So we can compete with a lot of teams and can see a path for victory in a 7 game series with a lot of teams, but the Lakers are still a huge question mark. We have yet to play them, but a 7-game series would be really tough, I think. One nice thing is that they don't have small guards on the perimeter who will eat us alive. But we do have a weakness for guarding bigger wings and obviously have nobody to put on LeBron. You can default Royce, but LeBron is much bigger. I suppose you may have to throw Bojan on there in the same way that Bojan goes up against Zion, which certainly isn't great, but also doesn't end up being as terrible as one would superficially assume.
I don't know how much they're playing Harrell and AD together, but that may really be the time for breaking out the Favors/Gobert combo and I'd put Favors down low on Harrell to do more outmuscling of him and have Gobert worry about just doing man-to-man with AD because I think he'd handle that a lot better with someone more competent manning the paint than what we had last year. Just let Gobert's length bother him, rather than trying to have Gobert both cover the basket plus guard AD. Playing Gasol/AD will make that more difficult, but Gasol is getting about 19 mpg.
I think the largest thing this goes down to, and our most realistic window, is if we were just ceding their 2s in exchange for our 3s. We'd have to be on, though. This could go south fast if we're mentally intimidated and can't throw it in the ocean.
I don't know how much they're playing Harrell and AD together, but that may really be the time for breaking out the Favors/Gobert combo and I'd put Favors down low on Harrell to do more outmuscling of him and have Gobert worry about just doing man-to-man with AD because I think he'd handle that a lot better with someone more competent manning the paint than what we had last year. Just let Gobert's length bother him, rather than trying to have Gobert both cover the basket plus guard AD. Playing Gasol/AD will make that more difficult, but Gasol is getting about 19 mpg.
I think the largest thing this goes down to, and our most realistic window, is if we were just ceding their 2s in exchange for our 3s. We'd have to be on, though. This could go south fast if we're mentally intimidated and can't throw it in the ocean.
