<font color="RoyalBlue"><font size="3"><div align="center">San Antonio Spurs (37-10) @ Los Angeles Lakers (24-19) Wednesday February 3rd, 2005 - 10:30PM ET Tipoff (ON TNT)</div></font></font> Projected Lakers Starters <font color="Indigo">PG - Chucky Atkins SG - Caron Butler SF - Jumaine Jones PF - Lamar Odom C - Chris Mihm</font> Projected Spurs Starters PG - Tony Parker SG - Manu Ginobili SF - Bruce Bowen PF - Tim Duncan C - Tony Massenburg Spurs lead the the season series 2-0 Key Stat The Lakers are 2-0 with Frank Hamblen as the interim coach. Key Match-Up Caron Butler Vs. Bruce Bowen Points will be hard to come by in this game for the Lakers. Caron Butler will be tested tonight with Bowen on him. The Lakers rely on Butler to score for them, so it's going to be interesting to see what he can do against the Spur's best defender. I don't think the Lakers can win if Butler scores under 20 points, or has to take over 20 shots to get to 20 points. On defense, Butler in my opinion is the best person to double down on Duncan. He has to disrupt Duncan and help out Mihm and Odom in the low block. At the same time he needs to be fast enough to rotate back and contest Bowen when Duncan passes to him out of the double team. Bowen was huge for the Spurs in the last game, but I'd rather the pressure on him to beat the Lakers instead of Duncan. Laker's Keys to the Game - Double team smart, and rotate fast on defense - Limit turnovers & stay out of foul trouble - Take high % shots (so less than 12 shots behind the arc) Spur's Keys to the Game - Swing the ball effectively - Take advantage of a thin Laker bench - Just show up Prediction I predict a San Antoinio blowout 99-84. This will be the first test for Coach Hamblem against the best team in the league. He has improved the Laker defense albeit against the Bobcats and Blazers. The Spurs have had a history of having let down games against injured teams. Last year they lost to the Raptors w/o Carter, and they lost a game to the Hawks. However, they don't need much to fire them up against the Lakers. After all this was the team who knocked them out of the playoffs last season, and has been their rival the last few seasons. The Spurs are fighting for the top seed, and now that Nash is back, the Suns are winning again. The Lakers have problems against teams with a post player. The Lakers are terrible at rotating out of double teams, and they've been torched on the perimeter because of it. The Spurs have one of the best passing teams, and they have the shooters to hurt the Lakers. The Lakers need to contest shots and force Bowen to beat them again. He scored 24 in the last meeting, but I'd rather see him having the pressure to beat the Lakers than Duncan, Parker, or Gino having their way.
Hey thanks for covering shape, this english hw sucks... I too am seeing a blow out..I really don't see one way we can win this game unless TD snaps his ankle, Manu blows out his knee, Parker gets the flu..then we can win..other than that, it will be a fight just to stay in the game, I will be happy if we can lose by less than 5 points... I take SA 95-80.
The only way I see the Lakers winning this game is if they come out psyhed up after the whole Rudy T thing. I think the Spurs win 103-88.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Kobe 8 Ball:</div><div class="quote_post">Hey thanks for covering shape, this english hw sucks... I too am seeing a blow out..I really don't see one way we can win this game unless TD snaps his ankle, Manu blows out his knee, Parker gets the flu..then we can win..other than that, it will be a fight just to stay in the game, I will be happy if we can lose by less than 5 points... I take SA 95-80.</div> I am not some voodoo artist, I didn't mean for Duncan to get hurt...much
We should really consider starting Brian Cook this way we could move Lamar to SF and cause major mathup problems. PG- Chucky Atkins SG- Caron Butler SF- Lamar Odom PF- Brian Cook C- Chris Mihm How deadly would that line up be.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting TheNextJordan8:</div><div class="quote_post">We should really consider starting Brian Cook this way we could move Lamar to SF and cause major mathup problems. PG- Chucky Atkins SG- Caron Butler SF- Lamar Odom PF- Brian Cook C- Chris Mihm How deadly would that line up be.</div> brian cook cant play d at all..i say start luke at pf and we culd also get his trade value up..thye played him for 23 minutes tonight..which is a sigh of a trade coming up..
That huge run in the 4th was great, but they can protect the boards for sh*T! They gave them like 3 or 4 offensive rebounds in the final minutes of the 4th. BOX OUT DAMN IT!
Everyone expected the Spurs to blow out the Lakers, and for 3 quarters they did just that. In the past the Lakers would have thrown in the white towel and lost the game by close to 30 points. Last night was different and something the team can build some positive momentum off of...they fought back, they didn't quit, and they made the score respectable by outscoring the Spurs 36-23 in the 4th quarter. So far I've been impressed by Hamblen as the headcoach in the 3 games the Lakers have played. He does a better job of rotating the players and has the team playing better defense. I think Frank has more control over the team than Rudy T did. It shows, because the Lakers are shooting half as many 3pointers and actually attacking the rim. For the doubters out there about the class of Laker fans. When Tim Duncan went down with an injury, the stadium was in complete silence, Kobe was one of the first off the bench concerned for Tim Duncan's health, and when Tim Duncan made it back on the court fans cheered for him. No one booed & no one applauded the injury. Thank you Laker fans for representing the class of the franchise even though the Spurs and Duncan have been our mortal enemies on the court.
