hate to be the overwhelming favorite for psychological reasons, but it's accurate. we should be favored here.
We have effing Luka. He's also knowledgeable on Minny after last year. With his IQ coupled with JJ and Bron, we should be good. It's not a walk, nothing in the current West is. But with the right approach and execution, we got it. Take Rudy out of the game by making him switch to Luka early. Punish them in our defense for not having another creator like Ant. Lakers in 6
I think we'll beat them in 6 as well. This may sound arrogant, but I'm more worried about being injury free and relatively rested for 2nd round. it will be a huge surprise if Minny beats us.
The problem using advanced metrics with Minnesota is that Gobert always ends up being ridiculously high on all these metrics and then he consistently gets killed/pulled by hisi coach in the playoffs. I don't necessarily disagree with your ranking but I would say that difference in roleplayer quality is just not that high between rui/DFS/Gabe/Hayes vs ddv/naw/conley/mcdaniels. Randle is a bit of an X factor - he could cause real issues if he plays at his peak capacity
Looking at probably 5 man lineups - I just don't see anything too scary from Minnesota. Feel like the Lakers 5 man seem a lot scarier if I was Minnesota The best net rating is what I would have predicted as the potential scariest: Naz, NAW, Ant, Randle and McDaniels. Man that just feels like a layup line for Lebron and AR attacking the paint here. Minnesota is going to have to be a ridiculous good 1v1 coverage to make this work For all of Gobert switch hunting problems. Who are they going to put Conley on? That seems like a matchup hunting nightmare for Finch against the starters. Are they putting him on AR? Lakers are just going to smile at that one. Rui and hope that they don't post up Rui - I would forcefeed Rui.
My only comfort is that we have a playoff success drought after the last championship and Luka lost the previous finals, there won’t be f***ing around at least
conley's defense still hasn't fallen off a cliff. my guess is he'll crowd reaves like podz did in the last gs game (to unfortunately great effect in the first half). my main concern is that this year, the wolves have zero expectations, so they'll be able to play loose. i thought there was some anxiety for them last year, particularly in the loss to dallas--they didn't handle the pressure well. they have none now and have been playing at like a 55-win clip for a couple months, so it's not the cakewalk people have made it out to be. again, if i had to bet, i bet on luka and lebron with HCA. but i can easily imagine worlds in which our shooters are cold and theirs aren't for four games.
Luka and Bron will do what they do. This series is decided by what AR, Rui, DFS, Gabe will do. If they play well in their roles we win
We will have close games but the Wolves are choke artists. They are statistically one of the most unclutch teams in the league. We have Luka, Lebron and AR to close out games. Lakers in 5.
Randle is the D'Lo version of a center. Lakers punish teams that try to play big against them because Luka+Bron are big enough to be able to make their guards pay and their centers are too slow to get them off the 3 point line. I feel the Wolves would have much rather face any other team besides the Lakers.
If I was the Wolves I'd be focusing on crashing the offensive glass and getting out in transition as much as possible I can see a game plan for them but than I just keep looking at the 5 man lineups and I'd be terrified in any close game, a rested Lebron doing what he did against Dallas. Even on a bad offensive night Luka and AR can slow the game down and just get enough due to pure tough shot making.
I want Ant on the Lakers so he better show up... but end up losing. Luka should make Gobert unplayable, they might not switch at all... good luck running around screens for an entire series.
