and the two "easy" roadies before those are at SA and at NO. SA is always a tough place to win, and NO is going to get at least one revenge game against this year, for absolute certain. i'll be avoiding this place in the aftermath, for sure. the @den/@utah/@portland is super rough, too. need to try to get those home wins against dallas and minny and steal at least one of those road games. but yeah, the early stretch hasn't changed my thoughts on the wins prediction: 50-55. don't think we can hit 60 unless we have a gear i haven't seen.
At the current rate 65 wins is our number, but definitely things are going to get tougher next month. But it's true 60 is definitely possible if we have health. We should be shooting for that really. It'll take 60 wins I think to have home court throughout. There are some teams who put up big win numbers in the West. I think Houston and Denver particularly. Clippers look like they might have a harder time doing so because of load management.
That is surprising. Maybe the League wanted to make sure the Lakers were back in contention this year? Early schedule relatively easy and last 80% not beastly to make up for it. Although that 80%'s toughness in flux according to what teams are doing this year.
I have a feeling those numbers are skewed by the fact that the Lakers don't have to play themselves... but still easier than I expected. The bad news is that the Clippers have the third easiest schedule.
Saying a team in the NBA has the easiest schedule in the same conference is irrelevant because it evens out at the end of the year.
Not just bad guys but it goes against everything great and pure about the game. Just a guy that dribbles the ball in place a ton to then only drive, get fouled, step back 3 or floater. They (the Rockets) cannot win!
The Bucks are #1 this week. We dropped one spot: 2 Last week: 1 Los Angeles Lakers Record: 17-3 Pace: 100.4 (22) OffRtg: 110.9 (6) DefRtg: 103.3 (5) NetRtg: +7.6 (4) The Lakers were playing with fire for much of their 10-game winning streak, trailing six of those games in the second half, because they didn't defend particularly well until the fourth quarter (allowing 111.8 points per 100 possessions in Quarters 1-3 over the streak). And then the streak came to an end on Sunday once they played a good team, with the Mavs scoring 69 points on 51 possessions over the second and third quarters and outscoring the Lakers, 51-21, from 3-point range. The Lakers weren't going to win 'em all and there's value in taking care of business against the bad teams. But the league's toughest December schedule (10 of their 14 games against teams currently over .500) will continue to be a great test, especially on defense, where they rank 16th over the last two weeks. A stretch where they're playing eight of nine games on the road begins Tuesday in Denver. Week 7: @ DEN, @ UTA, @ POR, vs. MIN Now we won against Denver, so we're in great shape. Our offense is getting better every week. And we're still slow.
Weekly Power Rankings are meaningless, but can still be fun to read about when you’re near the top. I expect Milwaukee to be in the Finals this year, and looking forward to see how we match up against them. And who tries to guard Giannis? Kuzma?
C Bags have a good shot and that's who I want in there. Lakers vs C Bags finals would be the perfect topper for Lebron winning his 3rd title as the guy and the Lakers tying it up at 17.
i actually love both lebron and AD as defenders against giannis. we saw what kawhi did to him last year. and he only gets to guard one of them.
That wasn't just Kawhi. Toronto's scheme was to build a wall of 3-4 Players anytime Giannis tried to drive into the paint.
As long as Giannis doesn't develop an outside shot, I like our chances with him. Throw Lebron or AD on him and then load the paint with Dwight/McGee. Or even better, throw Lebron on him and load the paint with both AD and Dwight.
Really, the only team I see standing between us and a title this season is the Clippers. For all the reasons pointed out above, MIL strikes me as the classic Eastern Conference paper tiger. They'll win a lot of games, but if we can defend the paint, we should have no trouble beating them. Really looking forward to Christmas so we can see how we match up now that we've gotten in a groove, and Clippers have PG back.
that would definitely endear him to many Laker fans I personally wouldn't give him any extra credit, but that's just me.
Update - still #2. But our offense is suddenly one of the best offenses in the league. We're starting to really figure it out now and we're also speeding things up. 2 Last week: 2 Los Angeles Lakers Record: 21-3 Pace: 100.8 (16) OffRtg: 112.9 (4) DefRtg: 103.5 (5) NetRtg: +9.4 (2) Since their loss to Dallas on the first day of the month, the Lakers have dominated their tough December schedule, outscoring their opponents by more than 18 points per 100 possessions over their four-game winning streak. They've been relentless in transition, averaging 27 fast break points (seven more than any other team) over their last six games, with Anthony Davis registering 15 by himself on Sunday. Over the last 12 years, there have been four 50-point games without a 3-pointer, Davis has three of the four, and his 50 against the Wolves came with 11 buckets on 11 attempts in the restricted area. As a team, the Lakers rank second in both restricted area field goal percentage (69.6%) and the percentage of their shots that have come from the restricted area (37%). After ranking 20th offensively (105.5 points scored per 100 possessions) through the first three weeks of the season, they've ranked second (117.5) over the last four. Now they'll play six of their next seven games against teams that currently rank in the top 10 defensively.
I don't really care if we're 1 or 2 in any sort of ranking or power rankings. We'll know who really is number #1 on 12/19 when we're playing @MIL.
