SCOUTING REPORT Lakers vs. Suns - 1/17/08 <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>With Grant Hill being out, as he recovers from his emergency appendectomy surgery, the Suns now start Nash, Bell, Marion, Diaw, and Stoudemire. Off the bench Coach D’Antoni has kept a very tight rotation with Banks, Barbosa, and Skinner the only ones getting regular time. Stoudemire has become a real offensive focal point for the Suns lately and is playing well. He looks to score out of P/R’s, flex cuts, curl cuts, post-ups, and is a target guy along with Bell in plays run after timeouts (Note: In their loss to the Clippers on the 15th they ran flare screens for Bell four times after timeouts). Amare will crash the offensive glass on every possession so someone must get to his body and keep him from getting easy second chance points. We need to try and make him score his points outside the paint. Diaw is asserting himself more now that he is back in the starting lineup and is getting more opportunities. He has been working on his left hand dribble but clearly prefers to go right on drives and postups. The Suns love to get Boris the ball in the post so he can attack poor defenders or draw double teams versus smaller players. He is a willing passer out of these double teams (as opposed to Stoudemire who will pass as a last resort) and he is capable of finding open teammates. He is another one we need to have beat us from outside the paint. Barbosa is second in the NBA in scoring off the bench. He is in the game to score so we need to lock in to him and contain him. He has had some big games against us and when he scores big the Suns usually do well. The bottom line is that we should know the Suns well by now. We know their personnel and their tendencies. This should help us defensively tonight. Stopping penetration is key. Defending the screen and roll is a five-man job. Defensively, Phoenix will front or trap the post if they are having problems defending. They have several players who will take charges (flops). They played a few possessions of zone against the Clippers (the call is DOUBLE FIST UP). We need to attack and make their players who don’t want to exert energy on the defensive end, play defense. The Suns have active hands and will shoot gaps looking to get steals but they do not want to foul and slow the game down. Lakers vs. Suns - 12/25/07 Monday, Dec 24 It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas….What would this holiday be without the Lakers playing a heated rival? At least this year it’s a home game. After we beat the Suns in Phoenix back in early November, they went on a tear winning 15 of 18 games. They have stumbled a bit lately, losing four of their last seven games. Coach D’Antoni has shortened his rotation, basically using just eight men. The Suns start the familiar lineup of Nash, Bell, Hill, Marion, and Stoudemire (although Bell sprained his ankle and did not dress last game). Barbosa, Diaw, and Skinner are the only subs getting regular minutes lately. Offensively, they have added a couple wrinkles to some of their basic play sets and are using some dribble weaves with the basketball more now. Barbosa is the second leading scorer in the league off the bench. He plays much better alongside Nash as opposed to when he is asked to be the point guard. We need to minimize his contribution to the game. Diaw seems to play better as a starter and the Suns continually try to get him to be more aggressive as a sub. Phoenix does a good job of immediately posting up Diaw if he has a smaller player guarding him. Grant Hill has been playing great ball for the Suns, knocking down shots and attacking the basket. Skinner has been a pleasant surprise for Phoenix filling in the role that became open when they traded Kurt Thomas. We need to keep him off the boards. Nash and Marion have been their consistent selves and we know the battle that they present for us. Stoudemire has been putting in more energy on the defensive end trying to plug the lane and block shots. However, he still doesn’t want to get into foul trouble and if he does he will limit his vulnerability. We know that any chance to beat the Suns starts with containing their transition game. By taking good shots on offense and having proper floor balance we will give ourselves the chance to play defense. Then it is up to us to make the effort. They will look more often now to take advantage of mismatches in the post so we need to be aware of cross-matchups in transition. We need to attack the Suns inside with our offense. Hard cuts and opportunistic offensive rebounding are a necessity. Teams that attack Phoenix inside and get second chance points generally do well against Phoenix. The Suns have active hands on defense and will gamble to get steals so we need to make solid ball fakes and solid passes in order to minimize their chances for easy buckets. We know that Phoenix would like to get some payback for the pounding we gave them in November so we need to overcome the ‘first-game-back-from-the-east-blues’. Our energy level needs to be high, especially at the start of the third quarter when Phoenix likes to make their run. .......... Lakers vs.Suns - 11/02/07 