|
|
|
|
|
Expect Howard to be a pain for the Lakers defenses
By David Zizmor June 2, 2009 |
|||
|
|
|||
|
This will be the Lakers vs. the Magic it's the first time Orlando has been in the finals since 1995 when Shaquille O'Neal and Penny Hardaway were the Magic's big guns. Nobody really left from that group, but this group of Orlando Magic players are pretty good in their own right led by Dwight Howard assisted by guys like Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu, this is a good team and they're going up against another quality team the Los Angeles Lakers. This should be a very interesting series and it's curious to see how this plays out. These two teams match up pretty well and it's not going to be the blow out that some people think it'll be. Obviously the Lakers are coming to this one as the favorite and were 65-17 in the regular season. They did pretty well in the post season although obviously there were some blips you can say in the second round against Houston the Lakers certainly went to sleep a few times when they let the Rockets get back into it when they had no right to. For the most part the Lakers have played pretty well when they needed to and they did a pretty good job of putting everybody away. The other team in this series the Magic 59-23, they won the Southeast division they were third in the eastern conference. In terms of their record and they have had an impressive run in the post season especially in beating Cleveland. The Magic really put the Cavaliers away, the Cavs were not in this series much at all. Orlando went into Cleveland who had a 39-2 home record on the season and beat Cleveland in game one of the series and the Magic really didn't look back. Cleveland was never much in this series even after LaBron James miracle three pointer to win game two. Orlando just didn't let the Cavs get back in the series they shut down one of the best players in the game and exposed a lot of weaknesses by the Cavaliers. Orlando gets a lot of credit for playing a great post season so far and don't count them out. They're a very good team and they pose some problems for L.A. One of those problems on the perimeter, Orlando is a fantastic three point shooting team, this is a team that has great three point shooters that are some of the best in the league. Orlando's game is drive and kick out. They will get guys into the lane and kick it out to the three point shooter who are open if the defense collapses and hit those threes. On the flip side that means when the three point shooters are cold Orlando has a lot of trouble winning. We haven't seen them get super cold much in the off season. In the post season so far it could happen at any time. The Lakers have decent perimeter defense, Kobe Bryant for sure will be out there guarding some of the guys on the wing. So this will be fascinating to see if the Lakers can keep up with the Magic's excellent three point shooters. The other problem that Los Angeles is going to have with Orlando is in the interior Howard is a monster on the inside. Now let's be fair he's not a fantastic post up player he gets a lot of points on the inside over 25 a game in post season but he's not a great creator on the inside, he's not a guy who can throw a two and has an array of moves to wow you. He gets a lot of his points on put backs, on easy dunks, this isn't a guy who has dominating offensive moves inside. Howard is one of the best rebounders in all of basketball and the best rebounder in all of basketball. He's the best rebounder on offense and defensive and he's a guy who doesn't care what side of the court he's on offense or defense this guy's going for the rebound. The Magic and Lakers open the series with game one on Thursday night a 6PM PDT tip at Staples. David is covering the NBA post season for Sportstalk Radio |
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||