<font color=""Purple"">How the Lakers can stun Suns</font> <font color=""Red"">By Greg Anthony ESPN Insider</font> <font color=""Black"">All of the playoff teams are now set. Washington, Chicago, the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento, welcome to the party. With three nights of regular season action left, some matchups won't be set until the final game Wednesday night. Among the pairings that are almost nailed down, I think the likely Western Conference No. 7 seed Lakers are going to have a really good chance in the series with the No. 2 Suns. That's based on more than just Kobe Bryant and Co. looking very good against a Phoenix team Sunday playing without Steve Nash, Raja Bell and much motivation. But this win still means something to the Lakers, because they dominated the game. Now if the Kings (43-38) beat Seattle at home on Tuesday, and the Lakers (44-37) lose at home Wednesday to the Hornets, then Sacramento would slide up to the No. 7 seed by virtue of superior division record tiebreakers. But the Lakers control their destiny. If and when the Suns and Lakers meet again, here's how I think the Lakers can win. There's a formula that you have to implement against Phoenix, and it requires discipline. It's about controlling tempo. So this is where a coach like Phil Jackson earns his money. I liken the Suns to a run-and-shoot team in football. And the way to combat that approach is with a running game in football -- in basketball you stop them by dominating the paint. That slows the tempo down. On this Shaq-less team, Lamar Odom and Kobe Bryant have to be the ones doing the damage in the paint. They can't settle for jumpers every time. A successful post game demands a double team, and that brings extra help below the free-throw line. This would give the Lakers' defense that much more time to get back in transition. The Lakers have to do that. Phoenix excels at shooting the 3 in transition. The Lakers have a good chance in a seven-game series. The Lakers have an opportunity to come in riding a five-game win streak, playing the best hoop in their division. I think it's going to be a very interesting series because the Lakers are a better basketball team than they were in the first half. I don't think Phoenix is playing as well as it did in the first half. This makes for a very compelling series. The key for the Lakers will be winning one of those first two games in Phoenix.</font>
Good read, he is right on. Lakers will own Suns if we face them 1st round. At first I was doubtful, but then I really thought about it. Phil Jackson and the coaching staff knows exactly what this Lakers team needs to do against the Suns in the playoffs. I can't wait. THe Lakers will kill the Hornets when they play, I'll be dropping big money on that game to put my money where my mouth is.
The Suns are like the Colts. The Steelers blitzed the sh*t out of the Colts. The Lakers need to blitz the f**k out of the Suns. How to blitz in the nba: Feed Kwame and Lamar and attack the damn basket. Kobe needs to go on a personal 7-0 run like he did sunday to set the tone early. If we do all that, We will be in the 2nd round.
Make sure you post any Insider articles in the Laker Skybox in the future. Let's kick some Phoenix arse!
Sadly I think everyone is taking for granted we will play the Suns. We still have to win that last game in order to get lucky # SLeven.
It's official we are playing the Suns. I think everyone knows the game plan and what they need to do to beat Phoenix. The coaching staff worked on some new defensive schemes to really shutdown Phoenix's dribble penetration. I think it's going to be similar to what the Lakers did against the Spurs a few years ago and Tony Parker. They set up a wall of players and forced Parker to shoot over that wall. If Parker tried to penetrate past the wall, he'd get dropped on his backside. After a few hard fouls Parker stopped penetrating and took all his shots from the perimeter.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting shapecity:</div><div class="quote_post">It's official we are playing the Suns. I think everyone knows the game plan and what they need to do to beat Phoenix. The coaching staff worked on some new defensive schemes to really shutdown Phoenix's dribble penetration. I think it's going to be similar to what the Lakers did against the Spurs a few years ago and Tony Parker. They set up a wall of players and forced Parker to shoot over that wall. If Parker tried to penetrate past the wall, he'd get dropped on his backside. After a few hard fouls Parker stopped penetrating and took all his shots from the perimeter.</div> problem is Nash is twice the shooter parker is. should be a great series though ... This sounds crazy, but if someHOW, someWAY, the Lakers can get past phoenix, I could actually see a legit scenario where they can make the Finals, at least the Conference Finals. After this series, they would face Denver/Clippers, both of whom the Lakers have more than a good shot against, and I would actually favor them over either team. Now if Dallas can somehow knock off the Spurs - which isn't far fetched at all - we could have Mavs/Lakers WCF, whom we've played tough 3 times this year, beaten twice and haven't lost a game to at Staples in an eternity (10 years??). I've even heard some suggest that the Lakers have a psychological edge over the Mavs ... now if the Spurs beat the Mavs (which is the more likely scenario) then the Lakers season ends there ... we have no chance against them ... Ya i know, a lot of cards have to fall into place, and perhaps the biggest roadblock are these Suns, who seemed poise to run us off the court. Nonetheless, they aren't playing great ball right now, we're peaking, it could happen! Now wouldn't it be something else if all the cards fall into place and the Heat upset the Pistons ... that might be tooo hollywood, lol
I think the game plan is to let Nash do most of the scoring instead of getting other players involved. It's a 7 game series and the harder Nash has to work, the better the Lakers chances are as the series gets longer. They will wear him down and beat him up all series long.