Friday, Nov 2 The Suns are very much the same team they were last season with the exception of the addition of Grant Hill. They are still looking to run every time they touch the basketball and Nash is always throwing ahead to an open teammate. They have some new bench players in Sean Marks (a good team defender as well as being a big man who can hit the perimeter jumper), Brian Skinner (solid role playing big man), and a couple of talented rookies (DJ Strawberry and Alando Tucker). At the end of the day though, the Suns are the familiar adversary we’ve seen the last few years. They start Nash, Raja Bell, Grant Hill, Marion, and Stoudemire. Last night in their win at Seattle, they benefited from some solid contributions off the bench from Marcus Banks and Brian Skinner as well as the usual effectiveness from Barbosa and Diaw. Seattle had some success using a zone defense but part of the problem with that is the fact that Phoenix usually gets the ball upcourt before the zone defense can set up in their spots. After taking too many three-point shots (not the strength of his game although he shot it ok in the preseason) Grant Hill was able to find his spots better in the second half and was effective cutting/slicing and hitting the mid-range shot. Offensively, we know we will see the full menu of screen and rolls tonight. In the Suns transition/early offense action they will run “DRAG”, “DOUBLE DRAG”, and “DRIBBLE DRAG” (see diagrams) and of course there will be regular side and middle pick and rolls in the half court set. Another part to address when playing Phoenix is to make sure we are ready after timeouts. Phoenix does a great job of running special sets or a minor tweak of a regular set to get a score out of a timeout. They will especially look for lobs to Marion or Stoudemire. Defensively, we will see mostly man to man with a few zone possessions (especially after timeouts – and if they have success they may stay in it). Their basic philosophy is to outscore the opponent so if we are patient we can get very good looks against this team. The final note about playing Phoenix is simply to not get caught “feeding their frenzy” . Everybody likes to play fastbreak basketball – after all it’s what guys grew up playing on the playground. But Phoenix is the best in the business at it and if we get caught trying to play their game then we will be in trouble. They are capable of putting a 10-0 spurt on you in the blink of an eye so we must work for good shots on every possession in order to keep the game at our tempo.</div> We need to at least be competitive tonight! Suns are going to come out with a lot of energy and try to make a statement in this game with Bynum out. They cannot afford to go 0-3 against us this season and lose out on a potential tiebreaker at the end of the year. Lakers have to be ready to match their energy and get Amare disinterested in the game early on by attacking him and getting him into early foul trouble. With the trade rumors hovering around Marion and Amare today I think they are both going to play hard because I doubt either of them want to be traded.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>The injury to Bynum has thrown the Laker’s fanbase into a frenzy. What this proves is how far Bynum has come in his importance to the team. Kobe’s “We’re a championship claiber team with Andrew” comment bares out the feelings of his teammates, as well. We’ve discussed what the Forum Blue and Gold lining of this situation can be (Kwame finds a groove and plays himself back into shape, Turiaf continues to grow) but the reality is we know that there are struggles ahead. Will staying at .500 be a realistic expectation while Drew is out? Can Kobe show that he trusts in teammates not named Fisher or Bynum? Look for him to facilitate more tonight. Hope that he looks to facilitate more tonight and doesn’t go for the “Kobe versus the world offense” until the latter stages of the game necessitate it. The man who is really going to have to shine over this stretch and find his way out of the proverbial woods is… Lamar Odom. His aggressiveness on offense is key. He needs to find his confidence and use this Bynum-less stretch return to the ball he played in the playoffs last year. But we all know that it’s all about the defensive end of the floor (and rebounds). An effort similar to the Seattle game will not cut it in this contest. The Lakers hold a 2-0 season edge because of their stingy defense, holding the Suns to under 45% from the floor. Phoenix coming in: Phoenix has semi-struggled of late. Grant Hill will not play after having his appendix taken out. His calming force has been missed as the Suns have been a .500 team in his absence. In their previous five games they are 3-2, but coming off a loss to the Clippers in which they scored 90 points and a loss to Utah earlier in the week in which they scored 86. So once again the theme for the day is tempo. Update: if you haven’t seen it yet, True Hoop has a great Q &A w/ Kurt Rambis and his 80’s mustache. He addresses Bynum, the Triangle, and Kevin McHale’s infamous clothesline.</div> Source: Forumblueandgold Come on Odom do it for us like you did in the playoffs last year.
