lakers have probably the best Big in the game - AD. It's only "probably" because he needs to stay healthy and make his mark in a long playoff run. But he is the best.

The issue I was talking about earlier is in the playoffs against a strong team that can take bigs out of the game is when we go AD + Bron + McGee/Howard. They just are going to be teams when playing those last two for 38 minutes combined is a problem, on both sides of the court. Spacing/Shooting on the offensive side, and Perimeter/Switching on the defensive end. It's not really about giving up on it, but instead knowing when the match up was poor.

Bogut was a fantastic defender on the Warriors first championship team, and a good pick+pass guy on the offensive end. But he couldn't shoot, didn't help space, didn't pick & roll because of his wheels, couldn't pick & pop, and couldn't switch on the perimeter on the defensive end even if he was otherwise a really strong defensive player. Over the course of that first series, he largely got played out of it and they went more and more to the Death Lineup.

I don't know how well the Bron+AD+Center thing will work against the fully healthy Clippers, or against the Rockets.

That's why it's going to be interesting to watch how we adjust in the regular season when playing teams that can take advantage of that line up. I want to see how Vogel adjusts, or if he gets locked into heavy minutes in the Center spot rather than moving minutes to AD when it's needed, sliding Bron to PF, and going 3-Wings around those two.

Just be clear - I'm not saying bench McGee and Howard and dump all their minutes. We're getting a very efficient 12-13-2-3 out of those two, and they are helping what's a pretty good defense out of the block. They're taking Center burden off AD, which lets him take PF burden off Bron. It's a long season and that's a good thing.

[corrado]

Quite the sight to see Howard and Kobe make amends. Howard's really trying hard to improve himself after his disastrous 1st stint there.

[jdw]

Still playing good. Schedule is pretty soft, but you need to beat the jobbers.

December is tougher with a lot of travel. Actually, that starts Friday with 12 of 15 games on the road. A mix of good teams and weaker teams, but it's the travel that can wear a team down. Good test.

Houston is winning a lot. Hardin is scoring a ton while not shooting for shit. On the other hand, 15 free throws a night when you shoot close to 90% is going to put a lot of points on the board.

[JAG]

Can't wait for these "road trips."

Because when the Lakers are this good, they're all home games. And you add in the LeBron stans in the Eastern Conference.

They're already figuring out how much effort they have to dispense to beat the jobbers, which I was hoping they'd fight against for awhile, because there will be slip-ups when you try to lightswitch every game.

As long as they can turn up the defense to the levels they've shown and keep improving the offense, they should stay at the top of the standings.

Next 10 (they embark on another 4-game trip after this):

W @ Oklahoma City
W @ Memphis
L @ San Antonio
W @ New Orleans
W Washington
W Dallas
L @ Denver
L @ Utah
W @ Portland
W Minnesota

Only back-to-back is Denver-Utah. They're losing 1 of those maybe both. Probably lose in either San Antonio or New Orleans because they won in both places last time.

8-2 or 7-3, tho.

Jagdip

[corrado]

4-0 on this road trip. Last night was an impressive come from behind win. Pelicans played their heart out, even without Zion/Lonzo. Obviously a lot of motivation by both teams last night, due to the monster trade this offseason.

[Steve Yohe]

Seems stars James & Davis isn't going to let them lose, even when the team plays bad. ---Yohe

[JAG]

17-2.

Now the “difficult” stretch begins, where every loss will be a I told ya so.

And the discussion will have to be that LeBron is going too hard. What edler is there when they win every game?

Jagdip

[corrado]

So the Lakers couldn't do what the Clippers did. Defensively take down Luka. Almost another triple-double by him. Impressive.

[jdw]

Strange third quarter collapse. 10 game winning streak, 4-0 road trip... they were due for a loss. Thought it would be come during at least one on the back-to-back on Tue-Wed similar to Jag's thinking.

8 out of the next 9 are on the road. As mentioned, the only back-to-back are the next two games. Front part is Western travel, the second part are a trio of FL-GA games before closing with a pair in the upper Midwest.

Home records of the teams:

1.000 MIA
.889 MIL
.889 Utah
.818 IND
.800 DEN
.636 ORL
.429 POR
.222 ATL

ATL is bad everywhere. Portland is a bit surprising as you'd think they were strong at home and flopping on the road. The Wolves are horrible at home.

They should win all three of those. POR is after the back-to-back, so it's possible that they may spend themselves to get wins against Denver and Utah then let down against the Blazers. I think you'd like 2-1 out of those three games and not really care about which 2 they are, just wanting to come out of them healthy and not spent.

The five game swing to the East is a good challenge for the squad. 3-2 would be fine out of that.

Overall, 6-3 out of these games would be perfectly fine. More would be great, you could live with 5-4, and under .500 would be not-so-hot.