Alright. Heat in 6. I am kidding, of course. IMO, Bron and AD are so far ahead of anyone on the HEAT roster, we should win this without too much trouble, as long as there are no injuries and we take them very seriously. Which we will. Miami is a likeable team though, those guys play hard. Lakers in 5.
They had like 6 guys in double figures, including the Iguodala. Balanced. Now... they are a midget team, with Bam being their only real big. We need Dwight to dominate again.
we'll see if dwight can get into bam's head like he did with jokic robinson and herro are their "x factors." need to make sure they contain those two if they want to win
And BAM is about as tall as LeBron. Their PF is 6-6. They go 7 deep. And only Iggy has been there before.
Vogel is going to have his work cut out for him. Miami is one of the best teams in the league playing Zone defense.
Someone said Bam Adebayo looks like someone tried to draw Dwight Howard from memory, and now I can't unsee it.
Three names: Dragic, Robinson, and Herro. If we can contain 2 of the 3 every game, I think we're good.
They showed that stat on either ESPN or TNT how we played vs Miami this season, we won both, we averaged like 110 and held them to 95. I don’t think it’s going to go like that in the Finals, but I do think we win, I’ll say in 6. I’d say our experience plays in our favor, but they’re just as experienced pretty much, Butler, Dragic, Iggy, Crowder, Hill, it’s a deep team and their scoring is incredibly balanced. I think it’s going to be a hard fought Finals, but I just feel like this is our year.
ALL the “experts” picked the Bucks to easily beat the Heat. How did that go? Heat know how to build a wall. And AD can’t be flopping around the perimeter. He needs to bang. Like Houston, this team will chuck 3s. Unlike Portland, Houston, and Denver - the Heat have Spo and 4 guys to throw at Bron. Iggy. Crowder. Butler. Bam. And Dragic typically kills us. They will dare Green, KCP, Kuz, and Rondo to beat them.
THe Lakers seem to match up really well defensively against the Heat. Bam - the Lakers can throw 4 guys on him that are way bigger threats then Theiss or Williams on offense (Howard/AD/Lebron/Morris) Butler - Kuzma/Lebron/Green Dragic/Herro - Caruso/Rondo/KCP Those are the 3 guys that create offense for that team. Miami generates nearly all their high quality offense thru Bam PnR or isos for Dragic and then they rotate the ball afterwards. The problem I see for them is the Lakers can defend 1v1 or switch basically everything. The Lakers have bigs who can protect the rim and have the mobility to stay with Bam and outside of Butler they don't have a wing who can overpower guys like KCP and Caruso. As long as AD is healthy or stays out of foul trouble that really snuffs out a lot of their offense. The Lakers offense just like everybody else will the be the concern of the half court offense. Not worried about the zone as AD should be able to kill that simply just by going into the middle of the zone. the packed pain strategy with Bam as the rim protector could cause problems and they have Butler/Iggy/and Crowder to throw at Lebron. If the Lakers can hit open shots then like every other series they should be fine. I expect the Lakers to hunt down Herro/Robinson/Nunn whichever weak links and then force the Heat to cover them. Grind out series but the Lakers just seem to match really well against the Heat defensively and offensively Lebron and AD just seem better than the guys defending them even though the Heat should have a scheme advantage. Unlike the Celts, Bam isn't the matchup nightmare that he was against the Celts and unlike the Bucks the Lakers have AD even Lebron faces the wall defense. Lakers in 6 (5 if they can shoot)
They're not going to play zone with AD in there. If he's out I could see them do it. I predict we're going to see the same packed in/wall in the paint D they threw at Giannis. They played no zone against Giannis and considering the Lakers struggle against Denver's same packed in defense that's what they are going to do I predict. Lakers going to need to their open jumpers (unlike the Bucks)
Do you just comment on passive aggressiveness? You have any idea how much Lebron and AD would shred their zone? Lebron already goes to the rim at will, you want to open up the front part of the paint too with AD and Dwight playing pogo sticks on alley oops?
I am waiting for Nick Wright's "Lakers in 5... then everybody will change the narrative that LeBron had an easy path to a championship".
I am waiting for Skip Bayless to say that "Miami only lost this series because (attach injured obscure Miami players name?) did not play, and because Alex Caruso saved his legacy".
