Three Ways to Beat San Antonio, Three Ways to Lose to San Antonio
By SportsHubLA | NBA Playoffs, Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers
Lakers vs. Spurs. Over the course of this decade, there likely hasn’t been a more marquee matchup in the Western Conference, which is saying something since there have been some pretty good teams kicking around. The Spurs are tough, they are smart, they don’t make mistakes. Lamar Odom called them “a machine” at practice Tuesday afternoon. But while they might be relentless (like the Terminator), San Antonio can be defeated (like The Terminator). The Lakers are certainly capable.
With that in mind, we hit up our friends at Pounding the Rock, a popular Spurs blog, for a scouting report. Three ways to beat, and lose to, the Spurs. Without further ado…
Three ways to beat the Spurs:
1) Go under the screen and roll against Tony Parker and thereby force him to make jump shots. I know Laker fans love Derek Fisher and believe he can do a decent job against Tony straight up. Trust me, Spurs fans are praying Phil Jackson agrees with you.
2) If you’re going to single cover Tim Duncan, you have to mix it up and throw different guys at him. He’ll pick you apart if you repeatedly show him the same look. Double teaming him can be an affective option if you wait until he puts the ball on the floor.
3) Convince Lamar Odom he’s as good as he could be. The Spurs have no one that should be able to guard Odom. The man is 6′-10″ with handle, and he’ll be guarded by the likes of Fabricio Oberto, Kurt Thomas and The Remaining Detritus of Robert Horry. He should average 25 without breaking a sweat, but I know, you know and he knows he won’t. I don’t get it.
Three ways to lose to the Spurs:
1) Play slow. It’s not that the Spurs can’t play a faster brand of basketball. They can. But they’re old, and with only one day off between games their age will come into play if the Lakers force the issue.
2) Allow Kobe to dominate the ball early in games. Don’t get me wrong, Kobe scares the crap out of me. There were multiple times during the 2004 playoffs (specifically the 42 point game 4) where I literally mumbled aloud “He’s too damned good.” But I am much more frightened of the Lakers as a team than I am of the Lakers as a bunch of players led by Kobe Bryant. I’m actually hoping the Spurs can get Kobe into the “There’s no way I’m not getting back to the Finals” mindset.
3) Anger Manu Ginobili. He’s a ninja-wizard. It is best not to trifle with him.
Discuss:
5 Responses to “Three Ways to Beat San Antonio, Three Ways to Lose to San Antonio”
- 1 Pingback on May 25th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
- 2 Pingback on May 28th, 2008 at 6:41 am
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Without Andrew Bynum and Trevor Ariza in their line-up, the Lakers should actually be the underdogs in this specific match-up.
The major problem comes for San Antonio when/if LA decides to go with Lamar Odom at the 3 position, vs Ginobili.
This is a bad match-up for the Spurs.
If Coach Pop responds by doing what I think he might … i.e. going head-to-head with Kobe vs Ginobili, and with Bowen/Udoka/Barry/Finley/etc. vs Odom … then,
whoever wins the ‘Kobe vs Ginobili’ match-up will probably end up winning the series … on the strength of their individual play during the last 6 minutes of each game.
Either way … it’s going to be a fantastic series.
PS. These teams are well-matched … and Ginobili, despite his many accolades, to this point … is even BETTER than most NBA aficionados realize.
PPS. Straight-up … Manu is one of the very best players in the world today …
http://khandorssportsblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/the-champs-are-still-the-champs/
Do yourself a favour and be sure to click the links.
FWIW … the easiest way for a team to beat the Spurs is to win the ‘Battle of Boards’ (i.e. the Rebounding Differential).
Rebounding Differential for last night’s Game 1:
SA - Rebs/32; Team Rebounds/10; Total Rebounds/42
LA - Rebs/31; Team Rebounds/11; Total Rebounds/42
In order to win games in this series, San Antonio MUST win the Rebounding Differential.
If the Lakers can stop Spurs from doing this … they will give Kobe a chance to WIN THE GAME for their team … which is what happened last night.