I'm going to be completely honest, I don't think we really have a chance at winning this. We have practically no depth up front and we'll have to rely on Kwame and Lamar. But the Suns lost to the Clippers two days ago, so who knows what will happen
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Brian @ Jan 17 2008, 07:52 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I'm going to be completely honest, I don't think we really have a chance at winning this. We have practically no depth up front and we'll have to rely on Kwame and Lamar. But the Suns lost to the Clippers two days ago, so who knows what will happen</div>But the Clippers had Cassell playing like he was still 34 years old, he hit 15-21 shots, hitting midrange jumpers from all angles. Who is going to shoot 15-21 for the Lakers? Bynum's out so no luck there. Just Kidding, LA has been playing great lately, Kobe is clicking, they are getting solid contributions from their youth. (Farmar, Turiaf, Ariza, etc.) Kwame was solid last game, Fisher is Fisher, and who knows which games Odom will look like an allstar and which games he will look like this year's Boris Diaw. Diaw this year shooting 7.2 ppg on 42% FG%., last year 9.7 ppg on 54% FG%.
I still think we can beat them even without Bynum. While he's been a huge player for us, I still think our 2nd most important player is Fisher. He can at least somewhat defend Nash, which is huge for us because Nash constantly killed us last year because he was able to blow by Smush for easy lay ups. Plus, my main key leads straight to Fisher. He needs to get involved early and often and force Nash to attempt to defend. Set a lot of hard picks and try to knock around Nash. Basically make off the ball movement with Fish a large focus for him, cause if we can tire Nash his effectiveness on both ends will suffer. Next, much like with Paul earlier a couple weeks ago, let Nash beat them with his scoring as opposed to setting others up. The Suns are better when gets 15pts and 13assts than when he's scoring 30 and getting only 7 assists. Finally, get Odom involved. He hasn't been much of an offensive factor recently but he has constantly come up with huge games against the Suns. We need him to look to score in the post tonight. He's too tall and too quick for Marion so we need to take advantage of that as much as we can. If he can get going, as well as Fisher, it'd be a huge relief for Kobe, seeing as how he just went off for 48 the other night.
WHAT THE F**K IS WALTON EVEN STILL OUT THERE. Just put in Farmar and Turiaf already. And Kobe looks like hes about to give up already.
Why does Luke get PT? What is good about his game because I guarnatee I can beat him in 1 on 1, he's complete trash. Kwame and Luke are easily the two worst players on our team by far. Fisher has been playing like shit as well and it is showing tonight, bench his ass for Farmar. I want Kobe ball! **** team ball, it don't work when you don't have a team. The lineup that should get the bulk of the PT is Farmar, Kobe, Ariza, Odom, Turiaf.
Screw it, if we sign Webber, our starting L should be: Farmar/Fisher Kobe/Crittenton Ariza/Walton Odom/Turiaf Webber/Kwame And when the beast gets back: Farmar, Kobe, Ariza, Webber, Bynum.
lol after tonight's game, any minimal hope that the Suns would trade Marion in a package involving Odom will disappear.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Black Mamba @ Jan 17 2008, 11:21 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Screw it, if we sign Webber, our starting L should be: Farmar/Fisher Kobe/Crittenton Ariza/Walton Odom/Turiaf Webber/Kwame And when the beast gets back: Farmar, Kobe, Ariza, Webber, Bynum.</div> Now that looks like a great line up that can win the West. It would be nice if Webber is a Lakers when they face Sacramento.
Marv Albert is an idiot..."This shows that the Suns are back to their usual style"....He fails to realize that our second best player is out. Kobe ball! **** team ball.
